COVER N. 762 - BENIN

Postmark: Comè 14.0?.2026

Posted on 14th ?;  Received on the 18th August 2026

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Getting mail in one's letterbox from such uncommon origins as Benin is always a motive for great joy, this being only the second time this Western Africa country is featured on the blog. 

A basketful of heartfelt Mercis goes out to Roland, who made sure I was included in such a great circuit and also to fellow member of the LCC, Marie-José, and to her kind friend who made it all possible.

The stamp on the cover is a curious one because it seems to have been originally issued as a Postage Due stamp in 1978, when the country was still named République Populaire du Benin, as part of a two stamp set, illustrated with images highlighting mail distribution services in the country by bicycle (60 Franc) and by river canoe (80f).

In 1990 it would again be issued with the new official name of the country - République du Benin - overprinted in black.

Somewhere in time, the stamp was again re-issued,  with the legend "Timbre Taxe"  and the face value of 60 franc blocked in black and a  surcharge for the new face value, which is now 600 Franc, this being the version used on the cover.

The stamps on this set are very much "French" in design, being bi-colour and recess printed. Pretty beautiful stamps if I may say so. Pity the overprinting hiding so much detail...

Postmark from Comé, a town in the south-west of tyhe country.

COVER N. 759 - CHINA

POSTCARD N.244
Postcard image: Longmen Ancient Town

Postmark: ? 23.07.2024

Posted on 23rd July;  Received on the 14th August 2026

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Another Postcrossing postcard received in a large envelope from China. 谢谢, mfx.

Mfx wrote that the village in the photo on the nice blue hour photo on the card was more than a 1000 years old. I did a bit of research and with the help of Google translator I managed to identify the town as the  Longmen Ancient Town, in the city of Hangzhou, province of Zhejiang.

The pre-stamped envelope features an illustration of an old lake side village  with a legend that Google translated as "18th letter writing contest for the youth". 

On the back, 2009 is also printed, so I presume that the envelope dates from that year. The pre-printed 2.40 Yuan stamp shows a child holding on to a carp.

Postage was competed with:

- a 1.20 Yuan stamp from a set of seven (0,80; 5 x1.20; 1.50 Yuan) issued on  21JUN2014, illustrated with images evoking "The Dream of the Red Chamber" a novel written in the 18th-century by Cao Xueqin, considered to be one of the great classics of Chinese literature.

- a 40 fen stamp from a set of four (40 fen; 1; 2; 4.20 Yuan), issued on 12MAY2016, from the series Beautiful China. It is illustrated with a photo of Mu Dan Jiang (Snow Town), in the province of Heilongjiang, famous for its mushroom shaped houses, which can be seen on the photograph, all covered in snow.

POSTCARD N.245 - SOUTH KOREA

Postcrossing postcard dated of 24 July; received on the 18th August 2026

Postcard image: Sea of Mukho

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A minimalist photo of a rather solitary off shore lighthouse in a calm sea, in Mukho, Donghae, South Korea. 감사합니다 ,Yerin!

I don't know why - maybe it's just the shape of the lighthouse - but I feel there is almost a Sci-Fi look in this simple yet effective shot, that I find quite attractive.

Yerin tells me that the stamp features a character from Princess Catch! Teenieping, a very popular 

South Korean animated children's television series. I tried to identify the character in the stamp, but there are so many of them (and to my untrained eye, some look so similar to one another) that I simply gave up...

The postmark hails from Nowon, one of the 25 districts of Seoul, South Korea's Capital.

COVER N. 760 - INDONESIA

Postmark Kantor Filateli Jakarta

Posted on 7th July;  Received on the 18th August 2026

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This has to mean something.... maybe I should buy a lottery ticket...

Typewriters are now the sort of device that fills the exhibition shelves of museums alongside other once ubiquitous  artefacts like audio cassettes or desk telephones.

And yet, in the space of 4 days I received two letters addressed with a mechanical typewriter,  from places so distant one from the other as Spain and Indonesia. 

Terima kasih banyak Virna, I really liked to see the care you put in composing the envelope and I am also glad to see that there are  some typewriters that refuse to go mute...

As far as I could investigate, the Four Nations Stamp Show is a philatelic event that takes place every 4 years in one of the participating countries: Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore and Thailand.

The first exhibition took place in Bandung, Indonesia, between   27  May and 1 June 2014 - and it marked the celebration of the 150th anniversary of first Indonesian stamp.

On the occasion of the Stamp show,  Pos Indonesia issued, on 27May2014, a souvenir sheet with four 5000 Rupiah stamps illustrated with images of the Javan Leopard (Panthera pardus melas), a  species endemic to Java which is now categorised by IUCN as endangered. The stamps also included the World Wildlife Fund logo.

Printed alongside the stamps, the sheet included the event logo and the legend "Four Nations Stamp Show Bandung 2014 - 27 may - 1 June 2014".

