22/12/2020
CHRISTMAS 2020 COUNTDOWN
CHRISTMAS POSTCARD SELECTION
(Day Fifteen)
MEOWY CHRISTMAS
Published by
PAPERCHASE
A simple quick posting today, but a nice modern issue from just a year or two ago. I have not visited many paperchase shops this year because of the Lockdowns and the Covid pandemic, and I have certainly not been able to check any to see if they have produced any new issues for this years Christmas period, which I normally do at the Bluewater Shopping Centre when we normally do our Christmas shopping, but again, none of this has been possible.
21/12/2020
CHRISTMAS 2020 COUNTDOWN
CHRISTMAS POSTCARD SELECTION
(Day Fourteen)
ALL I WANT FOR CHRISTMAS IS YOU
Published by
SUGARBOO DESIGNS
(Sugarboo & Co)
I have depicted a number of Sugarboo designs which I have picked up from the Sugarboo shop located in Disney Springs in Florida, part of the Walt Disney World, a kind of fifth theme park for shopaholics (although there are also some great eateries here as well). These postcards are all exclusive to the Sugarboo branches and although not cheap, they are all fascinating and I have loved them since first finding them a few years ago. This design here is the only Christmas one I have so far come across. I would have been checking the shop out again a few months ago but as we all know, travel this year has been almost impossible, especially to America from the UK.
20/12/2020
CHRISTMAS 2020 COUNTDOWN
CHRISTMAS POSTCARD SELECTION
(Day Thirteen)
“SO MUCH FOR THE SAT NAV!”
Christmas Greetings
By
RUPERT BESLEY
Published by
PH TOPICS
Ref: No. 491
(RB8)
Now that we are in Tier 4 in my area, and many others, I suspect this is about as close as Santa wants to get!
This is a great Christmas postcard by one of the UK’s best modern postcard cartoonists. It also one which rarely seems to turn up as I have not seen copies for some years. This is possibly because the PH Topics postcards were not released in the same high numbers as most of the other Besley postcards, and what with there being a lot of Besley collectors these are all sitting in collections. This is definitely one to watch out for.
20/12/2020
THE LOCKDOWN
By
HAPPYMONKEY TEES
Published by
REDBUBBLE
Well, I awoke this morning, and I am now living in Tier 4, which is apparently, according to Boris Johnson, not a ‘Lockdown’ although it is exactly what we are in, new name, same old restrictions. I am sure he is hoping to avoid people saying that he has put us all under a new Lockdown by naming it now as Tier 4, but it has not worked… we are ‘definitely’ in another lockdown, and he announced this just yesterday and just six days before Christmas. So, Boris has cancelled Christmas to all intents and purposes! What a year this has ended up being!
19/12/2020
CHRISTMAS 2020 COUNTDOWN
CHRISTMAS POSTCARD SELECTION
(Day Twelve)
TOP – ROMEO VICTOR
BOTTOM – ROMEO BRAVO
Dutch Composite QSL ‘Radio Cards’ from the Nederland
Printed for the Radio Operators by
POMA CARDS
Printed in Belgium
Ref:
TOP – b 2020
BOTTOM – b 2710
QSL radio ham postcards are extremely common, and this is not the first time such cards have appeared on this webpage by far, so I will not go into their background again.
These two appear here today because of the rather unusual Christmas connection as I suspect the rather glamourous female character (surely not Mrs. Santa, but you never know, although she can gladly climb down my chimney bringing me presents!) has all the Christmas accoutrements to make this Christmas Countdown section.
What I like about these two postcards is the fact that each seperate card was sent out by a different radio ham, which meant you needed to make contact with each of the two operators seperately to obtain the complete two card composite (although clearly my two are mint so were obtained in another manner - maybe by consent of the operators)
19/12/2020
“BRILLIANT BUGS”
ROYAL MAIL PHQ STAMP CARD SET
PHQ Set 477
(postcards that reproduce the Royal Mail’s stamp releases)
Stamps issued – 1ST October 2020
All images painted by
RICHARD LEWINGTON
(As always, I have my copies used with the appropriate stamp applied to the front of the card and cancelled first day of issue with a special hand stamp)
Published by
ROYAL MAIL
COMMON CARDER BEE
Published by
ROYAL MAIL
Ref: PHQ 477 (1)
As I have always liked wildlife themed postcards I was clearly drawn to this lovely set. The images are beautifully painted, and in many cases, this is the first time I have seen these insects on a postcard but having said that there is nothing particularly spectacular about this release, besides the nice images.
