Monasteries

New Entries

Two days ago I started the preparation of this post with some Spanish stamps... but with so many of them to enter the collection, which one's should I classify ??.. it was a though question to answer , but in the end I think I have managed to get a nice idea to this post... for those who like engraved stamps, this is a Great post...take a seat and enjoy some of the nice engravings Spanish stamps have to offer...

Most of the stamps I have to present today are from a group of Series called "Spain Monasteries"..the series was issued for the first time in 1959 and ended in 1978 with interruptions in 1962 and 1971...the focus is in Religious buildings so we are talking about Ancient Architecture and consequently some complicated engravings , with lots of light and shadow problems to add to the engraver's hard task...In addition to this group of "Monastery" stamps I have others from the "Landscapes and monuments" and "tourism" series (from several different years) always with a religious background and a nice engraving work...
I used the EDIFIL 2016 to prepare this post,and I can say it is a very nice catalog, very complete, but without any references to Designers and Engravers... if You don't need this kind of info, it is the catalog You Want ....
All the series are incomplete , so I have to try to finish them in a near future..

[Left]  1960 "Samos Royal Monastery" (3) Sc(966)
[Right] 1963 "St. Mary's of Poblet Royal Monastery" (4) Sc(1158)

A very nice representation of Pope John XXIII,in the year of the Vatican II Ecumenical Council..

1962 "Vatican II Ecumenical Council" (1) Sc(1153)

Four stamps from the Tourism series of 1965...it is curious to see that France also have a series with landscapes and Famous places from the country, and I think that in all Europe these were the two countries that invested more in these so called "Tourism" Series... some of these stamps in both countries are great works of design and engraving so they are National and Internationally "Wanted" stamps and in consequence an excellent way to spread the "Tourism" Message...these series used to have 10 stamps, so they are a little hard to obtain , if you don't buy them in their complete format..the "Tourism" series were somehow difficult to study , because they are erratic in the issues and an additional problem exists ... the "Landscapes and Monuments" series are very similar in their objective , so I think we are standing in front of a denomination problem..only that...in the end almost all the years we had a series that could be called a "Tourism" series....
1965 "Tourism Series" (10) Sc(1285,1286,1287,1289)

1st row)Left]Right] 1966 "St. Mary's Carthusian Monastery,Jerez" (3) Sc(1389,1390)
2nd row) Left] 1968 "Tourism Series" (5) Sc(1534)2nd row) Right] 1970 "St. Mary's of Ripoll Monastery" (3) Sc(1641)
3rd row) Left]Right] 1969 "Las Huelgas Monastery" (3) Sc(1593,1594)

The two first stamps are from the celebration of the Compostela Holy Year... this commemoration is divided in 3 series of 6,7 and 8 stamps each, all of them issued in 1971...
1971 [Left] "Compostela Holy Year (2nd series)" (7) Sc(1658)
1971 [Right] "Compostela Holy Year (3rd series)" (8) Sc(1649) 1971 [Center] "400 Anniversary of the Battle of Lepanto" (3) Sc(1692)

1972 "St. Thomas Monastery, Avila" (3) Sc(1739,1740)

1973 "St. Domingo of Silos Monastery , Burgos " (3) Sc(1786,1787)

 1975 "San juan De La Peña Monastery" (3) Sc(1923,1924)

 1976 "St. Peter of Alcantara Monastery" (3) Sc(2014,2015)

To end this short post , 3 great stamps from the 1982 Landscapes and Monuments Series...
Sc(2304,2306,2307)

Today was not a talking day , so I hope that just seeing the stamps is enough for You...

                                                                               

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a short Walk with Pavlov and his dogs...

New Entries

Today I will show another group of stamps from Russia...the stamps are from the period of 1948/1950 , completed with some small definitive stamps from 1966 and 1988...it will be a post without many to say ,because the stamps are [Photo] printed (exception made for the 1988 stamps...) and all of you know that I feel somehow 'disarmed' (speechless) in front of them, without many to say, except to talk a little about their design, always nice and appealing...well ,lets start...

As you already know , when I am working with [Photo] stamps ,I have to use a smaller definition of the scans, to protect the final result, with more detailed images .. with these stamps . the greater the definition, smaller is the level of detail....so I think that 300ppp are the best definition to use with these stamps...this is a beautiful war series , that show us images of the 4 branches of the Soviet Army...

1948 "30th Anniversary of the Soviet Defence Forces" (4) [Des (Ye. Sokolov)][Photo] Sc(1205,...,1208)

A series of landscapes commemorating the Crimea and Caucasus regions....for me, and I think most of you have a different opinion, Russian stamps started poorly if we compare them with other countries, but from the 30's until the 70's they reached enormous quality and richness...this period for me , from the 30's to the 50's is the best ,but it could be much better if the printing options were others...   

1948 "Views of Crimea and Caucasus" (8) [Des (V. Andreev)][Photo] Sc(1310,...,1317)

A series celebrating the increasing Women's role in Russian society... the series has 7 stamps, but only 6 are presented because the other one (identical to the 40k but with value 2r) was already in the collection...the designs are work of Vasili Vasilievich Zavyalov, one of the best Russian stamp Designers, with work from the 30's to the late 60's..only the 50k stamp is work of other Artist...

1949 "International Women's Day" (7) [Des (V. Savyalov)(L. Golovanov 50k)][Photo] Sc(1334,...,1339)

two stamps honoring Ivan Pavlov, a Great Scientist from Russia...

now let us focus for some moments the love/hate response..,here it is something that either you love or hate ..( !!why??!!..) ..there is no "middle ground".. the Band's name is "Pavlov's Dog" ...

1949 "Birth Centenary of I.P. Pavlov(Scientist)" (2) [Des (V. Klimashin)][Photo] Sc(1390,1391)

Culture as we know was something very important in Russian society, so here we have a series celebrating the foundation of a theater in Moscow... 

1949 "125th Anniversary of the Malyi Theater,Moscow" (3) [Des (Ye. Bulanova)][Photo] Sc(1400,...,1402)

A very nice Sport series, with some of the favorite sports of the Russians in those days...I just want to highlight the last stamp,representing something like "Hunting in the Ice"..it is something that represents very well the the effects of time in our mentalities..what was then something current and absolutely normal is now in the field of the most incorrect things we can do... to hunt endangered species like most of the animals of the ice...

1949 "National sports" (5) [Des (V. Zavyalov)][Photo] Sc(1415,...,1419)

1950 "25th Anniversary of Uzbek S.S.R." (6) [Des (V. Andreev)][Photo] Sc(1429,...,1434)

These are some blocks of 4 from the definitive series of 66...I think that this series doen't have anything special, well the opposite of the 61 series, a spectacular one (in my opinion...)..I already had all these stamps in the collection but not in this format,so now is a good opportunity to show them and allow them to enter the collection...I will not present the codes, but I must highlight that this is another good work of Savyalov.....

Among the many material I've got from the 70's and 80's ,I found this beautiful [Recess] series...the designs are very nice and the detail is taken to another higher level...of course in this case I have used 600ppp scans and the images are much better than all the others....it is another series of small definitive stamps , this time from 1988... very well accomplished stamps...
1988 "Standart Issue" (12) [Des (V. koval)][Recess] Sc(5723,...,5726,5728,...,5732)

This time it was a short post ,but I think the stamps I presented were good...next time ,another post with Spanish stamps... Until then,

Seeyou