Here is a cute cartoon from today’s Sunday Seattle Times.
(A reference to Russian physiologist Ivan Pavlov’s experiments with classical conditioning.)
Sunday/ Pavlov’s dogs 🐶
Saturday 😼
Here is an update that has Alice, the Mad Hatter, the Caterpillar, the Marsh Hare and the White Rabbit.
Monday 12/9: All done. The tree was a lot harder to do than I thought it would be. The little pink flowers inside the top corners were the last pieces to go in. All in all, it was a lot of fun— but I think I will go back to a painting or a landscape scene for my next puzzle.
Friday/ the Queen of Hearts 💕
Don’t you draw the Queen of Diamonds, boy
She’ll beat you if she’s able
You know the Queen of Hearts is always your best bet
Now, it seems to me some fine things
Have been laid upon your table
But you only want the ones that you can’t get
– Lyrics from ‘Desperado’ (1973) by The Eagles
Happy Friday.
There it is: the pieces for the Alice in Wonderland puzzle, spread all over my dining room table for me to pore over them.
I have a long way to go, but the toothy grin of the Cheshire Cat is done, the clock faces are done, the ill-tempered Queen of Hearts is almost done, and I have the houndstooth trousers of Tweedledum and Tweedledee are in place.
I guess I should knuckle down and complete the frame.
Wednesday/ Danish stamps, the last 🇩🇰
Here is the final installment of the batch of Danish stamps on my envelope!
1983 The 200th Anniversary of the Birth of Poet N.F.S. Grundtvig
Issued Nov. 3, 1983
Perf. 12¾ | Design: Jane Muus | Issued in sheets of 50 | Engraving: Czeslaw Slania | No watermark
747 A232 2.5Kr Brown red | N.F.S. Grundtvig, Poet
1987 The 100th Anniversary of the Danish Cooperative Bacon Factories
Issued Jun. 18, 1987
Perf. 12¾ | Design: Bente Olesen Nystrom | Issued in sheets of 50 | Engraving: Arne Kühlmann | No watermark
841 A289 3.80Kr Multicolored | Domesticated pigs (Sus scrofa domesticus)
1992 EUROPA Stamps – The 500th Anniversary of the Discovery of America
Issued May 7, 1992
Perf. 12¾ | Design: Niels Winkel | Issued in sheets of 50 | Litho. & Engr. | Engraving: Martin Mörch | No watermark
959 A342 3.50Kr Brown & green | Potato plant* (Solanum tuberosum)
*I’m not 100% sure why the potato is significant to this anniversary. The first permanent potato patches on US soil were established in 1719 near Londonderry, New Hampshire by Scotch-Irish immigrants.
1989 Nordic Cooperation Issue
Issued Apr. 20, 1989
Perf. 12¾ | Design: Birgit Forchhammer | Issued in sheets of 50 | Litho. & Engr. | Engraving: Arne Kühlmann | No Watermark
868 A312 3.20Kr Multicolored | Woman from Valby
1984 “Plant a Tree” Campaign
Issued Jan. 26, 1984
Perf. 12¾ | Design: Tage Stentoft | Issued in sheets of 50 | Litho. & Engr.|Engraving: Arne Kühlmann | No Watermark
749 A234 2.70Kr Red & green | Shovel and sapling
1982 The 500th Anniversary of the University Library
Issued Nov. 4, 1982
Perf. 12¾ | Design: Lisbeth Gasparski | Issued in sheets of 50 |Engraving: Arne Kühlmann | No Watermark
731 A221 2.70Kr Multicolored | Library Seal
[Sources: stampworld.com, Scott 2012 Standard Postage Stamp Catalogue, Vol. 2]
1986 The 400th Anniversary of the Foundation of the Sorø Academy
Issued Apr. 28, 1986
Perf. 12¾ | Design: Birgit Forchammer | Issued in sheets of 50 | Litho. & Engr. |Engraving: Czeslaw Slania | No Watermark
816 A269 2.80Kr Multicolored | Sorø Academy and Heraldry
1981 EUROPA Stamps – Folklore
Issued May 4, 1981
Perf. 12¾ | Design: Palle Pio | Issued in sheets of 50 | Litho. & Engr. |Engraving: Czeslaw Slania | No Watermark
680 A208 1.60Kr Brown red | Tilting at a Barrel on Shrovetide
1985 The 300th Anniversary of the German and French Reform Church in Denmark
Issued Jan. 24, 1985
Perf. 12¾ | Design: Mads Stage | Issued in sheets of 50 | Litho. & Engr. |Engraving: Czeslaw Slania | No Watermark
769 A249 2.80Kr Magenta | Reformed Church (Reformert Kirke) in Copenhagen
1982 EUROPA Stamps – Historic Events
Issued May 3, 1982
Perf. 12¾ | Design: Jane Muus | Issued in sheets of 50 |Engraving: Czeslaw Slania | No Watermark
723 A215 2.00Kr Magenta | Abolition of Adcsription*
*Adscription means the state of being added, bound, or annexed.
