Tuesday, May 29, 2007

Stamps

Some countries have stamps I really like, and Sweden is one of those. They are often understated, elegant and so simple, and clean. Often with nature motives too, which I love. American stamps are more bold colored, even if they have nice nature stamps too. When I send letters to Sweden I try to put on as many nice stamps as possible, and not use the post office digital stamp machines.

Here are two examples of Swedish stamps, one reminding me of the Robert Frost poem about birches, and another in memory of Dan Andersson, a poet from 100 years ago that wrote about the poor in the northern forests ("a singer of darkness and homelessness") :

9 comments:

LS said...

Here is a link link to more recent Swedish stamps

O.K. said...

Ah, Czeslaw Slania! (First link in the post). I saw a documentary on him a few years ago, apparently the most productive engraver in the world with more than a thousand stamps from his hand. He was a humorous guy as well, placing his and his friends faces on persons on the stamps a few times...

It hits me now that collecting stamps might be one of the easiest and cheapest ways to have an extensive art collection, never really thought of it like that before. Most philatelists seems to focus on the collecting and organizing aspect though, at least as I have seen so far.

LS said...

Do you know that the little icon for Mail on the new Mac (OS X I think) is copied from a Swedish stamp - one with an eagle? It is true, do you think they had permission for that? I don't have a screenshot to show you right now.

O.K. said...

Do you mean this one?

Do you have a picture of the stamp? I'm not sure they need permission if they make their own interpretation of it.

One recent case here (in swedish).

LS said...

Yes, that stamp! I think all stamps are copyrighted, especially the Swedish and American ones.

LS said...

I can't find that stamp now, strange. But here is a list of Swedish bird stamps...

http://www.bird-stamps.org/country/sweden.htm

Olle said...

You have found some very nice Swedish stamps indeed - but I don't. I have the most boring ones you can imagine. The worst ones are for the Christmas cards - and that is when you really bother! Anyone, good to know that it is worth looking for them.

How is the rash? Hope you are alright again.
Olle

LS said...

Rash is getting worse. I wonder if there are any stamps with poison ivy? I doubt that. Or stamps with oil spills, pollution, or nuclear pwer plants.

O.K. said...

"There are very few examples of exceptions, but a few do exist. During a trip to Moscow, I came across two stamps that focused on environmental problems. One was a Chernobyl stamp printed in the late 1980s. Another was an ecology stamp that portrayed the drying up of the Aral Sea in (at that time) Soviet Central Asia. I was surprised to find that a government had actually immortalised some of its major environmental disasters on its postage stamps. What a novel idea."

http://www.environmenttimes.net/article.cfm?pageID=43