Shekawati - Warli Paintings : Maxim cards

Recently, India Post (Tamil Nadu Circle) has issued two maxim cards along with a booklet on Shekawati and Warli Paintings. The cards have a matte-finish.

Franklin Expedition - Canada

In 2014,   Parks Canada and its partners located the wreck of 19th century 

HMS Erebus.  Sir John Franklin used two ships for his Expedition, HMS Erebus and HMS TERROR.  To pay tribute to the discovery  Canada Post issued one Souvenir sheet and two embossed stamps.  One stamp depicts the Erebus where as the other one depicts the location of the Arctic region where the Erebus met with the accident. 

Below is the cover with the two peel and stick embossed stamp sent my Mr. Mark,  Canada.   

Multilevel embossed Dinosaurs - Canada

Dinosaurs are prehistoric animals. Canada, which has rich geography and the fourth largest dry-land mass, issued a set of stamps of Dinosaurs through Canada Post .  The background picture shows the Dinosaur provincial Park.  The multilevel embossing and holographic effects makes these dinosaurs seem like they are coming out of the Park.   

The dinosaurs depicted in "Dinos of Canada" are Tylosaurus Pembinensis, Chasmosaurus Belli, Tyrannosaurus Rex, Ornithomimus edmontonicus and Euoplocephalus Tutus. 

I got this MS from Mr. Mark of Canada in an private exchange. Thanks Mark.

  

Engineer's Day : 15th September

Engineer's Day is celebrated every year on the 15th of September in India, Sri Lanka and Tanzania to honour Sri. Visvesvaraya, who played a key role in India's modernization. Sir. Visvesvaraya, the notable civil engineer, was born on 15th September 1860, at Mysore. 

He was a member of the Governing Council of the Tata Iron and Steel company(TISCO) and the below card was issued for the TATA Steel's centenary year. The Tata group is well known globally due to their TCS (IT services) and their recent Jaguar-Land Rover acquisition. TISCO was established in 1907 and now has a presence in 26 countries.

The stamp was issued to commemorate the Golden Jubilee celebrations of Engineers India Limited - a wholly-owned GoI enterprise that went public in 1996. They play a key role in the Chemical and Petroleum industries. 

Light House - Glow in the dark: Malaysia MS

Malaysia, which is mainly surrounded by water bodies has many light houses

dating  back to 15th century.  Most of them are erected by  Portugese,  Dutch

and  British.  To commemorate  these  historical  Light  houses,  Pos Malaysia

has issued two series of Light houses.  

The first series was issued in 2004 and the second series was issued in 2013.

I recently received miniature sheets of Light Houses of Malaysia (both series)

from Mr. Joel.

  

Tanjung Tuan Rumah Api(Cape Rachado Light House):

Tanjung in Malay means Cape and Rumah Api means light house.  Tuan Light House is in Cape Rachado, Malacca, Malaysia.  This Light house was originally built by the the British in 1819 and again rebuilt in 1863 after it was destroyed in a war. It was renovated time to time and a modern concrete tower was built in 1990 with RADAR facilities and the tower was painted in white. It is the oldest active light House in Malaysia.  It flashes 3 white lights every 15 seconds (*).

One Fathom Bank (NEW), Selangor :

The current One Fathom Bank lighthouse is actually the fourth lighthouse, built in the vicinity of the sandbank.  It was built in 1998 and the tower is painted with red and white.  It flashes 4 white flashes every 20 seconds. The specialty of this MS is it glows in the dark.  A nice addition to my theme "Unusual/unique stamps".

The older lighthouse is still their at 500 meters away from the new one and Malaysia issued a stamp of the older light house in Light House Series I.  The old light house is preserved well due to the historical values.  

(*) - The duration, color and length of the flashes are used to determine the lighthouse. These are well documented.

World Record Stamp - Belgium

Belgium is a country in Western Europe. While Belgium reminds most of us of Waffles, Chocolates and Beers, for me and most stamp collectors Belgium reminds us the Chocolate Stamp, World Record stamp, Thermochromic stamp and  Of course beautiful engraved stamps. I always wish to add Belgium Chocolate stamp, 2013 100years of RMI Thermochromic stamp and the World Record stamp to my Unusual and Unique stamps collection. One of my wishes came true through a Post Card swap with Mr. Johan. He used the non denominated bpost's 2014 Women's Day World Record stamp on the card. The 2014 bpost's Women's Day stamp has set a world record for the most number of words on a stamp.  A woman's face is designed exclusively with gridded words and the background is with digital micro texts. It set a Guinness World Record for most number of words on a stamp.  The stamp has 606 complete words in four languages.  The words are taken from the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women(CEDAW). CEDAW is an International treaty adopted by United Nation General Assembly in 1979 and came into force in 1981.  

I like the card for Johan's neat hand writing.  It seems that he has tried to replicate the small letters in the stamp!

The non denominated Women's Day stamp made my day.

Finding Nemo: Taiwan

I am a great fan of Pixar Animation Studios.  I have seen almost all of their movies half a dozen times. Bug's life and Finding Nemo are my favourites. When I came across the Finding Nemo Miniature Sheet, I realized that it has a circular shaped stamps too which comes under my theme Unusual/Unique stamps. So I picked up one.  I am talking about the 3rd April 2008 Taiwan Post's miniature sheet based on the movie  Finding Nemo.  They have issued two miniature sheets, I got one and am looking for the other MS.

Nemo is a small clown fish.  When it swims near the surface of the water it is caught in the fishing net and the story revolves around his father searching for Nemo and How Nemo escapes from the dentist's fish tank and reunites with his father.  Even though Nemo and his father Marlin are the key characters of the movie, I like the Dory, a blue reef fish, with short memory but with unbelievable talent ( Yes! it knows the Shark's language:-) ) and really a cool fish. I heard that they are going to release a sequential "Finding Dory" MS in 2016. Even though the turtles came for a brief part in the movie, they make a strong impression.

Below is one of the miniature sheets. Note that there are circular as well as rectangular stamps featuring the characters from Finding Nemo.