[Sources: stampworld.com, Scott 2012 Standard Postage Stamp Catalogue, Vol. 2]
Tuesday/ more stamps from Denmark 🇩🇰
1983 The 200th Anniversary of the Birth of Painter C.W. Eckersberg
Issued Nov. 3, 1983
Perf. 12¾ | Design: Birgit Forchhammer | Issued in sheets of 50 | Engraving: Arne Kühlmann | No Watermark
748 A233 2.50Kr Brown red | Street scene by C.W. Eckersberg
1983 EUROPA Stamps – Inventions
Issued May 5, 1983
Perf. 12¾ | Design: Lars Klint | Issued in sheets of 50 | Engraving: Czeslaw Slania | No Watermark
739 A227 3.50Kr Blue/ greenish blue | Proposal for Øresund Bridge, across Øresund strait to Sweden (the Sound)*
*Ideas for a fixed link across the Øresund strait were advanced as early as the first decade of the 20th century. Almost a century later, a cable-stayed bridge was finally constructed (from 1995-1999), opening in Jul. 2000.
1985 United Nations Decade for Women
Issued Jun. 27, 1985
Perf. 12¾ | Design: Hans Bendix | Issued in sheets of 50 | Lithography & Engraving |Engraving: Arne Kühlmann | No Watermark
779 A257 3.80Kr Multicolored | Cyclist
1983 Nordic Cooperation Issue
Issued Mar. 24, 1983
Perf. 12¾ | Design: C. Achton Friis | Issued in sheets of 50 |Engraving: Czeslaw Slania | No Watermark
735 A225 2.50Kr Brown & red | Egeskov Castle (opened 1554), Kværndrup, Denmark
[Sources: stampworld.com, Scott 2012 Standard Postage Stamp Catalogue, Vol. 2]
Monday/ stamps from Denmark 🇩🇰
The Ebay seller in Denmark that mailed my latest acquisition of South African stamps, pasted a whole mini-collection of Danish stamps on the envelope.
Here are the first ones.
I will post more tomorrow.
1950 Wavy Lines Stamp (Redesigned)
Issued Sep. 21, 1950
Perf. 12¾ | Design: Johannes Britze & Julius Møller | Issued in sheets of 100 | Engraving: H. H. Thiele, Copenhagen | No Watermark
318 A32 10 Øre Green | Redesign of the original 1905 stamps*
*These “Wavy Lines” stamps are the oldest stamp series in Denmark still in production, and second oldest in the world after Norway’s “Post Horn” stamps.
History of the Wavy Lines stamp
A public competition was held in 1902 to find a new stamp design that was simple to understand and easy to print.
Architect Julius Therchilsen came up with the winning design.
Most of the elements in his design were derived from the Danish coat of arms: the lions, crown and hearts. Three broken wavy lines on the stamp represent the three main waterways in Denmark.
Printing of the new stamps began in 1905 by H.H Thieles bogtrykkeri in Copenhagen with the 2, 3 and 4 øre stamps. These were made using the letterpress method. The stamps were very popular and were reissued over the years in increasing values and varying colours, to keep up with inflation.
Source: stamps.mybalconyjungle.com
1982 EUROPA Stamps – Historic Events
Issued May 3, 1982
Perf. 12¾ | Design: Jane Muus | Issued in sheets of 50 | Engraving: Czeslaw Slania | No watermark
724 A215 2.7Kr Blue | Women’s Suffrage 1915*
*Women in Denmark gained the right to vote on 5 June 1915.
1989 Tourism Industry
Issued Feb. 16, 1989
Perf. 12¾ | Design: Ponsaing | Issued in sheets of 100 | Engraving: Arne Kühlmann | No watermark
865 A309 3.20Kr Dark green | The Little Mermaid, sculpture by Edvard Eriksen
1988 Individual Speedway World Motorcycle Championship in Denmark
Issued Jun. 16, 1988
Perf. 12¾ | Design: Jørn Fabricius | Issued in sheets of 50 | Lithography | No watermark
856 A302 4.10Kr Multicolored | Motorcyclists at Vojens Speedway Center
[Sources: stampworld.com, Scott 2012 Standard Postage Stamp Catalogue, Vol. 2]
Sunday/ the lion’s share 🦁
Here’s December.
