COVER N.104 - SWEDEN

Postmark:  - ? - 15-04.22 
Posted on the 15th April  received on the 26th April 2022
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I don't know why, but Sweden is not a country that I would immediately associate with trains, so I went and did some research and ... 15 600kms of train lines in all of Sweden... man, that's quite a lot!

All this was prompted by the cover I received from Sweden this week. Thank you so much Arne!

It struck me a bit odd that the cover would come with this huge label glued onto its face with the words Filatelistämplat Brev, which I would think would translate into Philatelic Letter, This would suposedly be an alert for the post office to handle it with care, but having it glued onto the cover is probably not the best solution. 

Stamps

The main stamps on the cover are a pair form the  five self-adhesive stamps, with no face value,  set issued on 07NOV2019, dedicated to Swedish train stations. The stations depicted on the lovely wintery images are, on the left side stamp, Järle, and on the right side one, Haparanda. 

Czesław Słania, whose century of birth was commemorated last year was the world's most prolific stamp engraver, with over 1000 stamps engraved in exquisitely minute detail for a plethora of postal administration. he also engraved many banknotes including for my own country.

The pair of 25 öre stamps with the effigy of Carl Jonas Love Almqvist were also engraved by him. The set issued on 26SEP1966 comprises also a 1 Krona stamp. 

Carl Jonas Love Almqvist was a writer  and composer, who one could say was in a way an avant la lettre hippie. he led what we could think of as a community fashion according to the principles of Jean Jacques Rousseau for a couple of years and in his works he questions morality, conventional marriage, sex orientation, Lutheranism... this might not sound that strange but takes a completely new meaning if we consider that Almqvist lived  between 1793 and 1886.