RUBY-TAILED WASP
Published by
ROYAL MAIL
Ref: PHQ 477 (6)
My favourite image from this set, not my favourite insect but the best-looking painting.
I am pleased also to have now caught up with the pre-Xmas issue stamp releases which means I can do the Christmas 2020 stamps during this countdown (but not today)
19/12/2020
ON THE HOLE…
HOPE TO BE SITTING PRETTY AGAIN!
Published by
Plastichrome – COLOURPICTURE PUBLISHERS., INC
Boston U.S.A
Ref: P41444
I know a couple of people who collect toilets depicted on postcards and although they do crop up, they are not that common and mostly seem to appear on comic postcard designs. My friend who collects these likes unusual ones like this where it is clearly a toilet but not the ceramic styled ones that we all know so well. What you have here is the ‘Outhouse’ styled hole in a bench seat type of toilet, and these appear even less on postcards. A rarity in appearances does not of course always mean that when they do turn up, they are valuable as this card here is probably going to cost you around £1.
18/12/2020
CHRISTMAS 2020 COUNTDOWN
CHRISTMAS POSTCARD SELECTION
(Day Eleven)
Untitled Christmas Postcard 2020
Published by
LOU PAPER
I have been lucky enough to receive two of these great new Christmas postcards through the post. Not only have I been able to add a nice card to my collection, I have also added some nice different Christmas stamps from America to it as well.
18/12/2020
JEREMY BULLOCH ….. R.I.P.
16TH February 1945 – 17th December 2020
British actor who is best remembered as playing the part of the bounty hunter Boba Fett in the Star Wars film ‘The Empire Strikes Back’ and ‘Return of the Jedi’. Some of his other small film appearances have been in ‘A Night to Remember’, Carry on Teacher, Summer Holiday, The Spy Who Loved Me, For Your Eyes Only, Octopussy and a small cameo appearance in Star Wars: Revenge of the Sith. He also appeared in many UK television series including ‘Doctor Who (twice)’, ‘Robin of Sherwood’, The Professionals, George and Mildred, Boon, The Bill and ‘Law & Order: UK’.
BOBA FETT
Published by
FILM FREAK PRODUCTIONS (NETHERLANDS)
Ref: FF 16
Autographed on the front
By
JEREMY BULLOCH
I had the pleasure of meeting Jeremy Bulloch several times and I have a couple of postcards signed by him (the other one is a Doctor Who related postcard). Being a big childhood Star Wars fan (which travelled over into my adult life) I did enjoy going to events where stars and actors from the films were appearing and signing and getting to meet them.
Signed postcards are worth more if they are not dedicated, but hey! What is the point in that? These are my memories and mementos of meeting these people.
17/12/2020
CHRISTMAS 2020 COUNTDOWN
CHRISTMAS POSTCARD SELECTION
(Day Ten)
WHEN ALL IS FAIR
NOVELTY ‘FOLD OUT – GREETINGS CARD STYLED’ POSTCARD
Unnamed Publisher
Made in Germany
I am enjoying finding the more unusual Christmas related postcards for this year’s pictorial countdown. This when I only picked up on Saturday, and for a very reasonable price. I had not immediately realised that this was a Christmas card until I later read the inside message. I had known it was a greetings card styled openable postcard, but I did not read the message inside until later that day. When I saw it, I thought “what a lovely card” and acquired it for the collection.
16/12/2020
FLORENCE NIGHTINGALE / COVID-19
By
LAPRODUCTIONSS1
Published by
REDBUBBLE
Another superb postcard with a Covid-19 theme. There were many references to Florence Nightingale throughout the year as 2020 was the 200th anniversary of her birth, and as a result 2020 was also the Year of the Nurse. Many stamps were issued by various countries celebrating both events and Florence Nightingale appeared on many of the Year of the Nurse stamp designs, along with some purely commemorating her birth anniversary.
