There wasn’t much in the mailbox today, but an envelope from the non-profit FINCA caught my eye due to how it was decorated.
The front of the envelope bars a red and blue border that’s evocative of the air mail envelopes of old.
FINCA envelope
But it’s the back of the cover that really caught my attention. It bears pseudo postal markings intended to appear to originate in Brussels, Berlin, New York, Cairo, and Indonesia.
FINCA envelope (reverse)
I don’t know if the designer of the envelope had a particular interest in postal markings or philately, or if he or she ran across images of various postmarks somewhere and thought they would just look pretty, but either way, I have to admit that the end result caught my attention.
Purgatory Post continued its series of stamps picturing covered bridges in New Hampshire with the release last week of a stamp picturing Keniston Bridge. The green and black 15-sola stamp’s first day of issue was November 2.
Purgatory Post Keniston Bridge stamp
According to the State of New Hampshire’s Keniston Bridge webpage, the structure named after a prominent family in nearby Andover was built over the Blackwater River in 1882. The original construction cost was only around $745, but “rehabilitating” the bridge in 1981 cost the town closer to $80,000.
The state of New Hampshire has dozens of covered bridges, so this series that borrows its frames from the United States Pan-American Exposition issue of 1901 is one that will continue the foreseeable future.
As you may recall, my wife and I celebrated our 10th wedding anniversary earlier this year, and when she asked me what I’d like for an anniversary gift, my response was virtually immediate: a letter opener. And that’s exactly what she got for me!
Letter opener
My new letter opener has a handle that the seller described as being made of buffalo horn. Whether that means bison or water buffalo, I don’t know, but it is most definitely more substantial than what it replaces, a cheap plastic letter opener that I got as a freebie at the National Association of Broadcasters convention in Philadelphia in 2003. I think that one came from the National Guard booth, but whatever lettering was on it has long since worn away, so I say it was time for an upgrade.
Although I have offered stamp album pages for United States hunting permit stamps for years, it wasn’t until August that I published the first pages for general revenue stamps for The Philosateleian U.S. Stamp Album. I realize that not everyone who uses The Philosateleian collects revneue stamps, but I wanted to expand my offering in case you do.
I’m pleased to share that, as of today, The Philosateleian also includes pages for proprietary stamps (1871–1919) and customs fee stamps (1887). I’ve released those as part of a Special 2020 supplement that’s now available for you to download and print at your convenience.
My hope is to be able to continue adding pages for different revenue stamps, so if there’s a particular category that you would like to see included, please let me know.
While recently re-reading George Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-Four, or 1984 if you so prefer, I ran across a brief reference to postage stamps, of all things. The passage reads thus:
Like an answer, the three slogans on the white face of the Ministry of Truth came back at him:
WAR IS PEACE
FREEDOM IS SLAVERY
IGNORANCE IS STRENGTH.
He took a twenty-five cent piece out of his pocket. There, too, in tiny clear lettering, the same slogans were inscribed, and on the other face of the coin the head of Big Brother. Even from the coin the eyes pursued you. On coins, on stamps, on the covers of books, on banners, on posters, and on the wrappings of a cigarette packet—everywhere.
This brief mention of stamps got me wondering what stamps from Orwell’s Oceania might look like, and I came up with the cinderella stamp—or should I say the dystopian fantasy stamp?—pictured here. It is as you can probably tell very much inspired by the general aesthetic of British stamps, which I thought was not inappropriate considering that the story is set in London.
Oceania fantasy stamp
Nineteen Eighty-Four will still be under copyright protection for a long time here in the United States, and I have no intention of trying to sell my creation since I have no particular desire to run afoul of whoever owns the rights to the book. Consider it merely a bit of fan art. I do have ideas for another stamp or two if time permits, however, and will certainly share here if I do any more designing.