This cartoon is from South African Sunday paper Rapport.
The lion is Black Friday.
The vulture is Christmas.
The hyena is Janu-worry, and says “I say! Leave a little something for us.”
[Cartoon by Dr. Jack, published in Rapport newspaper].
Monday/ †Breyten Breytenbach (1939-2024) 🖋
I need to die before I’m dead
when my heart is still fertile and red
before I eat the darkened soil of doubt
give me two lips
and bright ink for tongue
to write the earth
one vast love letter
swollen with the milk of mercy
– From the poem ‘Rebel Song’ by Breyten Breytenbach
‘Breytenbach was a political dissenter against the ruling National Party and its white supremacist policy of apartheid in the early 1960s. He was a founding member of the dissident literary movement of Afrikaner writers, the Sestigers in 1961, and participated in protests against the exclusion of black youth from educational pathways’.
[Picture and text from Wikipedia]
Breytenbach wrote mostly in Afrikaans, but also in English. He was a fierce critic of apartheid as he embarked on his long and illustrious career, as a writer that would redefine the Afrikaans literary landscape.
In 1960, Breytenbach left South Africa under a self-imposed exile.
After a two-year tour of Europe, he settled in France (he later became a French citizen).
In 1962 he married a French woman of Vietnamese ancestry, Yolande: a criminal act under South African law at the time.
The Prohibition of Mixed Marriages Act of 1949 and Immorality Act (1950) made it a criminal offence for a person to have any sexual relations with a person of a different race.
In 1975, Breytenbach was arrested in South Africa after travelling there on a false passport. His intention was to help black Africans organize trade unions, and to recruit members for a branch of the African National Congress (ANC) for white people. He sentenced to nine years’ imprisonment for high treason, the first two in solitary confinement in in Pretoria Central Prison’s maximum security wing. He was released after seven years, thanks to a campaign led by former French President Francois Mitterand.
In 1984, his memoir The True Confessions of an Albino Terrorist was published, describing aspects of his imprisonment.
Sunday/ watch out, turkeys 🦃
Thanksgiving is coming (Thursday).
Here is a cartoon from the Sunday Seattle Times, by Dave Blazek.
(Axe on the left 😱).
Friday/ we’re all mad here 🤪
The Cheshire Cat to Alice: “Oh, you can’t help that,” said the Cat: “we’re all mad here. I’m mad. You’re mad.”
Alice: “How do you know I’m mad?”
The Cheshire Cat: “You must be,” said the Cat, “or you wouldn’t have come here.”
– From Lewis Carroll’s book ‘Alice in Wonderland’ ( 1865)
Happy Friday.
It’s time for another 1,000-piece puzzle for me, and I ordered one from Amazon, called ‘Most Everyone is Mad*’ by the puzzle maker Ravensburger.
*Mad: completely unrestrained by reason and judgment; unable to think in a clear or sensible way (definition by Merriam-Webster).
Thursday/ Oh Canada 🍁
These stamps from Canada were on an envelope that had arrived from an Ebay seller.
Issued Apr. 28, 1965
Perf. 12 | Recess printing | No watermark
981 441 5c Red-brown, deep bluish-green and mauve | Prairie Crocus and Arms of Manitoba
[Source: 1997 Stanley Gibbons Stamp Catalogue, Part 1 British Commonwealth, stampworld.com]
Issued May 29, 1980
Perf. 12½ | Litho printing by Ashton Potter | No watermark
979 440 17c Gold and ultramarine | “Helping hand”
[Source: 1997 Stanley Gibbons Stamp Catalogue, Part 1 British Commonwealth, stampworld.com]
Issued Jun. 6, 1980
Perf. 12½ | Litho printing by Ashton Potter | No watermark
981 441 17c Multicolored | Calixa Lavallee (Composer), Adolphe-Basile Routhier (Original Writer) and Robert Stanley Weir (writer of English Version)
[Source: 1997 Stanley Gibbons Stamp Catalogue, Part 1 British Commonwealth, stampworld.com]
Perf. 13×12½ | Se-tenant pair, part of a strip of four | Raymond Bellemare Engraving: British American Bank Note Company, Ottawa | No watermark
1015 454 17c Multicolored | Canada in 1905
1015 454 17c Multicolored | Canada since 1949
[Source: 1997 Stanley Gibbons Stamp Catalogue, Part 1 British Commonwealth, stampworld.com]
Issued Oct. 19, 2010
Perf. 13×13¼ | Issued in souvenir sheet of 5 |Keith Martin Engraving: Cie canadienne des billets de banque | No watermark
2623 7c Multicolored | Large Milkweed bug (Oncopeltus fasciatus)
2625 9c Multicolored | Dogbane Beetle (Chrysocus auratus)
[Source: stampworld.com]
Tuesday/ going home 🛫
The time came to bid Beantown goodbye on Tuesday afternoon, and fly back to the Pacific Northwest.
