3455 GERMANY (Hamburg) - Rickmer Rickmers

Rickmer Rickmers is a three masted barque permanently moored as a museum ship in Hamburg, near the Cap San Diego steamer, also a museum ship. After almost 90 years of sailing the seven seas, the ship was turned into a museum in 1983. Today, visitors can roam the decks, exploring the crew's and officers' quarters, the galley and even the engine room (this windjammer was powered by wind and, if required,  by steam and diesel engines). The hull is 97 meters long, 12.20 meters wide, the depth was 6 meters.

3220 CHRISTMAS (United Kingdom) - Christmas tree

Royal Mail issued Christmas stamps for the first time in 1966, when it ran a competition on BBC's Blue Peter to select the design. Since then, the british postal service do so every year, and in 2016 were used traditional festive images including a snowman, a robin, a lantern, a Christmas tree, a pudding and a stocking. The six stamps issued on November 8, 2016, were crafted by Manchester-based artist Helen Musselwhite, using paper cut-outs, which were then photographed by Jonathan Beer. On this occasion, Royal Mail also issued postcards depicting this stamps.

1570, 1586-1587, 1781-1782, 2758 UNITED KINGDOM (Turks and Caicos Islands) - The map and the flag of the Turks and Caicos Islands

1570, 1586 The map of the Turks and Caicos Islands (1)

Posted on 10.05.2015, 17.05.2015, 03.06.2015, 26.07.2015, 17.09.2016
The Turks and Caicos Islands (TCI) are a British Overseas Territory consisting of the larger Caicos Islands and smaller Turks Islands, two groups of tropical islands in the Lucayan Archipelago, part of the larger Antilles island grouping, which lie southeast of Mayaguana in the Bahamas island chain and north of the island of Hispaniola. The resident population is about 31,500, of whom 23,769 live on Providenciales. Cockburn Town, the capital since 1766, is situated on Grand Turk Island. TCI are named after the Turk's-cap cactus (Melocactus communis), and the Lucayan term caya hico, meaning string of islands.

2758 The map of the Turks and Caicos Islands (2)

The first inhabitants of the islands were Arawakan-speaking Taíno people, who crossed over from Hispaniola sometime from AD 500 to 800. Soon after the conquistador Juan Ponce de León arrived in 1512, the Spanish began capturing the locals as slaves, so that the islands were completely depopulated a year later, and remained so until the 17th century. During the 16th, 17th and 18th centuries, the islands passed from Spanish, to French, and to British control, but none of the three powers ever established any settlements. For several decades around the turn of the 18th century, the islands became popular pirate hideouts.

1781 The map of the Middle Caicos

After the American War of Independence, many Loyalists fled to British Caribbean colonies; in 1783 they were the first settlers on the Caicos Islands. They developed cotton as an important cash crop, but it was superseded by the development of the salt industry, which was a highly important export product until the 19th century. In the 19th and 20th centuries, the islands were either a separate colony, or part of the  Bahamas, or of  Jamaica. In 1973 the Turks and Caicos received their own governor. In 2013 and 2014, interest in annexing the islands to Canada, an idea which previously circulated, was renewed.

1782 The map of the Salt Cay

The eight main islands and more than 299 smaller islands consist primarily of low, flat limestone with extensive marshes and mangrove swamps. The weather is usually sunny and relatively dry, but suffers frequent hurricanes. The islands have limited natural fresh water resources; private cisterns collect rainwater for drinking. Most capital goods and food for domestic consumption are imported. The primary natural resources are spiny lobster, conch and other shellfish. The United States was the leading source of tourists in 1996, accounting for more than half of the 87,000 visitors.

1587 The flag of the Turks and Caicos Islands

The official language of the islands is English and the population also speaks Turks and Caicos Islands Creole, which is similar to Bahamian Creole. Due to its close proximity to Cuba and Hispaniola, large Haitian Creole and Spanish-speaking communities have developed in the territory due to immigration. The Turks and Caicos Islands are a biodiversity hotspot. The islands have many endemic species and others of international importance. Due to this significance, the islands are on the United Kingdom's tentative list for future UNESCO World Heritage Sites.

2717 GUERNSEY - The 150th Anniversary of "The Toilers of the Sea", by Victor Hugo

When Louis Napoleon (Napoleon III) seized complete power in 1851, establishing an anti-parliamentary constitution, Hugo openly declared him a traitor to France. He relocated to Brussels, then Jersey, from which he was expelled for supporting a Jersey newspaper that had criticised Queen Victoria and finally settled with his family at Hauteville House in Saint Peter Port, Guernsey, where he would live in exile from October 1855 until 1870.

2514, 2515 UNITED NATIONS - The 70th anniversary of the United Nations

 

 

Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon announced the beginning of the 70th anniversary of the United Nations when he was attending the African Union Summit in Malabo, Guinea to commemorate the past developments including the UN task force achievements and the work for humanity. He has marked it with a name "UN70". He also focused on the unification of the international community in order to make the UN more powerful to better handle the problems of the world.

