Sunday, August 31, 2014

Richard Gere

Richard Gere, San Bernadino, 1978.
Photography by Herb Ritts

postmarked in 2013 with a USA 'Building a Nation: mechanic' stamp

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Richard Tiffany Gere (Tiffany was his mothers maiden name) (born: August 31, 1949) is an American actor. He began acting in the 1970s, playing a supporting role in Looking for Mr. Goodbar, and a starring role in Days of Heaven. He came to prominence in 1980 for his role in the film American Gigolo, which established him as a leading man and a sex symbol. He went on to star in several hit films, including An Officer and a Gentleman, Pretty Woman, Primal Fear, Arbitrage, and Chicago, for which he won a Golden Globe Award as Best Actor, as well as a Screen Actors Guild Award as part of the Best Cast.

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Herbert "Herb" Ritts (August 13, 1952 – December 26, 2002) was an American fashion photographer who concentrated on black-and-white photography and portraits, often in the style of classical Greek sculpture.

USA stamp 2013
from the series: Building a Nation
Powerhouse Mechanic
Forever a first class rate

Saturday, August 30, 2014

Helden-Panningen in the Limburg Province of the Netherlands

Helden-Panningen

This is postmarked in 2010 with a 95 Netherlands stamp.

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Panningen is a town in the province of Limburg in the Netherlands.

Before the 2010 municipal redivision when Panningen became a part of the newly formed municipality of Peel en Maas, it was part of Helden. 

Friday, August 29, 2014

An Art Postcard of a Kaleidoscope

A Kaleidoscope postcard.  It was made by Tanya Mattson for the 50 States Facebook Postcard Club.  It looks like she hand colored a kaleidoscope and then printed postcards of it on paper.  I love the colors!

This card is postmarked in 2014 with a 34 cent hummingbird stamp.

Thursday, August 28, 2014

Telc, Czech Republic, UNESCO Site

Telc
Mesto zalozili panove z Hradce, v roce 1354 postavili hrad, kostel, vodni opevreni a kolem triziste goticle domy.  V roce 1423 bylo Telc dobyta husity. V polovine 16. stoleti pristavyie Zacharias z haradce renesancni zamek, stavi vodovod a spital.  Po vymrenl pana z Hradce v roce 1604 prechazi Telc na Slavaty a v roce 1691 na Lichtensteiny-Kastelkorny.  V roce 1761 se tento rod spojil s rodem Podstatskych a majiteli se stali Podstatsti-Lichtensteinove.  

The sender put the stamps over the writing, so some of the words are probably wrong. 

This postcard is postmarked in 2014 with there Chez Republic stamps.  

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Telč is a town in southern Moravia, in the Czech Republic. The town was founded in 13th century as a royal water fort on the crossroads of busy merchant routes between Bohemia, Moravia and Austria.

Besides the monumental 17th century Renaissance chateau with an English-style park, the most significant sight is the town square, a unique complex of long urban plaza with well-conserved Renaissance and Baroque houses with high gables and arcades; since 1992 all of this has been a UNESCO World Heritage Site.
Czech Republic stamp 2012
Orchids Flowers
Paphiopedilum venustum 10 A
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Czech Republic stamp 2008
Vysilac Hotel Jested 12 Kc
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Ještěd Tower is a 94 metre-tall tower used to transmit television signals built on the top of Ještěd mountain near Liberec in the Czech Republic. It was built between 1963 and 1968.  In the Tower's lowest sections there is a hotel and a tower restaurant. 

Wednesday, August 27, 2014

The Original Drake Well (Oil Well)


Col. Edwin L. Drake
Titusville, Pennsylvania

The Original Drake Well
Aug. 27, 1859

unused

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The Drake Well is a 69.5-foot (21.2 m) deep oil well in Pennsylvania. The well is the centerpiece of the Drake Well Museum located 3 miles (4.8 km) south of Titusville.

Drilled by Edwin Drake in 1859, along the banks of Oil Creek, it is the first commercial oil well in the United States. The Well was listed on National Register of Historic Places and designated a National Historic Landmark in 1966. It was designated a Historic Mechanical Engineering Landmark in 1979. And it was designated a National Historic Chemical Landmark on August 27, 2009, on the sesquicentennial of the strike.

Tuesday, August 26, 2014

Advertising with Spiderman and the United States Postal Service

Priority Mail Flat Rate
Shipping and You
AMAZING TOGETHER

The Amazing Spider-Man 2
Delivered by The United States Postal Service (USPS)
in Theaters May 2nd

This advertising postcard featuring the Amazing Spiderman movie is postmarked in 2014 with a Presorted Standard printed stamp in 2014.  