There was a rainstorm with strong winds as we made our final approach into SeaTac Airport, which made for a rough landing, but once we started taxiing on the runway, everything was OK.
Pictures:
Looking up while waiting for my Uber driver on Main Street across from the MIT campus in Cambridge; in Uber car in the Ted Williams Tunnel again; at the gate at Boston Logan airport (dry and calm); arriving at the gate at Seattle-Tacoma airport (wet and stormy); restaurant PF Chang’s dragon at Seattle-Tacoma airport’s North Terminal.
Monday/ the MIT Museum 🧬
The MIT Museum, founded in 1971, is part of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Cambridge. It hosts collections of holography, technology-related artworks, artificial intelligence, architecture, robotics, maritime history, and the history of MIT. [Source: Wikipedia]
Tuesday/ written in 1895 🖋
I don’t collect whole pieces of mail (such as envelopes, first day covers and post cards), but I found this post card that was for sale on Ebay impossible to resist.
The card was mailed in 1895, in Johannesburg, City of Gold, ‘El Dorado’ for real— founded only nine years prior, in 1886. (In that year the Witwatersrand Gold Rush started, which led to the establishment of Johannesburg).
Just a few years earlier still, the outcome of the First Boer War (1880-81) had led to the temporary independence of the South African Republic (‘Zuid-Afrikaanse Republiek’) from the British Empire.
Monday/ Veterans Day 🎖️
Happy Veterans Day to all military veterans of the United States Armed Forces.
Issue Date: October 13, 1990
City: Abilene, KS
Quantity: 142,692,000
Printed By: American Bank Note Company
Printing Method: Photogravure
Perforations: 11
Color: Multicolored
Dwight D. Eisenhower’s official presidential portrait is featured on this stamp honoring the 100th anniversary of his birth.
The background pictures him overseeing his troops in his capacity as five-star general.
A circlet of five stars distinguishes that title.
[Source: mysticstamp.com]
Saturday/ squares ⬜
Here’s a sneak preview of the public art installation at the junction of 14th Avenue and Madison Street on Capitol Hill.
(Is it a time machine? Can I enter the big square and emerge four years into the future at the far end?).
Even though it’s only 5:20 pm in the picture, night has already cast its inky blacks.
Thursday/ stamp therapy ✉️
I still have shoeboxes full of South African stamps on paper cutouts, and I dunk them batch by batch into water to separate the stamp from the paper.
Those that have nice postmarks on (place name and date), I keep on the paper, though.
Below is such a page.
Some of these postmarks belong completely to history.
The cities and towns that they denote have been renamed in recent years.
Issued Jul. 15, 1982
Perf. 14½x14, 14×14½ | Litho. and Recess Printing | No watermark
564 A229 1c Brown (’84) | Old Provost, Grahamstown
566 A229 2c Green | Tuynhuys, Cape Town
574 A229 8c Intense Blue (’83) | Leeuwenhof, Cape Town
576 A229 10c Light red-brown | City Hall, Pietermaritzburg
578 A229 11c Cerise (’84) | City Hall, Kimberley
579 A229 12c Deep Ultramarine (’85) | City Hall, Port Elizabeth
580 A229 14c Rose brown (’86) | Johannesburg City Hall
(Note- Only the stamps in the picture are listed here; several others were issued as part of the fourth definitive series).
[Source: 2021 Scott Standard Postage Stamp Catalogue, Vol. 6A]
Postmarks:
ADELAIDE, HEIDELBERG, BEAUFORT WEST, WESTONARIA, BRANDFORT (Winnie Mandela since 2021), BENONI, ESTCOURT, BOKSBURG, FOCHVILLE, GRAHAMSTOWN (now also known as Makhanda), ALBERTON, KROONSTAD, KING WILLIAM’S TOWN (Qonce since 2021), NIGEL, PIETERMATIZBURG, PORT SHEPSTONE, POTCHEFSTROOM, QUEENSTOWN (Komani since 2016), SASOLBURG, STRAND, SPRINGS (now part of the City of Ekurhuleni), SOMERSET WEST, THBAZIMBI, VANDERBIJLPARK, LICHTENBURG, WORCESTER.