Without doubt, the United Nations has saved millions of lives and boosted health and education across the world, but is not perfect. Probably Dag Hammarskjöld, the tragic second UN secretary general, defined it the best, saying that it “was created not to lead mankind to heaven but to save humanity from hell”. Tensions between western governments, which see the UN as bloated and inefficient, and developing countries, which regard it as undemocratic and dominated by the rich, have rippled across the organisation as ballooning costs drive the push for reform.

2363 UNITED KINGDOM (Turks and Caicos Islands) - National Museum in Cockburn Town

Established in the 1980s and opened in 1991, the Turks and Caicos National Museum is housed in one of the oldest stone structures in Grand Turk Island, Guinep House, located on Front Street to the north of Cockburn Town, the capital of the archipelago.  The house, built prior to 1885 in local limestone by a former shipwright, was named after the large guinep tree in the front yard. Its structural material came from local shipwrecks, including a ship's mast, which is one of the building's main supports.

2262 ROMANIA - All the best from Bucharest!

Postcrossing community from Romania isn't among the largest, but it is certainly one of the most active. Thanks to a small group of enthusiasts, true ambassadors of this idea which has become phenomenon, new members are co-opted, are organized frequent meetings, and even are issued postcards on these occasions, like this one. Even if I didn't participate actively in community life, I'm glad to be part of it, and I feel flattered that the participants in the meeting which held on 30 January 2016 at Bucharest remembered me.

1874 UNITED KINGDOM (Turks and Caicos Islands) - Salt Raking at Salt Cay

Salt Cay is a tiny, flat, triangular island, with an area of only 6.7 sq km and a population of less than 100. Around 1673, British Colonials from Bermuda saw the potential of the shallow and landlocked ponds on many of the islands in the Turks and Caicos, including Salt Cay. At the time, salt was a valuable essential used for food preservation and commanded a high price. Although the early visitors simply raked the naturally-occurring salt, it became obvious that production could be increased and the complex system of divided ponds, gates, channels and pumps was born.

1785 PALAU - Sharks of Palau

On 25 September 2009, Palau, an island country which share maritime boundaries with Indonesia, the Philippines, and the Federated States of Micronesia, announced that it would create the world's first shark sanctuary. Palau banned all commercial shark fishing within the waters of its exclusive economic zone. The sanctuary protects about 600,000 square kilometres of ocean, a similar size to France. President Johnson Toribiong proposed a worldwide ban on fishing for sharks. In 2012, Palau received the Future Policy Award from World Future Council, because "Palau is a global leader in protecting marine ecosystems".

1642 OMAN - Traditional fishing boat in Musandam

The Musandam peninsula juts into the Strait of Hormuz (the narrow entry into the Persian Gulf, from the Arabian Peninsula) and is an exclave of Oman, separated from the rest of the country by the  United Arab Emirates. Its location gives Oman partial control, shared with Iran, of the strategic strait. The rugged coastline resembles the glacier-carved coasts of polar regions, but in this case, the coast was shaped by the movement of Earth’s crust.

1623 UNITED KINGDOM (Pitcairn Islands) - Adamstown, the smallest capital in the world

The Pitcairn Islands, the last British Overseas Territory in the Pacific, are a group of four islands, of which only Pitcairn, the second largest, is inhabited, by the 56 descendants of the Bounty mutineers and the Tahitians (or Polynesians) who accompanied them. All the residents are Seventh-day Adventist, due to a successful mission in the 1890s, and live in a single settlement, Adamstown. Actually it is where most residents eat and sleep, while they grow food in other areas of the island. The hamlet currently holds the record for being the smallest capital in the world. It has access to television, satellite internet, and a telephone. The main means of communication is still the ham radio. According to Google Maps, the only named road in the capital is called "The Hill of Difficulties".

1606 TONGA - A Philatelic Souvenir Postcard from the Friendly Islands

Tonga, officially the Kingdom of Tonga, is a Polynesian sovereign state and archipelago comprising 177 islands with a total surface area of about 750 square kilometres scattered over 700,000 square kilometres of the southern Pacific Ocean, of which 52 islands are inhabited by its 103,000 people. Seventy percent of Tongans reside on the main island of Tongatapu. It is surrounded by Fiji and Wallis and Futuna (France) to the northwest, Samoa to the northeast, Niue to the east, Kermadec (part of New Zealand) to the southwest, and New Caledonia (France) and Vanuatu to the farther west. Tonga became known as the Friendly Islands because of the congenial reception accorded to Captain James Cook on his first visit in 1773

1576 TUVALU - Crested Tern

Located in the Pacific Ocean, midway between Hawaii and Australia, Tuvalu, the fourth smallest country in the world, consists of three reef islands and six true atolls, with poor soil and limited fresh-water resources. As a result, indigenous plants are rare, as well as the animal life. Twenty eight species of indigenous birds are known, approximately 20 species being sea birds, a few of which are migratory. One of this birds species is the Crested tern (Thalasseus bergii), a seabird in the tern family that nests in dense colonies on coastlines and islands in the tropical and subtropical regions, in the area from South Africa around the Indian Ocean to the central Pacific and Australia