Virna used an imperforated version of the souvenir sheet, without the show logo,  which I suppose must have been issued on the same date.

Postmark from the Philatelic Bureau of Jakarta, Indonesia's Capital.

COVER N. 758 - CANADA
POSTCARD N.243
Postcard image: Northern Ligfhts on Summit Peak Trail, Stone Mountain provincial Park

Postmark: None

Posted on ?;  Received on the 14th August 2026

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Daylin sends me a Postcrossing postcard inside a curious envelope made of pretty uncommon paper since it is obtained from Elephant poop fibbers, in Thailand...  quite singular,... Thanks Daylin.

Unfortunately, the envelope isn't postmarked, what if anything, only accentuates what I feel about Canada Post "From Far and Wide" definitive series stamps: outstanding places, beautiful photographs, but minuscule stamps, that should be viewed under a magnifier.... or, better yet, a microscope, for even though the stamp carries a legend indicating what is the place in the photograph, it just can't be read without that kid of device...

Anyway, the image on the stamp is that of Qarlinngua Sea Arch, Nunavut, a 50 meter tall natural rock formation located on the Brodeur Peninsula of Baffin Island, Canada's largest island, in the Canadian Territory of Nunavut. 

The stamp is part of a set of four issued on 13JAN2025 (1.44; 1.75; 2.61;3.65 Canadian Dollars). The four stamps are new and higher face value reprints of part of the "From Far and Wide" series issue of 2024, which comprised 9 values.

The postcard Daylin sent features a very nice photo of the northern lights, taken in Stone Mountain Provincial Park in British Columbia.

I was about to write that this is the sort of image that I have always aspired to capture but cannot, due to my being so down south, but as it turns out, in the last two years  northern lights were seen in the north of Portugal (redder and much dimmer than in the photo, but still...) so maybe I will be able to watch and shoot them one of these days 😂

Of course I can always go to Canada... 

 

POSTCARDS N.241/2 - SRI LANKA

Postcard dated of 4 August; received on the 14th August 2026

Postcard image: Fauna of Minneriya National Park - Black naped hare / Yellow striped chevrotain

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Thanks to Ravi, my letterbox was populated with some rather kind looking wild mammals. Bohoma sthuthi, friend.

Black naped hare (Lepus nigricollis)

 Yellow striped chevrotain (Moschiola Kathygre)

Minneriya National Park occupies an 8.9 thousand hectares area in the centre of the North Central Province of Sri Lanka and before it became a National Park in 1997, it already enjoyed Protected area status as a wildlife sanctuary, since 1938.

According to Wikipedia, the park is home to 24 species of mammals, 160 species of birds, 9 species of amphibians, 25 species of reptiles, 26 species of fish, and 75 species of butterflies

On 26JUN2025 Sri Lanka Post issues a very beautiful set of 10 stamps, all of the same denomination (50 Rupees) dedicated to the wild fauna of  Minneriya National Park (cf. covers #614/5/6)  and I presume postcards of all the animals depicted in the stamps were also issued with a view to th creation of maxicards.

Ravi now sent me two of those, using for postage the corresponding stamps in the aforementioned set. The animals depicted in the card and stamps are:

- Black naped hare (Lepus nigricollis)

 A common species of hare, native to the Indian subcontinent, and Java.

- Yellow striped chevrotain (Moschiola Kathygre). 

This small mouse-deer, about the size of a domestic cat, of nocturnal habits, was only described as a new species in 2005. Further to Sri Lanka it can also be found in  India, Myanmar, and Thailand,

On both cards postage was completed with a 20 rupee stamp with a image of a Pale Ceylon line blue, (Nacaduba sinhala), a butterfly of the Lycaenidae family, endemic to Sri Lanka. 

This stamp is part of the 12 stamp issue dated of 01DEC2022, themed on Butterflies of Sri Lanka, that Ravi had also sent me and was the subject of posts regarding covers # 343/4/5.

Postmark from the Sri Lanka Post Headquarters at Colombo, as usual.

COVER N. 757 - FRANCE

Postmark: 58 Clamecy Nièvre  11.08.2026

Posted on the 11th August;  Received on the 14th August 2026

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Another example of this year's EUROPA common design stamp, this time from France. 

Un gros Merci, Jean-Pierre.

Even though it is always a pleasure to receive mail with EUROPA  stamps on the envelopes, I would much prefer that PostEurope would have kept to the usual common theme instead of the common design approach.

Anyway, as my father used to say, "não vale a pena chorar sobre o leite derramado" (it is useless to cry over spilled milk) and I might as well forget my pains and concentrate on the half-full side of the bottle, to note how well the colourful printed selvedge goes with the equally colourful composition that serves as common design for this year's issue, in the French iteration of the stamp.

As usual with Jean-Pierre's covers, the postmark was applied at Clamecy, a town with a population of about 3600 inhabitants, part of the Nièvre Department, in Central France.