Scratch and Win Stamp: Austria

Austria Post is known for its innovative stamps and as an Unusual Stamps collector I always love to add them to my collection.  Knowing this, my friend Mr. Opperer from Austria recently surprised me with the above nice Aviation themed Mint stamp. 

The mint stamp shown above was to commemorate the 50th years of the first Austrian Airlines flight and is also the First Scratch Stamp issued by Austria Post.  The Austrian Airlines is a national carrier of Austria and the First flight took-off on 31st March from Vienna to London in the year 1958.  When scrached, one would find a 4 digit code. Five thousand winners got a chance to win an awesome model of Airbus 320.  As a 3 digit code winners, there were free flights for 1 person from most of the main cities of the world - including Mumbai, India. If we did not win anything, we could still the stamp on covers.  The stamp was issued in February, 2008.  Too bad, I got it just recently and could not participate :)

Thanks Opperer, it is now a jewel in my collection.

The cover too has 2 unusual stamps,

      175 years of Mountain University commemorative stamp and 

        50 Years of Man on Space stamp

Both are silver foiled stamps.

  

India's First Hot foil and Embossed Miniature Sheet.

The 3rd "India Africa Forum summit" was held in New Delhi on 27th, 28th and 29th of October.  On the closing day of the summit, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi has released set of 7 stamps, a miniature sheet and India's first Hot foiled  "Innovative Miniature sheet".  All stamps in this Innovative Miniature sheet are embossed. 

The two Rhinos and Black Buck are made of Gun metal foil and the two Lions are Gold foiled and the Thomson Gazelle is a copper foiled one.

Earlier in January 2015, India Post has brought out India's First Miniature sheet with QR code. 

http://philateli.blogspot.in/2015/04/indias-first-miniatue-sheet-with-qr-code.html

Sochi Winter Olympics: Liechtenstein

Sochi, Russia is situated along the black sea is mainly covered with rocks such as Mesozoic and Cenozoic.  It was named Sochi in the year 1896 and got its city status in 1917.  During World War II, it served as a rehabilitation  center and at present it is the major resort town of Russia drawing millions of visitors annually, mostly during May to September. It is also the unofficial summer capital of Russia.





In 2007, Sochi won the bid to host the XXII Winter Olympic Games and Para Olympic Games and in 2014 it successfully conducted those two major events. This was the first time Russia had hosted Winter and Para Olympic Games after the dissolution of the Union of  Soviet Socialist Republic (USSR) in 1991. Sochi, Russia hosted the XXII Winter Olympic Games from 7th to 23rd February 2014. To commemorate this event Liechtenstein Post has issued a stamp on 11th November 2013.



The face value is 2.60 and the the name Liechtenstein are printed using the Silver Hot foil printing method. Stone originating from Sochi was powdered and mixed with paint and affixed  to the stamp using thermography process. Thermo means heat.  Using heat to create the letters or images on the desired surface is called thermography. Here the powdered rock is mixed with the paint and applied on the stamp paper and heat is used to affix that firmly on the stamp.  If you glide your fingers on dark blue colour place you can feel the powdered stone.

Crystallography : Swiss stamp

UNESCO has declared this year as a "International Year of Crystallography". UNESCO names every year according to certain theme. So focus will be on that particular theme for that year.  Usually scientific and environment related themes are selected. Crystallography plays key role in medicine, atomic structure etc.

To commemorate 2014, Swiss Post had issued two stamps on Crystallography on 6th March, 2014. To make it more special, these stamps are printed in Hot foil printing process. In Hot foil printing heat is used to transfer metallic foil to a solid surface.  Here silver foil is used to make the crystal design and the names of the crystals.

The 85 centime stamp has the picture of Epidote, a green colored mineral which is abundant in Switzerland and the 1 franc stamp has the picture of Amethyst, a quartz variety found almost everywhere.