Interestingly there was an article in a copy of the Radio Times TV listings magazine which had a photograph of Florence Nightingale with a modern face mask placed over the image, much like the picture on this postcard (but a completely different image).
.
16/12/2020
CHRISTMAS 2020 COUNTDOWN
CHRISTMAS POSTCARD SELECTION
(Day Nine)
TRAVELLING ON THE LIVERPOOL AND MANCHESTER RAILWAY
Published by the
NORTH WESTERN POSTAL BOARD
Ref: NWPB Mail Transport 2 (1st Print)
Now, you can stare at this first image as-long-as you like but you will not find any Christmas related content. This is because it is something on the reverse side which has todays relevance towards the rapidly approaching big day (although perhaps not as big this year as previous years!)
There are two types of first print versions of this card. The second type has the ‘150 years – Liverpool and Manchester Railway Anniversary’ logo bottom left (in the Rosendale ‘Collect Post Office Cards’ catalogue this type with the logo is referenced as NW7 (1L). 75,000 copies were printed with this logo (25,000 were printed without it – reference NW (1)). They were originally only sold with the Liverpool and Manchester commemorative stamp strip applied to the reverse side (see below).
.
REVERSE SIDE OF ABOVE POSTCARD
This has an added block of red text applied to the left side which reads:
With Best Wishes for
Christmas and the New Year
from
The North Western Postal Region Marketing Staff
This also has a full strip of the 12p Liverpool and Manchester Railway stamps applied (as was the norm for this print – see above text) cancelled with the Manchester philatelic counter special hand stamp dated 11th December 1981. These special overprinted cards are quite hard to source and have a high catalogue value. It is obviously this red overprint which gives me my Christmas theme for today, and it also keeps up my unusual Christmas postings as well. A very nice card.
15/12/2020
KFC CVD19
By
HAPPYMONKEY TEES
Published by
REDBUBBLE
I do like an unusual postcard design, especially one which fits into one of my topical themes, and currently the Covid-19 Pandemic is my top collected theme. This one is great, and I suspect KFC will be less than happy with it although it is more amusing than anything and does not really have any anti-KFC approach. My covid-19 mixed collection (stamps, mail, postcards etc) is now up to 1891 items (not bad for 8-9 months of collecting).
15/12/2020
CHRISTMAS 2020 COUNTDOWN
CHRISTMAS POSTCARD SELECTION
(Day Eight)
HAPPY CHRISTMAS – NADOLIG LLAWEN
Personalised & Hand Made Post Card
Produced and sent out by
David Rye
Every year I get a unique personalised post card, hand coloured, and sent out by fellow collector David Rye. This is this year’s card (they have different formats every year as well). This design is apparently based on an old Russian post card.
REVERSE SIDE OF ABOVE POST CARD
David has arranged for this to have the 2nd class 2020 Christmas stamp applied and cancelled first day of issue – 3rd November 2020 (because of the early release date of the Christmas stamps it is often the case that David’s Christmas card is the very first one I receive)
14/12/2020
A YEOMAN OF THE GUARD
Published by
RAPHAEL TUCK & SONS
OILLETTE (a style of printing which gives the image a raised oil painting like ridged/rippled surface texture)
Ref: Postcard No. 9221
I have always liked this postcard but had never bought a copy before this past Saturday. This is a good £4 - £5 postcard but I found a copy on an antiques stall in Canterbury on sale at just £1.50 (it even has a previous pencil price on the back of £4). At this price it was impossible for me to resist this superb postcard.
I have included this today to wean myself off of the’ Christmas and PHQ Stamp card’ circle I have been in for a few days now. I do like to try and keep this webpage eclectic.
14/12/2020
CHRISTMAS 2020 COUNTDOWN
CHRISTMAS POSTCARD SELECTION
(Day Seven)
DO THEY KNOW IT’S CHRISTMAS TIME AT ALL?
