Venezuela - The Metro System

Location : Freeport, Texas

I did mention previously that the last trip to Venezuela was a total waste. Well maybe not because I did get one set of stamps there on the Metro rail system. Sadly I'm not really collecting stapms on train, but it does make for interesting collection.

The stamps on top are dealing with the Metro system, a mass rapid transport system in the Capital Caracas and its neighbourhoods. Apparently the Metro system, which was started in 1983, is a source of great pride in the Venezuela, so the next time you are there, you should make a mental note not to pee when you are waiting for your next train.

An excellent source of information on the Caracas Metro system can be found here at Wikipedia. The stamps in question are dealing with the new developements being made on the Caracas metro system. The top stamp is on the new 4th Line that was opened in 2006. The other stamp deals with the " Metro Los Teques", a line started between the main line with the town of Los Teques.

The two stamps below are the stamps on the metro system of the city of Valencia. Now this is a much newer system that came into service only in 2006. As per wiki, they charge only 500 bolivar for an adult, which comes to about 23 US cents. Which makes it irritating to me because the cost of the stamp on the metro costs 3000 bolivars, a cost that would have gotten me 6 round trips on the metro.

Sources : Urban Rail - Valencia , Urban Rail - Caracas ,  Offical website - Caracas Metro , Offical website - Valencia Metro

Italy - Como the silk stamp

Location : The Gulf Of Mexico

Sometimes it is frustrating not to have access to the internet because I want to research a bit into the subject that I want to blog on. This is one of the reasons that I have been holding out on this miniature sheet that I am presenting today.

This is apparently the first (and as far as I can tell - the only) stamp sheet to have come out in pure silk. This sheet, priced at approx 2.8 Euro was released by the Italian post to comemorate the Italian artist and sculptor Baldassare Longoni (1876 - 1956). The picture on the left of the sheet is one of his paintings of the city Como, which is famous for the silk it produces. Please note the side edges that I have left out where you can see the fine silk threads coming out.

That said, the above information is something I have deduced using my non-existent knowledge of Italian, mixed with the help of a few translation sites. So there is much that still needs to be resolved. For example why silk? Does it pay homage to the city or to Longoni, who did something in silk as well.

Also It seems to be particularly tough to get hold of an boigraphy of Mr Longoni to know more about that chap. Web searches only lead to auction houses who ask me if I am a neice of Mr Longoni.

Finally the translation of the back printing leads me to believe that this is actually some sort of an envelope and it is supposed to open up. Very exciting and Indiana Jones like! I think I will leave it a mystrey till someone from you kind readers can translate it and shed some more light on it.

USA - Vintage Black Cinema

Location : Gulf Of Mexico, 26 31 N , 094 17 W

Firstly I am a bit surprised that in this age of extreme political correctness in the US, the USPS came out with a stamp sheet called "Black Cinema". Maybe they thought that "Colored Cinema" might be misleading. :)

Regardless, I was thrilled to get my hands on this sheet. I am an minor Jazz fan and so I was very happy to get my hands on the stamps featuring Duke Ellington and Louis Jordan.

Let me tell you a bit about the stamps.

Remembered as the first screen appearance of Duke Ellington, the 1929 Black and Tan features three songs by Ellington and his Cotton Club Orchestra. In this 19 minute short movie, Ellington, playing himself, is in danger of having his piano repossessed. When his fatally ill girlfriend dances at a night club, she saves Ellington's music - and asks to hear his "black and Tan fantasy" on her deathbed. So by all accounts, it wasn't a fresh and happy short movie.

I haven't seen the movie myself, and I as an policy don't post you tube videos on my blog. But if you are so inclined, you can get the first five minutes of the movie on youtube at this link.

The other stamp I was keen about was of Louis Jordan. This chap was one of the most colorful person in the Jazz industry and was an accomplished singer, Saxophonist, and a bandleader. He had a band called the tympani five and sang his way into peoples hearts right through the 1930s to the 1950's. An amazing personality, the Caldonia was called a short film simply because in that time, no body had coined the term "music video". This was an 18 minute film featuring four of Jordan's songs.

Links : Official website of Louis Jordan.

Egyptian Immigration

Location : The Cayman Ridge ,  19 38 N 083 36 W

 

Since we have been going through my official papers, let me show you a page from one of the passports. This is the Egyptian immigration at work and for some reason they seem to be using revenue stamps in the temporary visas. I'm not sure if they are still doing that, but I haven't seen too many countries using stamps.

 

Sadly the impressive Eagle cancellation hasn't been done properly and the stamps themselves are upside down to each other. The whole effect onestly doesn't seem too appealing. But then Immigration officials are rarely known for their artistic sensibilities.  

 

Venezuela No 2

Location : Off Jamaica , 17 24 N 080 31 W

In line with the yesterdays fiscal stamp, I wanted to put another one I spotted on the official papers. This one seems to have a value written on it of 0.02 UT, a value I'm not sure what it represents in Big Mac's.

If someone could shed some light on then, it would be greatly appreciated.

Venezuela

Location : Caribbean , 14 45 N , 074 33 W

 

The last few days were busy as I went to Venezuela, but it was sure disappointing. I couldn't get ashore and couldn't get any cards till the very last minute. So sorry folks, but there's not going to be any mail call from Venezuela this time. But I did get a few stamps on the offical mail during this call.

 

Pictured above is an Venezuelan stamp to be used on the offical stamp parers. I think the notation "Timbre Fisical" on the bottom left means "Financial Stamp". Itas a neat thing, but sadly as its part of the offical papers, can't add it to the personal collection. :)

 

 

 

Empire state building - Postal Chute

Location : Atlantic - 24 24 N , 069 28 W

 

It seems ages since I put up a picture of a post box or a post office out here. So I wanted to show you something different today. I had gone to the Empire state building in New york a few days back and they let us up to the observatory on the 86th floor. On the way I came across this chute which is pictured here. The inscription on the metal plate reads " US Mail - Cutler mailing system, Cutler mail chute Co., Rochester, NY USA".

