COVER N. 286 - CHILE

Postmark: Concepcion  - Centro (?) - Caja 1 (?) 15.06.23

Posted on the 15th June; Received on the 26h July 2023

_________________________________________________________________________________

It is always a joy to open the letterbox to find mail from abroad in it. But I have to confess that to get a letter stamped with Christmas themed stamps in the middle of a scorching summer as the one we are all going through this year is rather strange...and yet, in the Southern Hemisphere it is winter time so I guess it all makes sense, after all  😀

Thank you so much Gonzalo, and if you don't mind me saying... Feliz Navidad 😀

No less than two Christmas stamps form different issues and a stamp featuring two truly splendid birds are included in the cover which also features a quite flashy air mail sticker as is the norm with the Chilean letters I have received.

so, from Left to right, as usual:

- Feliz Navidad (Merry Christmas), so reads the legend on the 2021 Christmas stamp issue of Correos Chile, which began to circulate in December 2021, illustrated with a drawing of the man in red busy at work in what I think is a Correios Chile mail distribution scooter.

- Chile's independence from Spain, auto-declared in 1810, was first acknowledged by the United States in 1822 and in 1823 President James Monroe named Heman Allen as Minister Plenipotentiary and Envoy Extraordinary to Chile, thus starting a solid diplomatic relationship that would endure to this day, 200 years past,  flourishing even when the country was governed by a brutal dictator responsible for the torture and death of thousands of Chilean citizens.

On 21JUL2023, Correos Chile issued the 550 Pesos stamp on the cover, celebrating the 200 years of diplomatic relations between the two countries which are symbolized  by their national birds, the Bald eagle, for the USA and the Andean condor for Chile, under the motto "Socios para un Futuro Mejor" (Partners for a Better Future).

On the background of the Stamp parabolic dishes  and a mountain range might be an evocation of the several radio telescope facilities existing in the Chilean Andes, but I am not sure about this. The base of the stamp features the name of both countries Chile and EE UU drawn in the colours of the respective flags.

Under the Condor and over the mountains there are two semi-circles with what I think is also a legend, but the characters are so tiny they just can't be read, not even with a magnifier.

- Merry Christmas is again the message on the 2022 Christmas stamp issue, in use since December 2022, featuring two families silhouetted against the light produced by a Christmas tree, quite different from our Northern hemisphere conifers that are usually used for this purpose.

The Postmark hails from Concepción, the third most populous city of the country, after the Capital Santiago and Valparaíso.