COVER N. 552 - TUNISIA

Postmark: Le Bardo 04.11.2024

Posted on the 4th November 2024; Received on the 15th January 2025

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It has been a while since I received a cover from Tunisia, so today I had the pleasant surprise of getting one in my letterbox. Un grand Merci, Mohamed.

A great and diverse collection of stamps on this nice cover, embellished with a Season's garland topped by some snow, something which one would not immediately associate with the northern African country, although, as far as I could read, the white flakes are not that an uncommon sight in the mountains of the Tunisian North West.

Left to right:

2003 was declared the National Year of the Book in Tunisia. Celebrating this fact, Poste Tunis on 23APR2023 issued a 390 milim stamp featuring an open book from which all sorts of characters emanate, in a clear allegory of the power of the humble book as a vector for culture and development.

On 21OCT2000 Tunis Poste issue a five stamp set (110; 200; 2 x 250; 500 milim) themed on Flowers. One of the 250 milim stamps, illustrated with a beautiful ceramic  vase graced with a bouquet of all the flowers that are represented in this particular issue, features on the cover. 

The desert Rose, is an amazing  barite or gypsum crystal and sand formation which is quite common in Tunisia around the area of the Chott el Djerid salt lake. Although fragile these formations if carefully protected from bumps and will last forever .

This peculiar formation was chosen to illustrate the 250 milim stamp issued on 29NOV1997, on the cover.

Raptors of Tunisia was the theme chosen for a four stamp set (2 x 0,75; 0,9 and 4 Dinar) issued on 26SEP2022. The 0,9 dinar stamp on the cover is illustrated with an image of a Barn Owl (Tyto alba), a species that is distributed in almost all the African with the exception of the Sahara desert and all Europe.

The last stamp on the cover features another common sight in the place where I live: the Red Admiral, Vanessa Atalanta, a butterfly species of the Nymphalidae family. which has a very wide distribution, for it can be found in North Africa, North and Central America, Europe, Asia, and island regions of Hawaii, and the Caribbean.

The postmark indicates that the letter was mailed at Le Bardo a city in the metropolitan area of Tunis, the country's capital.