 

I saw it on only one floor, but its a safe assumption that this chute goes all along the height of the the Empire state building. I haven't seen such an system in use anywhere else and I doubt in the new skyrises being made today, postal chutes are fitted anymore. Postal chutes must have been a great godsend in those days for all postal employees.

 

 I heard that once the Empire state building postal chutes shut down and an postal employee had to climb the outside of the building to deliver mail to the top floor. An unfortunate mix up in the new USPS uniform led people to believe that an ape was climbing the Empire State Building. I believe that even made a movie on that!

 

 

U.S - Frank Sinatra

Position : The Atlantic - 38 19 N / 072 07W

 

The last few days were hectic as hell. We were discharging at three ports inside New york , and what with all the inspections and going out and doing stuff, I was plum out of time to post something here. But in all that I did manage to get my foot into the door of the probably the smallest post office in USA. I got a total of three stamps and one sheet out of the trip, which only means that I am going to have to shift to bigger post offices. 

 

The stamp above is of the USPS, an organisation that I'm afraid  will feature more often  here as my ship spendfs a lot more time in this part of the world. So as I was saying, this stamp features Frank Sinatra. Though I never did like the guys music, he was an and remains fabulously liked by a lot of people. Several of his recordings - including 'In the wee small hours' and 'Come fly with me' - are considered classics.

 

I think the only song I liked of his was "Strangers in the night". But honestly if I want to listen to music of that time, I would rather listen to Kid ory or Louis Jordan's Jazz. I'll probably post something on that tomorrow.

 

 

New Links

As I mentioned, I haven't been online much and it seems that a lot more blogs have linked over to me & it is my pleaseure to introduce them here & put up their links as well.

The first blog is called Rainbow Stamp club and other then the name, which I think is a little lame (sorry Ajay & jeevan :) ) , the blog is amazing. The amount of effort these guys put into every post is simply amazing and disconcerting in the way that there really can't be much for a person of the Indian forest office to do! Plus they even publish an Philatelic magazine. Please do check out their blog on the link above and also added to the right with all the other great blogs.

The next to come up is Gulfmann. He has ofcourse been a regular contributor to this blog, but due to an oversight his blogs haven't been here. Sorry for that George. Gulfman has three blogs running on Philatelic issues so I'm only putting up his stamps blog, Gulfmann Stamp Collection . Plus it has some snaps of Post boxes, so I couldn't resist. Keep up the good work George, and oh yes.. put up my link in your blog!

Lastly, though its not a link, I just want to show you all the nice site of europe-stamps, where the author was kind enough to write something nice about me. So thank you for that.

Italy - The winter games

Location : New York - 40 38 N / 074 02 W

Am in new york now and am waiting for the berthing to take place so that I can see what the USPS is up to these days.

Since was busy the last couple of days, am just here to put up a miniature I picked up in Italy about the winter "olimpici" games.

Of all the above games, my personal favourite would have to be the top centre - Figure skating. Simply because all all the beauty, the poise, the elegance ... and of course the short skirts.

Answer to comments

I logged on to the internet after a long time today. Till now I have been blogging only by email so I really didn't keep track of the comments coming in. So let me say thanks to you all for writing in. To questions raised,:
Eric From Jura : Yes buddy. I did indeed get your miniatures. Thanks for them. Sorry for not sending across a card your way from this ship. I'll send something nice from Venezuela.

Yukikoh : Thanks for the comments. Missed you out too. I se you are back in Germany. Double treat your way too.

Lefung : Yes got your stamps. Thanks. Hope you got the cards from Algeria and Gibralter by now.

Thanks to the all the rest who were kind enough to comment.

Australia - Fantasy

Location : The Atlantic - 37 10 N / 049 18 W

To get away from my Geographical location, let us look at a strange stamp
from a land possible the farthest from me at present. The Australian stamp
was give to me by very good friends Rajat & Radhika. I simply can't make out
what this stamp is all about, but it was released back in 2002 and is most
likely about some fantasy characters from an artist or writer. Let me know
if you can shed some light on it. But I like looking at stamps like this and
its an great addition to the collection. So thanks Radhika.

Italy - Thailand joint issue

Location - The Atlantic

Close to the heels of the Thai joint issue with turkey, is this one with
Italy. Though both the pictures have the famous landmarks, the theme doesn't
match. In the last joint issue, at least both the pictures were of places of
worship. I think in this issue, due to the colloseum, the Thais should have
sent a picture of their Kickboxing arena. :)

Turkey - Thani Joint release

Location - The Atlantic

 

I know that some people like Eric from France like to collect joint issues. So today I wanted to show you the set of joint issue released by the turks and the Thais. Featured are soem of the most popular sights of the countries. If you look a few posts back on my regular blog, you can see pictures of the Mosque at Istanbul. The last I had seen the temple in Thailand was when we went there in 2006.

 

I suppose they must have released a miniature sheet on the occasion, but sadly I only got my hands on these individual stamps.

 

 

Turkish Fort

Location : The Atlantic

 

Today since I put up a picture of a turkish fort on my regular blog, I though that I might as well put up a few of my Turkish stamps. I don't think that I have put up any TUrkish stamps here in a little while. This stamp I picked up when I passed through Turkey last time somewhere in Late June.

 

The turks are serious about their flags. Every vantage point is adorned with their huge flags. And this stamp is another good example of that.