1364 UNITED KINGDOM (Pitcairn Islands) - Oeno Island

Oeno Island or Holiday Island is a coral atoll in the South Pacific Ocean, part of the Pitcairn Islands overseas territory. Located at 143km northwest of Pitcairn Island, it serves as a private holiday site for the few residents of this island, who will travel there and stay for two weeks in January. In 1824 Captain George Worth named the atoll after his ship, the American whaler Oeno. The island measures about 5km in diameter (is almost round), and has two larger and three smaller islets on or within the rim of the atoll. It has been identified by BirdLife International as an Important Bird Area (IBA) principally for its colony of Murphy's Petrels, which, at some 12,500 pairs, is estimated to be the second largest colony of these birds in the world.At the bottom of the postcard is a series of stamps, Oeno Island Holiday, designed by G L Vasarhelyi, and issued on June 26, 1995. The artwork for this issue is based on photographic material supplied by Meralda Warren and Steve Christian of Pitcairn Island.

1343 BOTSWANA - Moths

This postcard depicts a shaped miniature sheet comprising a series of stamps issued on July 19, 2000, Moths of Botswana:

Mopane moth / Gonimbrasia belina (35t) - is a moth of the Saturniidae family, which is found in much of Southern Africa. Its large edible caterpillar, the mopani or mopane worm (found on the mopane tree, Colophospermum mopane), is an important source of protein for millions of indigenous Southern Africans. Its wingspan is about 120mm. It is fawn through shades of green and brown to red, with two black and white bands isolating eye spots. Orange eyespot on each hind wing. Males have feathery antennae.

1204 SWEDEN - The world's largest struck coin

In 1646 a ship, loaded with iron bars, was wrecked in the archipelago of Gryt in Östergötland. In the cabin there was a chest containing nearly two thousand Swedish copper coins. Furthermore, five newly issued plate money coins were kept in the cabin. The denomination of each one of them was 10 daler sm, four of them were struck in 1644 and one in 1645, during the reign of Queen Christina of Sweden. The lack of silver in Sweden at the beginning of the 17th c. was the main reason why copper coins were brought into production, the first ones being issued in 1624 in low denominations.

0114 DENMARK (Faroe Islands) - ...bygði þenna stað fyrst (...lived in this place first)

I received this wonderful maxicard issued by Faroe Islands from Kajo, which is Finnish and apologizes that had no maxicard from his country within reach and therefore he sent me this one. No problem, Kajo, the maxicard looks so good, that I make an exception, so to speak. And how an exception is followed, as is well known, by another, the maxicard arrived to me in envelope, so it wasn't circulated normally, as I like it. But if you look on her back, you will notice that couldn't otherwise, so this exception isn't even an exception.

0101 A 20€ bill from Santa Claus

I wouldn't say that is the best time for a discussion on the euro, but Siem "Makemehappy" sent me a postcard with a 20 euro bill even on Christmas Day (December 25), last year, as a real Santa Claus, so I can't avoid the subject (Thanks, Siem, I hope to be a good sign, even if the euro is approaching for the minimum of the last 16 months and shows no sign of recovery). It seems that interest for the euro has dropped not only on the financial markets but also among the forgers of banknotes, so that if in 2009 there were 860,000 of counterfeits seized, a year later their number had fallen to 751,000, and in 2011 was found only 606,000. Indeed, the quality of counterfeits has improved significantly, so a supporter of the currency in question might say that hasn't decreased the number of counterfeits, but only that of counterfeits seized. An entrepreneurial spirit would have made a profit even from this business, applying a beautiful stamp with "false" on those banknotes and selling them to collectors.

For those outside of Europe, here is some information taken from Wikipedia. The euro (sign: €; code: EUR) is the official currency of the eurozone, for 17 of the 27 member states of the EU (Austria, Belgium, Cyprus, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Ireland, Italy, Luxembourg, Malta, the Netherlands, Portugal, Slovakia, Slovenia, and Spain). The euro is the second largest reserve currency as well as the second most traded currency in the world after the United States dollar. The name euro was officially adopted on 16 December 1995, but it was introduced to world financial markets as an accounting currency on 1 January 1999, and the coins and the banknotes entered circulation on 1 January 2002. The euro is divided into 100 cents (sometimes referred to as euro cents).

The design for the euro banknotes has common designs on both sides, and was created by the Austrian designer Robert Kalina. Notes are issued in €500, €200, €100, €50, €20, €10, €5. Each banknote has its own colour and is dedicated to an artistic period of European architecture. The front of the note features windows or gateways while the back has bridges. While the designs are supposed to be devoid of any identifiable characteristics, the initial designs by Robert Kalina were of specific bridges, including the Rialto and the Pont de Neuilly, and were subsequently rendered more generic; the final designs still bear very close similarities to their specific prototypes; thus they are not truly generic.

I should also mention that the postcard doesn't reproduce accurately and completely the banknote, perhaps lest to try to buy something with it.

The first stamp is part of Green Progress set, about which I wrote here. The second shows the Queen Beatrix.


sender: Siem / Makemehappy (postcrossing)