COVER N. 424 - CZECH REPUBLIC

Postmark:  Philip J. Currie 75 let Philovenator curriei Praha 1 13.03.2024 

Posted on the 13th March; received on the 18th March 2024

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The Phantom has agents.... only as such can he be everywhere anytime.... I now know this secret to be true, since I received a cover sent from Prague when the Ghost who walks was in Germany.... so much for his secret.... ahahahahaha... you can't escape Poirot....(heck... he was Belgium, wasn't he?... no problem, a lot of Portuguese guys also wear a moustache....)

Anyway, The Phantom pestered his kind mother asking her to go through the trouble of going to the Post Office while away, and all this to send a cover to a stranger. I'm very thankful to Mrs. Pilz for her kind and generous gesture. Hope it did not take too much of her time. Danke sehr!

The cover has a very nice pictorial cancellation, but one that raises a bit of a mystery...

The stamps first, though, left to right:

- The lovely 2 Koruna stamps are part of the "flowers" definitive series issued in the course of several years. this particular stamp dates of 27MAY2011.

- The 20 Koruna  Sagittarius  Stamps were issued on 08SEP1999 as part of the Zodiac themed definitives that were issued in several occasions in different years.

Now the postmark, and in it lies the mystery... Philip J. Currie is a well know Canadian palaeontologist, Wikipedia stating that he was one of the models for "palaeontologist Alan Grant in the film Jurassic Park."

He was also the leader of an important Canada-China dinosaur research project and he has to his credit the description of several dinosaur species new to science.

He his such a relevant name that he his name was given to one of these species, the Philovenator curriei, whose mug shot  features on the pictorial postmark.

I am sure that Mr Currie deserves all the accolades that he gets, but the  mystery to me is what is the connection with the Czech Republic, since I can't find a direct link between Mr. Currie and this particular country.

Anyway, the postmark is quite dandy and again a huge thanks to Mrs. Pilz for having gone out of her way to make sure I had it in my collection.