Today marks the 200th anniversary of the birth of one of the most well-loved storytellers of all time – Charles Dickens. The great 19th century English novelist and outspoken supporter of social reform will be remembered in a new set of British stamps to be issued by the Royal Mail in June this year featuring … Read more
‘His Bobness’ turns 70 today so to mark this landmark birthday I thought it might be fun to take a look at this set of Bob Dylan postage stamps issued by Gambia in 1996. The 1996 Bob Dylan ‘Rock & Roll Legends’ stamp is catalogued as Scott #1825 and was issued in attractive 16 stamp … Read more
The fifth edition of the International Rome Film Festival recently closed in Italy’s capital city and as with previous editions, the Italian Post Office (Poste Italiane) was present at the event selling special edition postage stamps that celebrate Italian cinema. This year they commemorated not one, but three icons of Italian cinema – film director … Read more
On this day 21 May, 1927, American aviator Charles A. Lindbergh made history when he successfully completed the first nonstop solo flight across the Atlantic Ocean. The transatlantic flight left from New York and landed in Paris and was made in the monoplane Spirit of Saint Louis and took about 33.5 hours to complete the … Read more
John F Kennedy, the thirty-fifth President of the United States was assassinated on this day – 22 November – in 1963. He was shot dead in Dallas, Texas, while riding in an open car, in a killing that sent shock waves across the entire world. Less than a year later on 29 May, 1964 the … Read more
This Bruce Lee miniature sheet was issued by Abkhazia for the China ’96 9th Asian International Philatelic Exhibition. China ’96 took place in Beijing from 18 May to 24 May 1996 and celebrated the 100th anniversary of the Modern Chinese Postal Service. The four stamps all feature an iconic image of Bruce Lee in a … Read more
With 19th century Japanese artists of the floating world very much in vogue this spring with two major exhibitions running in European capital cities at the moment – Utagawa Hiroshige in Rome and Utagawa Kuniyoshi in London – I thought I’d share this 1971 Hungarian postage stamp featuring the work of another master of Japanese … Read more
Darwin Day is a global celebration of science and reason held on or around February 12, the birthday anniversary of evolutionary biologist Charles Darwin. 2009 marks the 200th anniversary of Charles Darwin’s birth. In his On The Origin of Species, published in 1859, Darwin outlined how life evolved through natural selection over millions of years … Read more
Whilst the rest of the world took decades to begin to acknowledge the importance of the pioneering work of Sir Jagadish Chandra Bose (November 30, 1858 – November 23, 1937) a commemorative Indian postage stamp had been issued to celebrate the centenary of his birth in 1958 with a portrait of the Bengali polymath. He … Read more
On this day 20th May, in 1932, Amelia Earhart the American aviator, set off from Harbour Grace, Newfoundland on the first solo transatlantic flight by a woman! The flight lasted 14 hours, 56 minutes and she landed in a field in Culmore, north of Derry, Northern Ireland. This 8¢ U.S. Air Mail Stamp featuring the … Read more
Nobody living in Italy could have failed to notice that 2008 is the centenary year of the birth of one of Italy’s greatest and best loved actresses, Anna Magnani, with numerous television documentaries, exhibitions, DVD releases and book publications accompanying the event. Sadly, Nannarella as she was affectionately known in Italy, died in 1973 but … Read more
World leaders have always been an obvious choice as subjects on commemorative stamps but this stamp issued on 25 November, 1974 by Dominica on the occasional of the Centenary of Winston Churchill’s birth on 30th November, 1874 is unusual in the informality of the setting. The one-half cent issue pictures Winston Churchill at the Race … Read more
It probably won’t come as a surprise that I have a particular liking for small stamps that have the feel of the very first stamp – the Penny Black! This 4 cent US postage stamp featuring President Abraham Lincoln was issued on 19 November, 1965 as part of the Prominent Americans Issue between 1965 -1978 … Read more
More Italian stamps! This time a brand new souvenir sheet issued on 18 October 2007 with a print run of 2 million. I picked this up at the Poste Italiane stand at the Rome Film Festival. The set was designed by R Fantini and depicts three anniversaries of celebrated entertainment figures on three separate 60 … Read more
2007 has seen a series of anniversaries and celebrations – the pilgrimage to Memphis by Elvis fans from around the world on the 30th anniversary of his death and the concert held at Wembley Stadium to celebrate Princess Diana’s birthday in the year of the 10th anniversary of her passing were major media events. Last … Read more