[Postcrossing] Maxi-card from Australia

I really love to get maxi-cards. They are so pretty with a matching stamp. It is the second time that I got one with Postcrossing. Amazing. 

I would like to send out also some cards like this but I have no idea how to get such cards in Austria. There are no official issues except one of modern art and it's not very pretty. 

It shows the most known plant of Australia- the Eucalyptus

[Sunday Stamps] Harvest/ country life/ autumn

Today is Sunday and the topic of Sunday Stamps is harvest, country life and autumn.

It was very easy to find some stamps in my little collection of the GDR. In the GDR, agriculture was a big piece of life. The GDR tried to produce everything in their own country. My family lived in a little village and so they worked also in the field of agriculture, more or less. It was normal that in autumn everyone was helping with the harvest -even they worked normally in other jobs. My mother always told me how she was helping to collect potatoes after school in this time and in the end of the day everyone was participating in a potato-fire where they were sitting around a little fire and grilling some potatoes.

The GDR issued  a lot of country life stamps.These are my favorites:

This stamp connects harvest and art. It is a painting of Egger Lienz in 1907. 

Agriculture and cows. 

If someone has problems with following my blog, it's because I changed the address a little bit. Now you can find me with exploringstampsandcards.blogspot.com. I thought it is a good idea to change the address because this blog is now more about stamps and cards than anything else.

[Postcrossing] Russia - the paintings of Konstantin Makovsky

I got only 3 cards of Russia- ever. And two of them are from the same artist. One I received 2009 and the other one, a few days ago. Another thing special is the stamp. The stamp of the Russian card in 2009 shows nearly the same photo like the card in 2014. And also the little stamps are of the same kind, even as today Russia uses normally the new animal stamps. It is like the sender knew, that I will receive this card in future.

Isn't it amazing that this stamp looks like the second card, which I got 5 years later from another random person?

 I am in love with Russian stamps. To be honest, I like animals but the stamps of architecture are a little bit more special to me. I always think about a collection of architecture stamps, but as there are so many, I think that would be impossible.

The artist of the two postcards is  Konstantin Makovsky (1839-1915), he seems to be very known in Russia for his talent to paint the Russian life in high detailed art. His paintings always seems to be a little bit dreamily and affirmative.

[Sunday Stamps] Se-Tenant

Normally I collect only used stamps and stamps that I want to use in instance on postcards or letters. But this stamp is special in many ways. I bought it only for my collection, as the usage is a bit difficult. The worth of 2,50 Euro is in Austria..not a letter. Not a postcard. Really I don't know what to send with 2,50. Perhaps a really big letter. And you need a big letter because the stamp is also very big. The size of the scan is nearly the original size.

The stamp shows the city of Salzburg painted in 1829 as a panorama of Johann Michael Sattler. The original high is 4,86 meters and the length is about 25,53 meters.

Something special is also, that the picture shows exactly the city to this time. It is like a photography and everything is in his place, even the windows of the houses. And it shows the shadows of the mountains in exactly 4 p.m.  But of course the picture was painted about 4 or 5 years.

After the artist has finished his painting, he took it with him on tour across Europe, to show everyone the beauty of Salzburg. I can not imagine how he took the huge picture with him to this time...Perhaps like a big top for a circus with a lot of work to construct and to deconstruct.
Salzburg became very fast popular. It was the first promotion of a city for tourism.

Today you can see the original and restored panorama in Salzburg in the panorama museum.

[Sunday Stamps] Childhood Memories

Today is Sunday. Time for showing some interesting stamps. Today is a free choice and I would like to show you my all time favorite stamps. 

This is a yellow rose and was released for the international fair of roses in the GDR 1972. This stamp is a very special stamp for me. This stamp is the beginning of my collection and my love for stamps. I was a child of 10 years when I saw it. Between all the other old stamps of my grandfather, showing boring history or architecture (in the eyes of a child), this stamp caught immediately my attention. Colorful and bright- I was impressed of the beautiful flower. As my mother is a florist, the love for nature is natural in our family. As a child I visited also some fairs with her. 

Austria has had different common stamps of really beautiful plants. I like the most the 4 Cent stamp of a dandelion. It is my favorite stamp ever. Every little piece of this plant is shown in great detail -almost perfect. The artist arranged photos of real plants. It shows the fragile beauty of a very simple and lovely plant. Also this plant is connected with some beautiful memories of childhood. Like a lot of other children, I loved to play with this flower in the wind.

[Postcrossing] German Stilt Houses

I found this amazing card in my letterbox. Another UNESCO whs, I am always happy to find one of these cultural and historical gems in the postbox. These are the prehistoric stilt houses in Germany.  It is always a little bit strange to imagine how the life could have been in this time. It was constructed around 4000 B.C. The same architecture can be found in different places and different countrys around the alps. 

Also some pretty stamps. One of the common flower issue and the Nuremberg castle. It was constructed about 1000 years ago. The municipal buildings are now used as a youth hostel. I would like to spend a night there. That would be great. Living in a castle- every little girl's dream.

[Sunday stamps] Mammals

I have chosen some stamps from Russia and the German Democratic Republic. I have also a stamp from Austria, with a panda...but there are no pandas in Austria, just in the zoo. But the zoo is famous for their pandas and so it happened that Austria has a stamp of a panda. I will show it another day. I like it more, when there are shown animals which you can really find in the country.  

As you can see on the postmark, the Russian stamps are very little. I like little stamps for postcards because you can put many on the card. The Austrian stamps are always very big, there is no chance to stick more than 1 or 2 on the card. 

I love the stamp with the squirrels. They are my favorite animals. I know a special place in the forest where are a lot of cute squirrels and they are not shy! I take always some nuts with me when I visit them. They are so friendly and sometimes a brave squirrel climb up to my knees to get the nuts in my hands. I am so in love with them. 

It is not a big mammal, but it has the biggest place in my heart.