Christmas Mail 2015 7 - USA

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Christmas Mail 2014 19 - USA

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Cover - USA

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Christmas Mail 2014 15 - USA

Beautiful Christmas cover from USA. Thanks a lot Antoinette Welch. Its got the complete Christmas offering in stamps from USA of the year in addition to the snowflake stamps set from 2013. Love this cover.

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Christmas Mail 2014 9 - USA

Christmas cover from USA. This one has three stamps of the 2011 Christmas Stamp – Madonna of the Candelabra by Raphael. This Christmas stamp from 2011 features a detail from a work by the Italian master Raphael, entitled Madonna of the Candelabra. This painting, oil on panel, dates to around 1513 and is now in the collection of the Walters Art Museum in Baltimore, Maryland.

Madonna of the Candelabra by Raphael was issued as a Forever stamp on October 13, 2011. Forever stamps are always equal in value to the current First-Class Mail one-ounce rate.
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Cover - USA

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Cover - USA

The U.S. Postal service released a limited-edition Forever stamp in March earlier this year, featuring the Rock and Roll Hall of Famer, Jimi Hendrix. I received this cover with the stamps on it also in March. Had just slipped by me posting it here on the blog.

The stamp is designed to resemble a vintage 45 rpm record sleeve and shows Hendrix wearing one of his trademark military jackets and playing one of his white Fender Stratocaster guitars. Last year, the Postal Service honored other musicians such as Johnny Cash, Ray Charles and Lydia Mendoza as part of its new music icons series. Janis Joplin was added to the list in August this year. Wish to have all these stamps soon.

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Cover - USA

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Cover - USA

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Christmas Mail 2013 - 17

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Christmas Mail 2013 - 16

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Christmas Mail 2013 - 15

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Christmas Mail 2013 - 12

This cover from USA has got the complete set of the gingerbread stamps. A similar cover I received earlier had only three of the set of four stamps.

These stamps were issued on November 06, 2013. These stamps feature four different gingerbread houses set against a bright blue background. Made with gingerbread and royal icing, each house has sugary fruit slices for shingles, peppermint sticks for support beams, and round, candy-coated chocolate for doorknobs and holly berries.
Sally Andersen-Bruce photographed the houses, created by baker Teresa Layman. Art director Derry Noyes designed the stamps.

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Christmas Mail 2013 - 10

The U.S. Postal Service unveiled two Christmas Forever stamps during the American Stamp Dealers Association stamp show in New York on October 11, 2013. Here is one of the two on this lovely cover I received only today.

The new Virgin and Child stamp by Jan Gossaert features a detail of Gossaert’s 1531 oil-on-wood painting, Virgin and Child, from the collection of the Cleveland Museum of Art. This is the second time a Gossaert painting has appeared on a U.S. stamp. In 2002, the U.S. Postal Service issued a Christmas stamp that featured a detail of Gossaert’s circa-1520 oil-on-panel Madonna and Child.

Waiting now for a cover with the other traditional Christmas stamps issue of the year, the Holy Family Forever Stamp.

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Christmas Mail 2013 - 7

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Christmas Mail 2013 - 3

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Christmas Mail 2013 - 2

My second Christmas cover this year and I absolutely totally love it. Everything right about it. Great selection of stamps, perfect clear cancellations and Ria's creativity thrown in. Thanks so much Ria Cabral.

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Covers - USA

Received these lovely covers from my good friend Ria from USA. Beautiful US Air force 50th Anniversary design on the cover makes this cover one of my favourites. I love the neat cancellations on the cover too. Very clearly readable, the first cancel indicates the date and place of sending. The other one encourages the use of ZIP codes.

In the cover, was this other FDC. Ria's put my address on it that makes it appear as a cover I received via post on the day of issue, April 14, 1982. Quite unlikely to pass it as that as I was only five then. Nevertheless a beautiful cover.

Ria also sent me this lovely strip of the 2011 "Send a Hello" stamps. A perfect fit into my 'Cartoons / Animations / Comics on Stamps' album. 

The strip includes five different designs featuring Pixar characters:

Lightning McQueen and Mater from Cars (2006), my son Ethan's favourite.

Remy the rat and Linguini from Ratatouille (2007)

Buzz Lightyear and two of the green, three-eyed aliens from Toy Story (1995)

Carl Fredricksen and Dug from Up (2009) and the robot 

WALL*E from WALL*E (2008).

The Send a Hello stamps are issued as Forever® stamps. Forever stamps are always equal in value to the current First-Class Mail one-ounce rate.

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Cover - USA

Received this nice cover from USA from Minot, North Dakota, my 25th of the USA. Its got these lovely clear cancellations of the Minot AFB on it.

The Minot Air Force Base is a U.S. Air Force installation in Ward County, North Dakota, 13 miles (21 km) north of the city of Minot. 

Would have been better if all the stamps were cancelled. However all in all a very nice cover.

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Cover - USA, The Civil War

With this cover, I now have all the stamps of the civil war series issued so far on cover.

The Civil War: 1861

In 2011, the U.S. Postal Service began a series commemorating the 150th anniversary of the Civil War, to pay tribute to the American experience during the tumultuous years from 1861 to 1865.
A souvenir sheet of two stamps is issued each year and will be done through 2015. For 2011, one stamp depicts the beginning of the war in April 1861 at Fort Sumter, South Carolina, while the other depicts the first major battle of the war three months later at Bull Run, near Manassas, Virginia.

Here are both the stamps on cover, another cover I received quite sometime back.

The Civil War: 1862

One stamp depicts the Battle of New Orleans, which was marked on April 24, 1862, by the heroics of Flag Officer David G. Farragut, soon to become the U.S. Navy’s first full admiral.
The other stamp depicts the Battle of Antietam, Confederate General Robert E. Lee’s invasion of the North that resulted in the bloodiest day of the war on September 17, 1862.

The Civil War: 1863
One stamp depicts the Battle of Gettysburg, the largest battle of the war, while the other depicts the Battle of Vicksburg, a complex Union campaign to gain control of the Mississippi River.

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