Monday, August 25, 2014

Ziggurat Office Building in Sacramento, California

The Ziggurat Office Building
West Sacramento, California

The unique Ziggurat Building is one of the most distinguishable buildings on the Sacramento Skyline.  This stepped pyramid style building contains 400,00 square feet of office space and is located on the Sacramento River near Old Sacramento.

Photographs by Tom Myers

This is postmarked in 2010 with a Liberty Bell stamp.

Sunday, August 24, 2014

A Map of Honduras

Honduras

This map postcard is postmarked in 2014 with a Honduras stamp. 

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Honduras, officially the Republic of Honduras, is a republic in Central America. It was at times referred to as Spanish Honduras to differentiate it from British Honduras, which became the modern-day state of Belize.

 Honduras is most notable for production of minerals, coffee, tropical fruit, sugar cane and recently for exporting clothing to the international market.

Saturday, August 23, 2014

Five Lion's Club Members in Basketball Shorts

Five Lion's Club members, including Harry Taylor, Sr., Director of Recreation for the City of Fort Worth (Center) and Blake Yeager, Principal of Eastland Elementary School (Far Right), in basketball shorts, 1960s.

Photograph by Bill Wood

This is an unused reproduction postcard that was bought in 2011. 

Friday, August 22, 2014

Lednice Castle in Czech Republic

Zamek Lednice (Lednice Castle)

Pravdepodobne jiz v roce 1222 stala na miste dnesniho zamku goticka vodni tvrz.  Koncem 13. stoleti se majiteli panstvi stali Lichtenstijnove.  Tento rod se postupne stal diky uspesnym ekonomickym aktivitam, vyhodnym snatkum a zejmena diky skoupeni mnoha pobelohorskych konfiskatu nejbohatsim na Morave.  V 16. stoleti postavili Lichtenstejnove na miste stredoveke tvrze renesancni zamek, ktery byl koncem 17. stoleti nahrazen zamkem baroknim.  Poslidni prestavbu v duchu anglicke gotiky provedl v letech 1846 - 1858 Alois II. z Lichtenstejna.

I put this in a translator and it came up with this...
You probably already in 1222 stood on the site of today's castle Gothic water tower. At the end of the 13th century, the estate became the owner Lichtenštijnové. This genus has gradually become successful due to economic activities that are advantageous marriage, and especially thanks bought up many White Mountain confiscates the richest in Moravia. In the 16th century the Liechtenstein family built on the site of a medieval fortress Renaissance castle, which was in the late 17th century by Zamkem the Baroque. Poslidni remodeling in the English Gothic performed in the years 1846 - 1858 Alois II. of Liechtenstein.

This postcard is postmarked in 2014 with a machine stamp from The Czech Republic.

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Lednice is a village in South Moravia in the Czech Republic. In 1996 it was inscribed on the UNESCO World Heritage List. It contains a palace and the largest park in the country, which covers 200 km².

The palace of Lednice began its life as a Renaissance villa; in the 17th century it became a summer residence of the ruling Princes of Liechtenstein.

Thursday, August 21, 2014

The Adventures of Tintin

De Advonturen Van Kuifje (The Adventures of Tintin)
Het Gebroken Oor (The Broken Ear)

This is postmarked in 2014 with two stamps from Belgium featuring Tintin characters.

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The Broken Ear is the sixth volume of The Adventures of Tintin, the comics series by Belgian cartoonist Hergé. Commissioned by the conservative Belgian newspaper Le Vingtième Siècle, it was serialised weekly from December 1935 to February 1937. The story tells of young Belgian reporter Tintin and his dog Snowy, who pursue the thieves of a small South American carving identifiable by its broken ear. In doing so, he ends up in the fictional nation of San Theodoros, where he becomes embroiled in a civil war and discovers the Arumbaya tribe deep in the forest.

The story was adapted for both the 1956 animation, Hergé's Adventures of Tintin, and for the 1991 animated series The Adventures of Tintin.
Belgium stamp 2014
Tintin - Kuifje 1
Chang Chong-Chen
Belgium stamp 2014
Tintin - Kuifje 1
Bianca Castafiore

Wednesday, August 20, 2014

Opera and Ballet Theatre in Armenia

Armenia
The Yervan Opera and Ballet Theatre
Photo: Vladimir Shioshili

This postcard is unused.

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Armenian National Academic Theatre of Opera and Ballet after Alexander Spendiarian in Yerevan was officially opened on 20 January 1933. The building consists of two concert halls: Aram Khatchaturian concert hall and the hall of the Alexander Spendiarian Opera and Ballet National Theatre.

Tuesday, August 19, 2014

Yellow Dog Sunset by Jon Whiddon

 “Yellow Dog Sunset”
Folk Art in Rib Country
Restaurants by North
Georgia Artist Jon Whiddon

This postcard is postmarked in 2014 with a Disney / Pixar ‘Finding Nemo’ stamp.