Published by
BOOMERANG (MEDIA)
Ref: COMMENT? CARDS
Continuing my ‘Crazy Christmas Postcard’ theme I give you this one which has the then President Bush, Saddam Hussein (killed in 2006), Osama Bin Laden (killed in 2011) and Prime Minister Tony Blair, all dressed as Santa. As I believe all were alive when this postcard was issued, I assume it came out prior to December 2006, an obvious deduction. I had not seen this postcard before picking up this past Saturday at the Canterbury postcard and collector’s fair. It is unusual finds like this which make fairs such a joy to visit.
P.S.
I doubt anyone would have wanted a Christmas Day visit from any of these Santa's - then or now, especially now!!
14/12/2020
“RUPERT BEAR”
ROYAL MAIL PHQ STAMP CARD SET
PHQ Set 476
(postcards that reproduce the Royal Mail’s stamp releases)
Stamps issued – 3RD September 2020
(As always, I have my copies used with the appropriate stamp applied to the front of the card and cancelled first day of issue with a special hand stamp)
Published by
ROYAL MAIL
RUPERT BEAR
THEN WITH A TERRIFYING ROAR
2ND CLASS
Published by
ROYAL MAIL
Ref: PHQ 476 (1)
I am trying to catch up with 2020’s PHQ Stamp Card releases so that I can show you this years Christmas designs before we actually get to Christmas itself! Having said that, the last few sets of the year have been very nice ones, in my mind anyway. I love Rupert the Bear and have collected related postcards as part of my television collection, as there have many a number of televised versions. This set here is very much in relation to the square formated images that appeared in the newspapers and in annuals etc.
RUPERT BEAR
THE TREE IS SUCH A LOVELY SIGHT
£1.70 STAMP
Published by
ROYAL MAIL
Ref: PHQ 476 (8)
I shall still be doing my Christmas countdown card today, but as this one here also has a Christmas theme as I assume this is a Christmas tree, you end up getting two today. As it happens, we put our tree up yesterday so at least this one is topical to me today.
13/12/2020
CHRISTMAS 2020 COUNTDOWN
CHRISTMAS POSTCARD SELECTION
(Day Six)
CE-LE-BRATE!
DALEKS CELEBRATE A COVID CHRISTMAS, SNOWY WOOD
By
AMANDA FAIRCHILD
Published by
REDBUBBLE
My longest running collecting theme is ‘Television’, my newest collecting theme is the ‘Covid-19 Pandemic’, so imagine my delight to find both themes combined on a single postcard image! Doctor Who is also my all time favourite television programme as well, so a treble bonus! I did say I was going to try and make the Christmas countdown postcards as unusual as possible, at least in the first days – more traditional cards later in the countdown.
13/12/2020
“SHERLOCK”
ROYAL MAIL PHQ STAMP CARD SET
PHQ Set 475
(postcards that reproduce the Royal Mail’s stamp releases)
Stamps issued – 18TH August 2020
(As always, I have my copies used with the appropriate stamp applied to the front of the card and cancelled first day of issue with a special hand stamp)
Published by
ROYAL MAIL
THE REICHENBACH FALL
BENEDICT CUMBERBATCH as SHERLOCK HOLMES
1ST Class stamp
Published by
ROYAL MAIL
Ref: PHQ 475 (1)
An interesting set for what was a very popular television series which brought the Sherlock Holmes stories into our present time. This should be a very popular postcard set.
12/12/2020
CHRISTMAS 2020 COUNTDOWN
CHRISTMAS POSTCARD SELECTION
(Day Five)
BEFORDERT MIT KAMELEN
VOM HIRTENFELD NACH BETHLEHEM
‘Carried with Camels (Carriage with Camels)
From Hirtenfeld to Bethlehem’
Used with special cachet:
‘TRANSPORTED ON CAMELS
FROM SHEPHERDS-FIELD’
Israel Stamp Card – Stamps cancelled
11th December 2020
Possibly Published by or for - or created for
SOS-KINDERDORF
(This is charity that runs Children’s Villages – the card is certainly addressed to this Austrian based charity)
Is this Christmas themed? Yes, surely, after all it was carried to Bethlehem in December by a camel, which were used by the three wise men – there you go, several Christmas styled links. Whatever, I have decided this is going to be todays Christmas posting (and keeping up my trend of trying to make the cards as varied and unusual as possible, although I am sure many Santa’s are on route to make their appearance on upcoming postcards!)
