France - History of Bicycles

Its been a year since I came here and I received my first philatelic mail. This was sent by Eric, who has a great blog that your really must visit.

I had sent him some stamps on frog some time back and he was kind enough to send a spectacular sheet across. I'll put that up in the next post.

In the meanwhile lets focus on the beautiful stamps that Eric put on the cover itself. These bicycles are part of a series of french stamps called "2011 - The bicycle from its origins to today".  The link is in french so you may have to translate it. The stamps themselves are beautiful and love them.

Another point of interest is that the back of the envelope had this stamp that is probably the creation of Eric himself as he is nuts about all thins froggy!

Thanks for the cover Eric. Great Fun receiving it. Will send you across the cover you included inside soon.

Tintin

I don't think its ever going to be possible to show all the mail that has come in during my absence, but I'll try to put a few of them over the next few days. Today I'm showing this amazing cover and sheet sent to me by Kalpana from Germany. I had posted the sole Tintin stamp on my blog earlier and Kalpana had offered to send across the sheet. I collect comic stamps and am a huge fan of Tintin, so I was thrilled to receive this.

Cotard and Eric also sent me the sheet in mint condition (Thanks to the two of them) but enclosed in the cover was the sheet of Tintin comic covers that I didn't even know was out. It is an amazing sheet and I am eternally grateful to Kalpana for this.

Tintin is one of the most recognisable figure in all fiction and since his first arrival in 1929, he has sold more then half a million comics in more then fifty languages. It seems improbable that most of Tintins travels were conceived by an armchair traveller in the early 1900's when media was so restricted. It wasn't before the "Tintin and the Picaros" (1976) that Herge actually went to some of the places he showed us all a long time before that. The last stamp in the series of the comic cover is of the comic called "Tintin and alpha Art" - A story that herge couldn't finish before he passed away in March 1983.

Personally I haven't been able to read the first three comics as of now. Something I plan to correct very soon.

Thanks again Kalpana. :)

Tintin

Location - Chile coast - 24 02 S, 074 59 W

I forgot that the blue chap in yesterdays post is called the "Smurf" for some reason, I just couldn't rememeber that name.

Let us look today at a person who never faces that problem & always remembers his facts. Tintin is an amazing chap who has been all over the places- from The mountains of Tibet to the amazon jungles to the dark side of the moon.

I grew up on Tintin & Astrix. The amazing part of Tintin was that the chap himself is so subtle in front of the supporting cast such as Capt Haddock, Professor Calculus & the thompson twins, that at the end of a story, you hardly remember what it is
that tintin did in it. What sticks out is Capt Haddock shouting "Bristling Blue Barnacles" every time his rum bottle is broken. In this stamp released by France in 2007, we again find this mild mannered fellow stitting quitely in a boat. I'm not sure
if they brought out a series on the entire cast, but we can be sure that Capt Haddock won't be pictured sitting so quitely.

Apart from minor achivements such as finding water on the moon to busting international crime sindicates, Tintins crowning glory is to find himself with friends that love him & a dog that adores him.

Thanks to Pazzolina of Post Crossing for sending me this.