To see more (and maybe purchase a print or two) visit his website:
http://www.jonwhiddon.com

Monday, August 18, 2014

Zhi-wua-gka Ceremony in China

 Zhi-wua-gka Ceremony Held by Yonging Daba (Wizard)
All the ceremonies are held on the grassland.  In the picture, Daba is holding Zhi-wua-gka (burning demons) ceremony in front of Lamasery.
This ceremony is same as others, which are always ended in Daba getting drunk.


The postcard has writing on the back and a stamp, but was mailed inside an envelope in 2014.

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I have two questions about this postcard:

1. The Lamasery (Yohghe Temple) is in Beijing, China.  This location looks like it is in Tibet.  I only found one other image of this ceremony and it is this same postcard sent to someone else and the sender in that case wrote that it was in Tibet.  So where is this location?

2. Buddhists are supposed to refrain from any intoxicants, including alcoholic beverages.  So why would there be a ceremony where the person leading it gets drunk?

China stamp 2002
Green Globe
Environmental Protection 10

Sunday, August 17, 2014

A Generic Postcard from Utah

Utah
Generic Post Card

The back of the card has check boxes so you only need to check why you send the card and what you’ve been doing.  Some of the options are:

I am sending you this card because:
- I’m cheap, but I still love you
- I can’t afford a phone call
- I’m too lazy to write a real message
- The picture I wanted to send was confiscated by the Utah Highway Patrol

In Utah I:
- Won’t be allowed to leave until I join the Mormons
- Spent all my money
- Got sick from eating yellow snow
- Chased a whitetailed buffalo
- Have become a cowboy

This postcard us unused. 

Saturday, August 16, 2014

Dock Street Theatre in Charleston, South Carolina

Entrance, Dock Street Theatre, Charleston, South Carolina

This is a vintage postcard that was postmarked in 2014.

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Dock Street Theatre is a theater in the historic French Quarter neighborhood of downtown Charleston, South Carolina. The structure, which was built as a hotel in 1809 and converted to a theater in 1935, occupies the site of the first building in the Thirteen Colonies designed for use as a theater. It has been on the National Register of Historic Places since 1973.

Friday, August 15, 2014

Hawkbill Turtles from Belize

Belize
Land of Adventure...

The endangered Hawkbill Turtle is one of the three sea turtle species that are known to nest in Belize.  They are now protected but in the past they were sought after for their beautiful shells.

Photograph by Clarissa Ann Guggenheim

This postcard is unused and from 2014. 

Thursday, August 14, 2014

Sturgis Motorcycle Classic South Dakota

Sturgis
Motor Classic

Legendary Sturgis
Hundreds of thousands of biking enthusiasts from all over the world make Sturgis their destination.  As the sun goes down, the Bike Parade begins.
Black Hills, South Dakota

postmarked in 2013

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The Sturgis Motorcycle Rally is an American motorcycle rally held annually in Sturgis, South Dakota, usually during the first full week of August. It began in the mid-20th century and was originally held for stunts and races, but has evolved into being a meeting for motorcycle enthusiasts from all over.

The first rally was held on August 14, 1938, by the "Jackpine Gypsies" motorcycle club, who still own and operate the tracks, hillclimb, and field areas where the rally is centered. The founder is generally considered to be Clarence "Pappy" Hoel. He purchased an Indian Motorcycle franchise in Sturgis in 1936 and formed the "Jackpine Gypsies" that same year.
USA - Stamp 2013
Baldwin Apple
33 cents

Wednesday, August 13, 2014

Disney's Flubber with Robin Williams

Disney's Flubber
with Robin Williams

This unused 'Boomerang' free advertising postcard is from 1997.

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Flubber is a 1997 comedy film and a remake of The Absent-Minded Professor (1961). The film was produced by Walt Disney Pictures starring Robin Williams.

Professor Philip Brainard (Robin Williams), a professor at Medfield College, is developing a new energy source in an attempt to raise enough money to save the college from closure. His preoccupancy with his research distracts him from his fiancée and the president of Medfield College Doctor Sara Jean Reynolds (Marcia Gay Harden); he has missed two weddings in the past as a result of this, much to the anger of Sara. On the day of the third attempted wedding, Philip is approached by his former partner Wilson Croft (Christopher McDonald), who has profited from ideas he has stolen from Brainard. Before he can make it to the wedding, his latest experiment shows fast development, forcing him to miss another wedding.

The resulting substance created from the experiment is a green slime that proves to be difficult to control and wreaks havoc on the neighborhood before Brainard finally manages to capture him. Weebo (voiced by Jodi Benson), Philip's robot assistant, classifies the substance as "flying rubber", leading Philip to christen him as "Flubber".

