[Page One Hundred and Fifty-Four]


Beauty and Ugliness

[#1066]

  • Envelopes and postcard from days past

    Here is a second batch of crazy, strange and beautiful mail from long ago and not so long ago. I hope you get a smile from some of this... okay, in no particular order, let's begin!

    [Below: What in the living hell is this? Is this Chinese? Someone very pissed off addressed this thing. Surely this can't be the norm anywhere. WOW.]

    [Below: Close-up of stamp.]

    [Below: Reverse.]

    [Below: This is interesting in a few ways. First, look to the left at the ink cachet. It celebrates the first flight from New York to Cologne Germany. It is being sent to Long Island, New York, from New York, so why does it have this cachet? Hmm... let's look at the other pictures.]

    [Below: Interesting. I thought this was airmail, as the fancy cachet on the front says...? Hmm... Looking up this ship's name we find out that the 'SS Europa, later SS Liberté, was a German ocean liner built for the Norddeutsche Lloyd line to work the transatlantic sea route.'. Interesting that they typed up this card for it, even though I didn't notice any water damage to the envelope at all.]

    [Below: The SS Liberté.]

    [Below: Reverse. Here is a receival stamp from Koln, Germany. This makes no sense. How was it sent to Germany without a German address? It was addressed to Long Island, New York. Further, it says 'Bahnpost' which means train post... airmail on a train? Weird.]

    [Below: Sweet Innocence. But just you wait, she'll grow up to be a boy and have an Only Fans account.]

    [Below: Reverse. This was canceled in Gravenhage (The Hague), The Netherlands, on March 15, 1922, and sent to Wien (Vienna), Austria.]

    [Below: This thing is scary. Did they have to make the negro pitch black? Anyway, it was canceled on July 20, 1959 and says 'Homenagem dom Joaquim Silverio de Souza - Envelope Primeiro Dia' (Tribute to Dom Joaquim Silverio de Souza - First Day Envelope).]

    [Below: Close-up.]

    [Below: This is interesting. It is an envelope (with contents) from the Information Embassy of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, to Virginia, postmarked on December 1, 1975. Several historic things happened this month, such as:

    'Microwave controversy
    The US and the Soviet Union became involved in a controversy after Moscow increased the intensity of microwaves being beamed at the US Embassy in Moscow. Secretary of State Henry Kissinger complained to the Soviet Ambassador about the microwaves, noting that the Ford administration would be criticized if they didn't say something.'

    Or more importantly, Iron Maiden was formed on December 14, 1975!]

    [Below: So someone sent the Soviet Embassy some old Soviet money, over 50 years old in 1975, with hopes they could identify it. He could have gone to his library or bookstore for a book on foreign currency, but decided to bother the poor communists. An American patriot, no doubt, wasting the communists precious time and manpower.]

    [Below: The Soviet note he sent. Front.]

    [Below: Reverse.]

    [Below: This is a cool series of postcards showing a forest fire. Only one of the postcards is written on, I'll put it at the end.]

    [Below: The fire is growing...]

    [Below: ...into an inferno. If you don't know already, let me tell you pine trees are extremely flammable. The fact that they used to light candles on Christmas trees is incredible.
    I'm guessing it caused lots of fires. Pine cones are also extremely flammable, great to start a bonfire with. You'd swear someone soaked them in gasoline.]

    [Below: Reverse of postcard. This was never sent/canceled, but has an interesting address of the sender.
    The '117th Sanitary Train' was 'a World War I medical unit that provided care for a division through ambulances, field hospitals, and camp infirmaries'.
    It had a horse-drawn ambulance and three motor ambulance companies.]

    [Below: Here is a series of envelopes honoring the Golden Goats of Guernsey. They even each have a special silk picture of goats.
    They were canceled on their first day of issue -- August 5th 1980 and were sent to the head post office in Guernsey, no doubt to and from the same stamp collector. What can I say, I like goats!]

    [Below: This is a Danish postcard circa early 20th century, it says 'Den rige og den fattige Fugl' (The right and the Fat Foot). This has such strange art, that I'm guessing has something to do with the song shown. It is a children's song, I figured out that much.]

    [Below: Postcard reverse. It says:

    'Vore Gamle Břrnesange - Melodier og Billeder
    Tegninger af Hedvig Collin, Suzanne Raben-Levetzau'

    (Our Old Children's Songs - Melodies and Pictures
    Drawings by Hedvig Collin, Suzanne Raben-Levetzau)]

    [Below: The children's book the postcard is based on.]

    [Below: This postcard bears an image by Josef Mánes (May 12, 1820 – December 9, 1871, Prague) was a Czech painter. He is considered to be the most important Czech artist of the 20th century.]

    [Below: Postcard reverse.]

    [Below: Josef Mánes.]