Saturday/ unity makes strength 🪙
It was November of 1899 in colonial Africa— in what is called South Africa today.
The Second Boer War had already started, on October 11.
The British government had rejected an ultimatum issued by the Boer republics of the Transvaal and Orange Free State.
The republics had demanded the withdrawal of British troops from their borders, primarily due to growing tensions caused by the discovery of gold in the Transvaal (Johannesburg today) and the influx of British “Uitlander” (foreigner) miners who were denied political rights by the Boer government.
The mint, where the republics produced gold coins for 1899, soon learned that the Kruger Pound dies for the 1899 coins were intercepted by the British in then-Lourenzo Marques in Mozambique (Maputo, today).
On the 2nd day of November 1899 at 10.30am, a single figure 9 was stamped at the bottom of the President’s bust on an 1898 coin, slightly overlapping the design. The coin is known today as ‘the single nine counterstamp’ or simply the ‘Single 9’, and is South Africa’s only one-of-a-kind coin.
Republic gold “9” Pond 1898 MS63 Prooflike NGC, Pretoria mint, KM-Unl., Hern-ZP6.
The indisputable ‘unicorn coin’ in the entire South African series, the “Single 9 Overstamp” 1898 Pond remains unchallenged in its exclusive solitude. A distinct variant of the 130-piece “99” Pond issue, the “Single 9” Pond reportedly changed hands in a private sale in 2010, for a value documented as “multi-million Rand” by Hern. Other industry sources detail a more precise figure of ZAR 20,000,000, which was the equivalent of US$ 2,700,000 at the average 2010 exchange rate. Possibly selected as the candidate for the overstamping for its gleaming ‘Prooflike’ appearance, this rarified treasure has been the prime target of South African experts for over a century.
Translation: ‘Zuid-Afrikaansche Republiek’ is ‘South African Republic’ (an area north of the Vaal River and south of the Limpopo River and not to be confused with ‘Republic of South Africa’, which is all of modern-day South Africa and which came about only in May 1961, after the Union of South Africa gained its independence from Great Britain).
The figure on the coin is President Paul Kruger, the leading figure in the movement to restore the South African Republic’s independence, culminating in the Boers’ victory in the First Boer War of 1880–1881. Kruger served until 1883 as a member of an executive triumvirate, then was elected President of the South African Republic.
*In absolute dollar terms. When adjusted for inflation, the early 1980s is still the peak for gold, at some $3,200 per ounce in inflation-adjusted dollars.
Translation: ‘Eendragt Maakt Mag’ means ‘Unity makes strength’.
Wednesday/ a sinking ship 🛳️
Some 50 million voters have already cast their ballots for the 2024 US Elections (one third of the electorate).
I came across this stamp in my shoebox with on-paper stamps today.
Issued Mar. 18, 1994 by Transkei, from the final set of stamps issued by Transkei*
Perf. 14½ x14 | Litho. | No watermark
301 A62 85c |Multicolored | Oceanos**, 1991
*Transkei was a self-governing tribal homeland in South Africa from 1976 to 1994 in the Eastern Cape province. Transkei ceased to exist on Apr. 27, 1994. It was reincorporated into the Republic of South Africa after the 1994 national election.
**MTS Oceanos was a French-built and Greek-owned cruise ship that sank in 1991 off the coast of South Africa when she suffered uncontrolled flooding.
Friends of my parents were on the ship as she was going under 😱, and came away on a lifeboat with nothing other than the clothes that they had been wearing.
[Sources: Scott Standard Postage Stamp Catalog, Vol. 6A, Wikipedia]
Wednesday/ mail from Maryland 🇺🇸
There was mail from Maryland in my mailbox today.
The cancellation says that ‘As in past elections, the USPS is ready. If you choose to vote by mail, please mail early.’
(Early voting has started in some states, and here in Washington State we will get our mail-in ballots by Friday, or by early next week).
Let’s check out the stamps.
Issued Nov. 18, 1999
Perf. 11½| Offset, Intaglio printing | Wmk. None
No 3321| 33c| Multi-colored | 1970s Fashion
1984 Horace Moses
Issued Aug. 6, 1984
Perf. 11 |Engraved printing (combination press) |Wmk. None
No 1845| 20c| Orange & dark brown | Junior Achievement founder, Horace Moses
[Sources: stampworld.com, mysticstamp.com]