Tuesday, August 12, 2014

Drenthe, Netherlands

Drenthe

The sender writes:
This is a card from Drenth, a province in the Netherlands.  We have got a lot of nice nature here, as you can see on this card.

This is postmarked in 2014 with two Netherlands stamps.

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In 2014 Drenthe had a population of 488,957 and a total area of 2,683 km2 (1,036 sq mi).

Drenthe  has been populated by people since prehistory. Most tangible evidence of this are the dolmens (graves, tombs) built around 3500 BC.
 

Monday, August 11, 2014

Caribbean Festival in Suriname

Groeten uit Surinam (Greetings from Surinam)

Carifesta 2003
Festival del Caribe
( Caribbean Festival)

Sranan
Wan moi switi’ kondre  (my beautiful sweet country)

This postcard is unused and from 2003.

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Sranan is a creole language spoken by approximately 300,000 people in Suriname.

Sunday, August 10, 2014

William Booth, Founder of the Salvation Army, Visiting Israel

William Booth in Jerusalem: Mount Calvary
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General Booth at the Mosque of Omar, which stands on the site of Soloman's Temple.
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General Booth visiting a Bethlehem home.

The "Walterdaw" Seris

all three postcards are unused

To learn more about William Booth, see my other post about him HERE

Saturday, August 9, 2014

Tove Jansson - Happy 100 Birthday!

Tove Jansson
Photo: Goran Algard

This postcard is postmarked in 2014 with a Tove Jansson stamp!

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Tove Marika Jansson (9 August 1914 – 27 June 2001) was a Swedish-speaking Finnish novelist, painter, illustrator and comic strip author. She is best known as the author of the Moomin books for children.
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Here is one of her paintings on a postcard...
This owl family doing their laundry in the rain was drawn by Tove Jansson.  

This postcard is postmarked in 2014 with a Finland stamp of the artist...
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Check out the Moomin tag on the right to see what she is best known for.


Friday, August 8, 2014

Trier on the Moselle River in Germany

 Trier an der Mosel
Die historische Stadt nahe der deutsch-luxemburgischen Grenze gilt als die alteste Stadt Deutschlands. Zum einen Hort des Heilgen Rocks, der Tunika von Jesus Christus bekannt, besticht die alteste Stadt Deutschlands durch die Vielzahl romischer Baudenkmaler und ist nicht zu Unrecht Weltkulturerbe der UNESCO.

Translated from an online translator:

Trier on the Mosel
The historic town near the German-Luxembourg border is considered the oldest city in Germany. On the one refuge of holy Rocks, the tunic of Jesus Christ known, boasts the oldest city in Germany by the large number of Roman monuments and is not unduly World Heritage Site by UNESCO.

Schöne Grüße aus Trier (Greetings from Trier) (aka: Treves)

Porta Nigra, Kaisertherme, Hauptmarkt (Main Market), Furstbischofl. Residenz (Prince-Bishop Residence), Karl-Marx-Haus (Karl Marx House), Liebfrauenkirche (Church of Our Lady), St. Matthias, Basilika (Basilica)

This postcard is postmarked in 2014 from Germany.
Germany (Deutschland) stamp 2014
Stolzenfels Castle 75

Thursday, August 7, 2014

Disney Movie: Lady and the Tramp, with Puppies

Walt Disney's
Lady and the Tramp

 Featuring: a Scottish Terrier named Jock, a Bloodhound named Trusty, The Tramp, Lady and the puppies.

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Lady and the Tramp is a 1955 American animated romance film produced by Walt Disney and released to theaters on June 22, 1955. The 15th animated film in the Walt Disney Animated Classics series, it was the first animated feature filmed in the CinemaScope widescreen film process.

The story centers on a female American Cocker Spaniel named Lady who lives with a refined, upper-middle-class family, and a male stray mutt called the Tramp.

Wednesday, August 6, 2014

The State Capitol Building in Columbus, Ohio

Columbus
Ohio State Capitol
Ohio State Flag

Ohio’s Statehouse was built in 1839.  The building architecture is Greek Revival style.  The Ohio state flag was adopted in 1902.

This postcard is postmarked in 2014 with two USA stamps.

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The Ohio Statehouse functions both as a working government building and as a museum.
 

Tuesday, August 5, 2014

Reksio, A Cartoon Dog from Poland

Reksio

Tworca postaci reksia (Character Creator): Lechoslaw Marszalek.
Opracowanie graficzne (Graphic Design): K. Lason, H. Marszalek

This is postmarked in 2014 with two Poland stamps.

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Reksio is a Polish cartoon character from the TV animated series by the same title. It was created by a Polish director Lechosław Marszałek. There are 65 episodes that were made from 1967 to 1990.  All episodes describe adventures of a friendly, terrier dog named Reksio, with his animal friends - hens, cats, other dogs and their owners.