11/12/2020
BARBARA WINDSOR ….. R.I.P.
Dame Barbara Windsor (born Barbara Ann Deeks)
6th August 1937 – 10th December 2020
English actress best known for her many appearances in the Carry-On films and for portraying the character Peggy Mitchell in the BBC1 soap series ‘EastEnders’ (which she joined in 1994, she also won the 1999 British Soap Award for Best Actress for this series).
POSTCARD
“CARRY ON CAMPING”
Published by
LONDON POSTCARD COMPANY
11/12/2020
CHRISTMAS 2020 COUNTDOWN
CHRISTMAS POSTCARD SELECTION
(Day Four)
FROHLICHE WEIHNACHTEN
‘Merry Christmas’
Der kleine maulwurf
‘The Little Mole’
By
ZDENEK MILER
Published by
MODERN TIMES GmbH
Ref: Best.-Nr 1111-924
The little mole is a popular animated character from both books and films across the European countries of the Czech Republic and Germany, amongst others. As the little mole often appears on television I can, and in fact have, placed this in my ‘Television’ collection.
Some of my friends had their Christmas tree’s up before we even entered December! We have not put ours up yet because I am very ‘Bah Humbug’, but my daughter is very Christmassy, so I suspect ours will go up in the next week (although I noticed today that my daughter already has one up in her bedroom!)
10/12/2020
CHRISTMAS 2020 COUNTDOWN
CHRISTMAS POSTCARD SELECTION
(Day Three)
AT THE PLAY
AN EXCITING MOMENT
“CHRISTMAS GREETINGS”
By
LOUIS WAIN
Published by
RAPHAEL TUCK & SONS
“Oilette”
Ref: “LOUIS WAIN’S CATS” – Postcard C133
In my attempt to make my ‘Christmas Countdown’ as varied as possible I give you this delightful Louis Wain cat postcard which would clearly have no ‘Xmas’ connection at all if it was not for the red overprint added to the bottom right corner, but this overprint definitely places this card in this topic. It is also a ‘very’ nice and very collectible card as well, as most Louis Wain postcards are. I picked this one up in Florida a couple of years ago at an antiques centre (or ‘Center’ as they would spell it). This was a bargain as it only cost me $5, about a quarter of what it should have cost me.
09/12/2020
CHRISTMAS 2020 COUNTDOWN
CHRISTMAS POSTCARD SELECTION
(Day two)
HAPPY XMAS WISHES
Printed and Published by
J. BEAGLES & Co., LTD., E. C.
Ref: Series No 1086B
What could possibly more Christmassy than a load of sheep lazing around on a road? … well, ‘actually’ quite a lot I think, but despite this that is what appears in this bell-shaped motif with the Christmas message printed underneath! One of my more unusual early Christmas postcard issues.
08/12/2020
CHRISTMAS 2020 COUNTDOWN
CHRISTMAS POSTCARD SELECTION
SANTA CLAUS NEXT TO SANTA CLAUS MOUNTAIN IN THE SECRET VALLEY
Produced by
SANTA CLAUS OF GREENLAND FOUNDATION 1997
December is well under way now and after the year we have had I know many are looking forward to at least a little bit of celebration and merriment, so, maybe it is time to start my Christmas countdown. What better way to start than with this Santa postcard which seems to show an off-duty Santa on a bit of a break.
REVERSE SIDE OF ABOVE POSTCARD
This has been used with a Greenland postage stamp which has been cancelled with a ‘3900 NUUK’ date cancel which is a special Santa Claus cancellation dated 27th November 1998. The card has also received the red coloured official ‘SANTA CLAUS OF GREENLAND FOUNDATION’ cachet. The combination of cancel and cachet appealed to me and makes this a very nice card.