Aland Islands - Think Green - Europa stamp

Susanna Mylly of Finland went on a tour to Aland Islands. Since Aland has issued 2 "Think Green" stamps in accordance with the Europa theme of this year,  I requested for the one which is different from the common one.  She was kind enough to send me the requested "Think Green" stamp with a special cancellation "Kastelholms Slott". Slott in Swedish means Castle, Kastelholms is the name of the district in Aland, where many historical events took place.  You can learn more interesting facts about it here. Thanks a lot Susanna Mylly, Nice addition to my "Around the world Cards and Covers Collection".

Card from Tenerife

I have recently received this card from Mali Tenerife from my friend, Woomik. Thanks Woomik for your help. 

I don't know why the postal department has stuck a sticker on the stamps and cancelled it.  Anybody has any idea Please let me know.  For us, the stamp collectors, the stamp side is more important than the card side.  I tried to peel the sticker, alas it is coming out with the stamps:-(.

Edit: Heard back from Woomik - seems like the card was posted from Tenerife and the cancellation mark is from Malta. And to make matters more interesting - the stamps used were from some private post company (!) - could that be the reason why the stamps were covered up at Malta? Intriguing... For now, I have decided against removing the stamps.

Hologram Miniature Sheet - Brazil

"The Bienal de Sao Paulo" is the Brazilian contemporary art foundation for the promotion of Art. It was founded in the year 1951 by Italian-Brazilian industrialist Ciccillo Matarazzo and the first exhibition happened in the year 1957.  It is the second oldest art biennial in the world next to the Venice biennial, which started way back in 1895.  In 1989, the foundation celebrated its 20th exhibition, and to commemorate this Brazil post issued a Hologram Miniature sheet.  The first stamp portrays "Lemons" by Danilo Di Prete, 2nd is "The Indian Suacuapara" by Brecheret and the third one is Francisco Matarazzo.   

The bottom half of the miniature sheet is a hologram one depicting the number "20" in between The Sao Paulo Biennial logo.  

To watch the video, please visit, https://www.instagram.com/p/CmOY2MdDtx5/

Scented Stamp - Spain

On 16th March,2016 On the Occasion of Easter (Semana Santa), Correos (Spain post) has released 4 stamps under the topic "Traditions and Customs".  Yolanda, who always send some interesting thing from Spain surprised me by using one of these stamps on the cute little Cat picture post card.  The uniqueness of this stamp is, it is incorporated with the smell of incense.  In her earlier mail she used the other scented stamp from this 4 stamp series.  Two more to go to complete this series.  Thanks Yolanda, My Spain's "Odd and Unique" stamps collection is growing with your surprises.

Earlier she sent me the "Charming Villages" and "Burnt effect on Stamp".

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.