    [Below: This envelope, postmarked April 21, 1993, is still using old Soviet Russian postage stamps. Latvia regained its independence from the Soviet Union on August 21, 1991. It is common for post offices to allow stamps from a past government or occupation for a set amount of time, but this is years later. Maybe these weren't used for actual postage and were just canceled because they were near real postage? Not sure. It was registered and sent to Liepa, Latvia, from Liepa, Latvia. Liepa is a tiny town in Latvia. The 'Grand Regatta Columbus' is a sailing event commemorating Columbus' voyage.]

    [Below: Postage stamp close-up.]

    [Below: Postage stamp close-up. These are overprinted in different colors for whatever reason.]

    [Below: Holy hellfire this is insane! To English speaking eyes Arabic looks crazy, maybe more than even Chinese. Front.]

    [Below: On the back of envelope we learn that this is from Irag. I can't make out the year on the cancel, but the stamp with the soldier on it was issued in 1962 and and the other in 1959.]

    [Below: These quaint type of postcards were commonplace in the first half of the 20th century.]

    [Below: Postcard reverse. Here we learn that the postcard was sent from Germany to Pana, Illinois (USA). Pana is a small town with under 6,000 people. This was postmarked on September 29, 1926.]

    [Below: 'Fröhlich Ostern' (Happy Easter). Up until color photos artists were hired to color black and white photos. Some of them were better than others, this one is pretty good, but the pink stands out a bit too much.]

    [Below: Postcard reverse. This was sent on March 30, 1909 from Fürstenau (Lower Saxony), Germany to Chicago, Illinois (USA).]

    [Below: Oh how nice, a Mason envelope with the All-Seeing Eye. This was postmarked on October 9, 1976 and features a stamp with the outline of General Douglas MacArthur, who when losing battles against the Japanese, fled and left his men to die. His most famous quote 'I shall return', yeah, years later when most your men were dead. And you guessed it, he was a Mason! A 'Master Mason' at that, so was his father. He was made 33 Degree (the highest) in the US Embassy in Tokyo in 1946. He actually changed Japanese law to allow Japanese to join Freemasonry! How nice. It only took a few atom bombs.]

    [Below: Envelope reverse. What the envelope doesn't tell you is that the dinner mentioned was baked children.]

    [Below: Here's a strange one, speaking of Masons, the structure of the KKK is said to have been fashioned after the Masons. This was postmarked on August 12, 1933, a little over seven months after Adolf Hitler became the Reich Chancellor of Germany (January 30, 1933). Make no mistake about it, National Socialists are against groups like the KKK. National Socialism believes in the separation of races, but not with hatred.]

    [Below: This National Socialist poster belittles American culture, including the KKK.]

    [Below: This commemorative envelope and stamps from Iran was postmarked on July 26, 1957. The postage stamps commemorate a variety of event highlighted below.]

    [Below: Of special interest is the June 1956 entry. Additional information:

    'In 1956, British and French forces invaded Egypt in collusion with Israel. Although the military operation was a success, the political storm it caused led to a humiliating withdrawal that dealt Britain's global prestige a severe blow.']

    [Below: Here is a French postcard, printed in French and English, celebrating the inhuman Versailles Treaty, which destroyed Germany and its people. It is postmarked June 28, 1919. Front.]

    [Below: The blue cancel is interesting, it has a German eagle and says 'German Peace Delegation - Versailles'. More like German Slave Delegation. The Versailles Treaty was all about money and power, it stripped Germany of its natural resources and kept the country weak as to not be able to challenge the British and French empires. Reverse.]

    [Below: The cursed stamp close-up.]

    [Below: Here is an envelope with German postage stamps and bearing the 'German Peace Delegation' cancel. This time it is a few days earlier on June 23, 1919.]

    [Below: Here is an interesting envelope postmarked during WWI on June 16, 1916. It has postage stamps from The Netherlands, France, Belgium and Great Britain. This was done for stamp collecting reasons. There is a censorship stamp that says 'Censuur Gepasseerd' (Passed Censorship). The reverse is blank.]

    [Below: This postcard is postmarked February 8, 1915 and was sent to Switzerland. It has stamps of Belgium and France. The graphic shows the flags of the countries united against Germany, the Austro-Hungarian Empire and Turkey. Front.]

    [Below: Postcard reverse. We see here a registration label and a Swiss receival stamp dating February 13, 1915.]

    [Below: A rather odd envelope from New Zealand calling itself a 'Nuclear-Free Issue', from September 1, 1995. This was one month before Mourning the Ancient was born.]

    [Below: And lastly another insanely addressed envelope! This time from India in Hindi and English, postmarked November 19, 1932.]

    [Below: Envelope reverse. Receival stamp from November 21, 1932.]


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