POSTCARD N.81 - GERMANY

Postcrossing postcard sent on the 19th June; received on the 23rd June

Postcard image: The Krefeld Port on the Rhine, Uerdingen district 

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Germany is one of the countries in the world with more registered postcrossing users, so it comes as no surprise that of all the postcrossing postcards I get, a good deal comes from the land of the fabled October Fest.

That was the case with this postcard with a view of the port of Krefeld, for which I have to thank Anna.

The Rhine river is a real waterway as far as navigation is concerned. the second longest river in central Europe after the Danube, it crosses the central part of the continent in a South/North trajectory. I took a look at a map of the port system on the Rhine, and in between  Switzerland, where it begins its journey, in the Swiss Alps, France and  Germany, there are 18 main ports on it, before it splits into the lower Rhine and the Waal, on its way to its estuary on the cost of the Netherlands, where it finally meets the Northern sea.

The  Krefeld port was inaugurated in 1906 and, in 2009, it processed 5.5 million tons of cargo, a figure that quite illustrates the economic importance the port plays for the North Rhine-Westphalia region that it serves as an import/export interface.

stamps, left to right :

On 01MAR2018, Deutsche Post issued a two stamp set with face values of 0,70€ and 0,90€ in a lovely souvenir sheet dedicated to the famous creation of Charles Schulz, The Peanuts,  that first saw the light of day in 1950 and would go on to be published until the 3rd January 2000, in newspapers all around the world. The 0,90 € stamp on my postcard features some of the main characters of the series, (L to R: Sally Brown, Lucy van Pelt, Snoopy, Linus van Pelt and Charlie Brown), while the 0,70 € is illustrated with an image of little Woodstock and Snoopy.

The 0,05 € stamp is part of the "World of the letter" definitive set, issued on 02_DEC2021. This set is composed of 5 stamps with 0,5€; 0,85€;  1€; 1,60€; 2,75€ denominations, respectively illustrated by images showing letters as lotus flower; bird; ship; kite and boat by lighthouse.

The machine applied cancellation includes the vignette  "Gemeinsam Gegen Corona sich selbst und andere Scützen..." (Together against Corona, protect yourself and the others...)  that began to be machine applied on correspondence in Germany on the 1st June 2021, although it shows a different rectangular format than the previous square format I was familiar with, no doubt indicating the use of  a different postmarking machine model.