Ship has left
door A lot of mail can be found to passengers (or workers) on board of a ship. Quite a number of them are returned to sender or redirected, mainly because the person is not on board or because the ship has left.
Categorie: Netherlands & Overseas
The international reply coupon
In the Netherlands this was abolished on December 31, 2001, however exchange of foreign coupons is still possible. The IRC is a product of the Universal Postal Union, the UPU. It was introduced at the Congress of Rome in 1906, on May 27, and became …
Nice and fast
We are already satisfied nowadays when a letter will be delivered the next day. The obligation for PostNL to deliver at least 95% of the mail the next working day (within the Netherlands, except for the islands) did the company in 2018 with “the heels …
Last sale of Surinamese stamps by Dutch PTT
The stamps of the Dutch colonies were always available at the office of the Philatelic Service of the PTT in the Netherlands and at philatelic counters at the post offices. Surinam became independent on November 25, 1975. This also stopped the sales of Surinamese postage …
“Kinderbedankkaarten”
“Kinderbedankkaarten” (Children’s thank-you cards) are a small collection area. These cards were cataloged and given a value in the 2016 edition of the “Speciale Catalogus BVPH”. There are cards in various categories, each with a separate print and circulation. The smallest edition was 250 pieces.
Decemberzegels 1997
As every year special Christmas stamps at a lower rate (55c versus 80c) were also issued in 1997. They were issued on November, 25 in a sheet of 20 stamps, with six different designs, designed by Julia Kaiser.
Express labels
Since the issuing of the book ‘Met de meeste spoed en promptitude’ by Arie Zonjee and Ot Louw (2013) collecting express labels of the Netherlands has become a more structured hobby. This book with 294 pages describes all known Dutch labels between 1863 and 1999. …
Request for Blue Diamond’s song, postage paid for by UNTEA stamps
door The last part of the former Dutch East Indies to be “lost” (as many older Dutch people thought at the time) was Dutch/Netherlands New Guinea (NNG), the western half of the island of New Guinea, in 1962. From October 1962 the United Nations Temporary Executive …
Mobile Post-Office
door A long-time friend of mine from the Netherlands gave me the slightly tattered envelope shown in Figure 1 when I visited him last May. According to the address on the back, the envelope was mailed from Wageningen to Brunssum. It carries a 10 ct + …
VOC-postmark ‘Kaapstad’ from Cape Town
As recently as 2016 a letter has been found with a VOC postmark from Cape Town, South Africa, which has really been sent from Cape Town. Till 2014 it was even doubted that there had been any VOC postmarks at all in Cape Town in …