The postmark implies it was sent from Matosinhos: a municipality on the northern edge of Porto. But the extra postage label says Senhora da Hora which was a civil parish to the west of Matosinhos. The 2023 stamp on the left commemorates the 100th birth anniversary of opera singer Maria Callas. And the 2023 stamp on the right commemorates the 100th birth anniversary of pioneering aeronautical engineer Alberto Santos Dumont ..read more

The city of Niagara Falls is an hour and a half drive away for me. Around the other side of Lake Ontario. They were not right in the middle of the path of totality but close enough to enjoy three and a half minutes of darkness during the solar eclipse that was visible across parts of Mexico, Canada and the US on Monday. I sent this cover down to the main post office last week and it came back with a nice postmark dated 08 April 2024 - the day of the Eclipse. The city of Niagara Falls is known for the famous horseshoe-shaped waterfalls on the Niagara River. Also some casinos, an indoor waterpa ..read more

The stamp on this FDC from South Korea is from a set of six that together depict a set of folding silk screens that display a gathering at the royal palace to celebrate the marriage of King Heonjeong to his second wife Queen Hyojeong, in 1844.  It was common practice at the time for officials to commission art such as this to record events that occurred. The actual screens are a little over a meter high and under half a meter wide. There are eight of them with the first and last containing text only. You can see the folding screens in the postmark. And because the single stamp was not e ..read more

First-day postmark from Osaka on this cover from Japan with a stamp from a recent set featuring imagery that depicts culturally significant items, places and rituals in Japan. On these stamps are "Yasugi Bushi" which is a popular folk song and dance from Shimane prefecture ..read more

First-day postmarked in Paris. These stamps featuring the character Pikachu from the massively popular Pokémon franchise sold out shortly after I purchased them, just after they were issued on Feb 27. There was also a collectors booklet of four international stamps issued and another domestic booklet of related stamps planned for June. Why did La Poste feel the need to issue a stamp featuring a Japanese video game character? They occasionally issue a stamp that features something that interests French children, either now or at one point in recent history. And Pokémon certainly fits that ..read more

On this cover from Turin, a 2022 stamp that commemorates the 100th birth anniversary of Italian actor Ugo Tognazzi and a 2021 stamp that commemorates the 100th birth anniversary of Italian theatre performer and politician Giorgio Strehler ..read more

From the city of Shimida in the  Shizuoka Prefecture. The Kanaya post office is in what was the town of Kanaya before it was amalgamated into Shimida in 2005. The stamps were originally produced for "Philatelic Week" in 1999 but were reissued in a different layout for the Phila Nippon stamp exhibition held in Tokyo of 2001. Kanaya station is the terminus of the 40km Ōigawa railway line owned by the Ōigawa Railway company which specializes in the preservation and operation of steam locomotives. In the pictorial postmark is a Kawasaki C10 class locomotive manufactured in 1930. It ..read more

You can just barely make out the Malmö postmark on the middle stamp, under the round postnord postmark. The stamp on the right is from a 2016 set that commemorates the 100th anniversary of the Swedish Museum of Natural History. In the middle is a stamp from a 2015 set about European honey bees. And on the left is a 2010 stamp from a set featuring marine life in the waters around Sweden. It was a joint issue with Canada. Here are the joint isssue FDCs from both countries.  ..read more

Sent from the commune of Amilly, about an hour and half drive south of Paris. The Puffin stamp is part of the bottom third of a 2012 stamp sheet that commemorates the 100th anniversary of the LPO: Ligue pour la Protection des Oiseaux. Puffins can be found in France, on islands off the coast of Brittany. Upper right is a lesser kestrel (a small falcon) from a 2000 set about threatened bird species. And below that is a 2013 year of the snake stamp ..read more

On this cover from Lempäälä is a self-adhesive stamp sheet from 2012 with four stamps commemorating Sámi culture in Finland. The Sámi are the indigenous people of northern Scandinavia. This shape of this stamp sheet is the same as the footprint of the Sámi Cultural Centre SAJOS that opened in Inari, Finland on January 9, 2012 ..read more