Stamp Out War -- formerly called Ukraine project

Someone proposed another potential solution: (3) sending my postcards to a European country thence forward to Ukraine.

Which European country's postal service provides fast delivery to Ukraine right now?

@linda

Send President Zelensky a tweet about your project: mobile.twitter.com/ZelenskyyUa

You either:
- have someone spray generously the glossy postcards with MATTE FINISH spray, or
- try to use inkpad with PIGMENT-BASED ink, like from StazOn. That sticks on the glossiest of the glossy.

Of course.
Although a friend, maybe Holin, mailed the StazOn inkpad to the postmaster, who used it and then returned it!

Or, the print studio can print directly in matte finish?

Cool.

My project is going well on social media

Spain and Latvia's participation is finally confirmed! This makes the initial list of 11 countries who have issued Ukraine support stamps this year complete. For most of countries, I could't find 2 people to help me, so I can only hope that nothing unforeseen happens to the only person whose help I so appreciate.

I added in a third round other countries to my project.



Here are the newest addition:

- Argentina
- Cambodia
- Chile
- Denmark
- Egypt
- Ghana (1)
- Mexico
- Norway
- South Korea (1)

Again, if you know anyone who may be willing to help me get the desired postmark on the 24th of August, please let me know.

I just put the last few postcards into the post box. I have little concern for those destined for Japan, but those for Norway and Hungary may not arrive on time unless miracle happens.

The Japanese ones, if arrived on time, may be decorated with this beautiful sunflower cancel:



Another Japanese participant is helping me get this pictorial cancel:



On Postcrossing forum, I was very surprised and touched to receive support from a Russian living in Budapest, and a Chinese who is unafraid of voicing his support for Ukraine (I didn't know it was allowed in China!). Even though they may not be able to join this time (unless I send express mails), their support means a lot to me and, I am sure, to people of Ukraine.

I will keep the sunflower / yellow flower stamps that I don't use this time. But I sincerely hope that they will not come handy next year (i.e. that the war ends this year).

So, my quest for help ends here. In the future I will give updates regarding how the project evolves. Thanks be given to all who have read me all this time.

Definitely! My next project will be on World Peace Day (21 September). It will take several years to accomplish, so no rush.

I finally received my Spanish Ukraine support stamp! Though it’s sent from United States, not Spain



Here is the complete set of my Ukraine support cards made from special stamps issued this year by 11 countries showing solidarity with Ukraine.

I didn’t have the chance to photograph my other cards showing sunflower / yellow flower stamps issued by other countries. I will take a picture once they are returned to me.

Currently, I have +20 participating countries!

Ukraine Post just announced this week that a new stamp dedicated to Independence Day will be issued on the 24th of August.



It shocked everyone including me. I wrote to them earlier to ask about getting the independence cancellation, they told me they had no plan of issuing a new stamp on the 24th (they didn't really answer my question 😛)! I believe they changed mind at the last minute (I hope it's not because of my inquiry), because this year marks the 31th anniversary of Ukraine's independence, which is not a particularly memorable number, and there was already an independence stamp issued last year.

When I set the project execution date to be Ukraine’s national day, I immediate faced the problem that this year, Ukraine Post didn’t plan a new stamp issue to celebrate the country’s independence. So I had to use older issues and there were 5 of them. But it would be nice, I thought, to have something issued in 2022, as the war started this year. The warship stamps were the first new issues since the commencement of the war, and is by now the most popular Ukrainian stamps, so even though it’s a bit pro-military in design (which some people can find offensive) and the colours are off, they were chosen to represent Ukraine. But the new independence stamp changes everything I had previously planned for the Ukrainian varieties.

After much discussion with my helpers in Ukraine, I have come to decided this distribution totalising in 26 cards:



There will be 4 Ukraine sets consisting of 6 cards, plus 2 singles using the 2022 stamp. Half of the cards will be cancelled in Kyiv, another half in Lviv, to spread the risk of something terrible happening to one of the cities. (If something happens to both of them, I will take it as an inevitable outcome of war, and pray that the potential collectors will understand this difficult situation.)

2 of these Ukrainian subsets are reserved for the complete sets, the other 2 subsets will be on sale as minisets. The 2022 varieties will be the only ones being sold individually as singles.

@linda This is truly an amazingly interesting and ambitious project.

First week's results are from

Canada, Japan, Germany, UK, and the Netherlands:



Canada, Japan and Poland:



France:



Taiwan, France, Finland and USA:



Sweden and Latvia:



I was a bit worried for my hand-drawn cover but the cancel turned out to be perfectly clear!



Do you think I should get the special FDC cancellation on this cover too? Or just the cancel of Myrnam ('Peace to Us'), AB, suffices?

Week 3 has only one postcard

From Japan:

Week 5 saw the most anticipated result being returned to me: from Ukraine! There are 2 varieties:

The Kyiv set:



And the Lviv set: