UNOstamps comments

Although this is not a day to day web log, these comments contain an insight of my work on the website and my collection.

UNOstamps comment - 30 March 2010 - Time flies

It has been three months since I wrote my last comment and worked on the website. The last few days I did some work on it and I hope to continue on a regular basis. This won’t be easy because of all the other things I have to do in my work and my other functions. Well, at least there is some new information for the visitors: four new stamp catalogues I bought recently and the data for two new stamps from Austria. There are no images yet, but I hope to buy them soon.

The next few days I will add new stamps from the Republic of Moldova, including the recent ones for the International Year of Astronomy. For this same Year I also bought the stamps from Netherlands Antilles. There is also a lot of work that doesn't show immediately. As I wrote in July (Smaller is better) I got the advice to use a smaller letter. And I did. All the pages in the 'Persons' catalogue have been changed now. Also all external links have been checked and corrected. Next phase is to restyle all the subject pages. Some have already been done (like World Heritage).

What else is there to tell? I didn’t make it to the local council. My party however, got one seat (out of 37) and we are now working to establish a real political presence in our municipality. Furthermore in May we celebrate 65 years of the end of the Second World War, and I am preparing the traditional exhibition on local history from 1940 to 1945. The official opening is scheduled at 1 May 2010. There is still a lot of work to do. This and my other activities fill up my agenda almost every evening and weekend.

Is there time for fun? Yes. Apart from the visit to the pub on Thursday, I am planning to visit the Belgian stamp exhibition Antverpia 2010 next week. Unfortunately the railways chose exactly this weekend to carry out works on the railways between Roosendaal and Antwerp. I have to figure out how to get there. Maybe on Friday or find someone who wants to go by car on Saturday. We will see.

UNOstamps comment - 31 December 2009 - And now the end is near IV

For the fourth time I can write a comment with this title (see also 2006, 2007 and 2008). At this last day of the year I can look back on a year that was not that much different from 2008.

The UNOstamps website only grew slightly with 7 countries, 9 subjects, 9 persons, and a lot of new stamp images. Also added were philatelic books and magazines and stamp catalogues. There were 5 newsletters and only 10 comments (including this one).

I didn't have much time to spend on my website in 2009. I did however spend a lot of time (and money) on my stamp collection. I bought hundreds of new stamps and souvenir sheets from all over the world. A lot of them were for the International Year of Astronomy. Last week I received the new stamps (or are they?) from South Ossetia and Mountainous Karabakh. I don't think these territories have made it to the catalogues yet.

As you have read in the comments below, this year saw the publication of my latest book. Also I made a photo exhibition (which can be seen again this month), wrote several press releases, had numerous meetings and went to work four days a week. And at the end of the summer we started the preparations for the upcoming local elections on 3 March 2010. We wrote an election manifesto and had a photo shoot. You can see us standing in the flowers.

What can we expect this year? The local elections of course, and maybe I end up being a local council member. In May we commemorate 65 years of liberation, the end of the Second World War. For this I have to make another exhibition. And in October we host the 14th ILGA-Europe conference in The Hague. The work for this has only just started.

As you can see a busy year. I hope to add new items, countries and other pages to the website regularly. But I can't promise that there will be daily updates.

I wish all visitors of this website all the best for the coming year.

UNOstamps comment - 25 October 2009 - Long time, no see

I realise that it has been some time since I updated my website. These months fly away when you are not careful. If I didn't do anything on my own website, what did I do? Well September and October are very busy months. For the local historical society I prepared a small photo exhibition in the local library with recently discovered photos from the summer of 1945. The exhibition is part of the National History Week (Week van de Geschiedenis). Also we took part in National Monument Day (Open Monumentendag), National Archive Day (Landelijke Archievendag) and I gave a presentation on the history of one of my town's neighbourhoods, built from 1946.

Our local party is already preparing for the local elections on 3 March 2010. At the moment we don't have any seats on the local council, but we hope to regain some. I am number 3 on the list, so it is going to be a close call. We have a new website and a special web log to give information to potential voters.

My stamp collection has been growing over the last few weeks. Through the internet I bought stamps from Venezuela, Uruguay, Afghanistan, and a number of countries from North Africa and the Middle East. From Bangladesh I received the latest stamps and the Philatelic Bureau of Papua New Guinea has issued stamps for the International Non-Violence Day. You can see them on the website very soon.

Tuesday I'm flying to Malta for the annual ILGA-Europe conference. Last year I was in Vienna and wrote the Vienna Comments. I hope the hotel in Malta has a good internet connection so I can give you a daily update in the Malta Comments.

UNOstamps comment - 26 July 2009 - Smaller is better

I hope the title of this comment gets your attention, but first something completely different. The Gibraltar Philatelic Service offers webmasters of philatelic non-profit websites a chance to earn some pocket money. On the left is a link to their stamp shop where you can buy the latest Gibraltar stamps. For every purchase someone makes after following this link, Gibraltar makes a donation to the UNOstamps website. Click, buy and support UNOstamps.

Some time ago I received an Award for my website. The award giver gave me this advice: "Use a somewhat smaller letter and you will have a lot more breathing space". At first I didn't take to much notice, but recently I found out that he was right.

I have always used two letter sizes for the pages on my website: small (like this one) and large. The large letter is used on the subject and person pages. The next few months I will gradually change all these pages to a smaller letter. The pages with the subject and person catalogues, the Newsletter and the links have already been changed.

Please let me know what you think about this change by sending me an e-mail or writing something in the guestbook. And while you are here, check the new stamp images from Bangladesh that I added to the site.

UNOstamps comment - 11 July 2009 - A never ending story

How could I have missed that? That was the first thing I thought (well, in Dutch anyway) when I saw this stamp from Bangladesh. It has a reprint of one of the stamps issued in 1974 for the 100th anniversary of the UPU. Some time ago I decided that I would include these kind of reprints in the UNOstamps collection.

There is always a risk that I missed a stamp issue. Sometimes I just didn't realize that a stamp issue has a UN connection. And sometimes it is not clearly described in the stamp catalogues. For example: the Michel catalogues never tell you what there is to be seen on a souvenir sheet apart from the stamp(s) in it. This means that, for example, the sheets you will see on this site from Solomon Islands, Alderney and Ross Dependency are not described in the catalogues as an issue for an International Year, but for another reason.

I have also discovered a stamp from Benin from 1983 that has the emblem for the World Communications Year on it. When I studied Benin back in 2006 I didn't notice it. The coming weeks I shall look at the countries I added to the website in 2006 to see what else I may have missed. So I not only have to look at the stamps that are newly issued, but also be looking for something I might have missed in the past. A never ending story indeed.

As you might have seen there are a lot of new pages on the website. Since the last Newsletter I have added some 25 countries, persons, subjects, stamps etc. Also I have checked almost all external links on the country and subject pages. It is something I do at least once every year and every time a lot of links have changed. I hope everything is functioning normal now. If not, please e-mail me (info@unostamps.nl).

To conclude this comment, I have checked my website on several other computers and what I saw was quite disturbing. Sometimes my website does not appear the same way as it does on my own computer. There are horizontal scrolls at the bottom of the screen, there is a different letter type (it should be Trebuchet MS) and images are in the wrong place. Today I have downloaded the latest version of Explorer (IE 8) and when I looked at my website with this new programme everything was out of place. Then IE asked me to install something, and when I accepted my website was back to its original self.

As I can't see what my visitors are seeing, I ask everyone who thinks that something is wrong to send me a screenshot by e-mail (info@unostamps.nl) so we can sort out the problem together.

Well, this has been a lot of text in this warm summer. Enjoy your visit(s) to the website and please leave a message in the Guestbook or write something for the Newsletter. Remember that 30 July is the final date to send in your answer to the quiz. Good luck!

UNOstamps comment - 8 June 2009 - May I have your votes please?

It has just been midnight in the Netherlands when I write this comment. All over Europe votes are being counted for the largest trans-national elections in the world. While most of Europe voted today (Sunday), we voted last Thursday. Since we are a protestant country, we never vote on Sunday. While watching television I have been busy updating some pages on my website and checking external links to see if everything still works. I do this every six months, so my visitors will not reach a dead end.

Have I done any work on my collection the last few days. Well yes. I am still working on putting all my new stamps that I bought in Essen in the right place. Also this enormous flood of Astronomy-stamps keeps me busy. I am trying to find all of the series issued by the Posteurope countries (the Europa stamps). By now I have bought the stamps and sheets from Ireland, Guernsey, Isle of Man, Gibraltar, Austria, Faroe Islands, Belgium, all through the websites of their philatelic services.

Also I wrote two articles for the magazine of the Dutch UN-UE stamp collectors club. When the new magazine is issued, I will put both articles on the website. They are of course in Dutch, but maybe it is a reason to study this beautiful language. One article is about the presentation of the new Dutch stamps on Astronomy and the other is about the way we look at the stamps in our collection. Or more how we not look at the stamps. A lot of stamps have a lot of small details on them that most collectors hardly notice.

This week I'll be working on the new edition of the Newsletter. And I hope to add some more stamps to the website. Please visit the site regularly to see what has changed. And of course you are invited to sign the UNOstamps Guestbook.

UNOstamps comment - 10 May 2009 - Bringing chaos to order

I have arranged all my UN related stamps very neatly. First by subject and then in alphabetical order (from Abu Dhabi to Zimbabwe). Lots and lots of stamps side by side in my albums. But... last Thursday I went to the Briefmarkenmesse in Essen and I bought a lot of new and old stamps. This means that almost everything has to be rearranged. Especially the older categories where I bought stamps from Antigua, Bahamas, Barbuda and Cayman Islands.

The Briefmarkenmesse itself was very crowded. Credit crisis? What credit crisis? People were spending money everywhere. And I also spent too much this time. A problem is that this year's Europa stamps have the theme International Year of Astronomy. So that means that more than 50 countries are issuing stamps and booklets and small sheets and souvenir sheets and... and... and... I get the impression that a lot of countries are just looking for a lot of euros at the cost of the poor stamp collector.

Thursday was the first day of issue of the new UN World Heritage stamps dedicated to Germany. The German post joined in with a special stamp as well. A lot of postal administrations sold their latest issues. UNPA was represented by a stamp dealer (see photo) so there was no special blue card. I must mention in a very positive way the Vietnam Stamp Company. This country sells almost every stamp that they issued since 1977, although their website says they have been withdrawn from sale. I have almost completed my Viet Nam collection and I even discovered some UN related stamps that the major stamp catalogues missed (in their description of the stamps).

Friday I bought two new albums to put all this new stuff in. Fortunately there aren't any more stamps shows, at least for a few months (until Antwerp and Apeldoorn in October).

Gradually I am adding new items to the website. The latest stamps from Jersey, Liechtenstein and the Netherlands are already there and Belgium will follow soon. I have added some English explanations to the Philatelic books page and rearranged the Philatelic magazines and made separate pages for the Comments 2006 and 2007. This enables the pages to download faster. New things will be added frequently, but as I wrote earlier, not as frequent as the last two years. Just come back to the website every few weeks and see what's new.

UNOstamps comment - 2 May 2009 - Back in business!

The last few months I have been very busy. Not with my stamp collection, but with all sorts of other activities. This meant that there hasn't been a Newsletter for months now. I apologize to all my readers and visitors for this. But now I'm back.

The coming months I can't spend as much time adding items to the website as I would like to, but I'll make sure that something new will be there every few days, or at least once a week. For now there are some new philatelic magazines and new stamps from Papua New Guinea commemorating World AIDS Day 2008.

This weekend I hope to add the latest stamps from the Netherlands and Jersey for the International Year of Astronomy. As you might know, the IYA is this year's theme for the Europa-stamps. This means that more than 50 countries will issue stamps, booklets and souvenir sheets. The first Dutch stamps were presented to the Minister for Education, Science and Culture and I had the privilege to attend that event. You will see the exclusive photos very soon.

One reason for not working on the website was the presentation of my latest book on local history. On 4 April 2009 I presented the first copy to the mayor of Westland during a meeting in the old town hall. One of the visitors made four short films that you can see on Youtube. The link for the first film is http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vo7dJSvyvJE&feature=channel. The other three can be found on the same page. The films give a general impression. The whole meeting lasted for over an hour.

Thursday 7 May I will visit the Briefmarkenmesse in Essen (Germany). This is one of the largest stamp events in Europe and more than 50 postal administrations and dozens of stamp dealers will be present there. This day is also the first day of issue for the new United Nations stamps depicting World Heritage in Germany. Also the German Post will issue a similar stamp with the World Heritage site "Luther Memorials in Eisleben and Wittenberg".

I haven't been in Germany for years (not counting a brief transfer at Frankfurt Airport when I visited Sofia, Bulgaria, in 2006) and I have never been to a German stamp fair. I will have my (new) photo camera with me to make some pictures, at least of the UNPA stand there.

The final question I have to answer is: when will the new Newsletter appear? To be honest, I don't know yet. I guess the visit to Essen will give me enough new material to write about. In the mean time please enjoy the more than 400 page the UNOstamps website already has available for you.

Do you want to voice your opinion on this comment? Write something in the UNOstamps Guestbook!

UNOstamps comment - 31 December 2008 - And now the end is near III

For the third time I can write a comment with this title (see also 2006 and 2007). At this last day of the year I can look back on what was a year that started very slow but disappeared quickly after the summer. In my personal life it was very quiet. No enormous changes, no new job, no new hobbies, no new love.

The UNOstamps website grew with 22 countries, 26 subjects, 10 persons, and a lot of new stamp images. Also added were philatelic books and magazines and stamp catalogues. There were 11 newsletters and only 10 comments (including this one).

A number of special events happened in 2008. From September our local historical society celebrated its 35th anniversary. I had to make a special jubilee exhibition that was visited by some 900 people and was officially opened by the alderman for culture. In November we held a special historical film show with more than 100 visitors watching documentaries on three of our monuments and a film on our village during the Second World War. Next year I hope to finish my new book with minutes of the town council 1953-1958.

In May we celebrated World Fair Trade Day in our local Worldshop (Wereldwinkel). There one of our volunteers was awarded a local decoration by the mayor for many years of volunteer work.

The trip to Vienna was something so impressive that I'll never forget it. Two ILGA conferences in a row with people from all over the world. Personal stories about discrimination, persecution, police harassment, but also stories of hope for a better future. And I got the chance to visit the United Nations buildings and get a private guided tour. For this occasion I wrote special Vienna Comments that are still on the website.

What else happened? In January my favourite pub in Amsterdam closed for renovation, it is due to reopen next April. I went to stamp shows in Loosdrecht, 's-Hertogenbosch and Apeldoorn, where I spent far too much money. I attended and chaired a large number of meetings during the year, I visited Tilburg and Amsterdam and I even won one whole euro in the lottery.

Later today, like the last two years, I will visit a friend in Tilburg and we will again start the new year in the south of the country in one of the local pubs.

I wish all visitors of this website all the best for the coming year.

UNOstamps comment - 10 December 2008 - Turtles and human rights

A strange combination, but I can explain it. Today is the 60th birthday of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. One of the most important documents in the world. Just stop a moment and think about those basic rights for everyone: freedom, education, housing, health, and some happiness. And turtles? Well, Tuesday I received the latest stamps from the Pitcairn Islands. A beautiful souvenir sheet with turtles from Henderson Island, a World Heritage site.

I ordered the souvenir sheet on the day of issue. When it arrived I saw that they sent it the same day. What a perfect service. I can recommend everyone to order their Pitcairn stamps directly from the philatelic service. The sheet is worth having in your collection, even if you don't collect UN stamps or animals or Pitcairn Islands. They found a designer from France that managed to draw turtles under water and on the beach. Also there are those cute little ones making their way from the sand towards the open sea. Well done Pitcairn!

UNOstamps comments - 30 October - 11 November 2008 - The Vienna Comments

My comments from Vienna, that I wrote during the ILGA-Europe and ILGA World conferences are on a special page:

Vienna Comments

UNOstamps comment - 15 October 2008 - Blog Action Day: blogging against poverty

Today is Blog Action Day 2008. Like last year all people who write some sort of web log are asked to focus the reader's attention on a specific subject. For 2008 the subject is poverty.

UNOstamps deals with the work of the United Nations and related organizations and the most important struggle against poverty within the system is the Millennium Development Goals (MDG). This historic promise made by 189 world leaders in 2000 contains eight specific targets to end poverty worldwide. They include education, child health, fighting AIDS and ending hunger.

This last target is not new. As far back as 1963 the FAO organized a world wide Freedom from Hunger Campaign. In many countries money was raised to help get food to deprived people. Here in the Netherlands the general public was awakened around 1968 when the first televised images from Biafra could be seen.

The latest instrument to end poverty is microcredit. The leading figure here is Mohammed Yunus from Bangladesh who received the Nobel Peace Prize in 2006. The UN declared 2005 as the International Year of Microcredit. The year got a lot of attention in the Netherlands because of the involvement of Princess Máxima who became a special advisor to the UN.

I have tried for the last fifteen years to contribute to make life better for other people. Since 1993 I am a volunteer in our local Worldshop (Wereldwinkel). Here we sell artifacts, goods and food from small producers in Africa, Asia and Latin America. The producers get a fair price for the products they make and with this money they can build schools, improve production and get a better life for themselves and their families. Anyone can help in a simple way: buy your presents, your coffee, or toys in your local Worldshop. Every small contribution counts. Don't wait until tomorrow, start today.

UNOstamps comment - 18 September 2008 - Almost famous

Yesterday the latest issue of Grenzenloos arrived. As you might know it is the quarterly magazine of "VN-VE Filatelie", the Dutch Philatelic Society for United Nations and United Europe. Some weeks ago the chairman of the society phoned me and asked if I would like to contribute in any way. I agreed to write a series of articles on various stamps from my collection. In the new magazine you can read part 1 on the PUC Pound and the USSR stamps for the UPU Administrative Conference in The Hague in 1927. The article is in Dutch, but if you want to read it you can download it as a pdf-file (opens in a new window).

The jubilee exhibition of the local historical society has opened on 5 September and in the first two weekends already 800 people visited it. There are two more weekends to go, but we think it is a big success. In October part of the exhibition will be shown at the local library for National History Week (Week van de Geschiedenis).

I bought some nice stamps last week on eBay and I'm considering some other offers for some expensive series. In October there is the Postex 2008 in Apeldoorn, one of the largest stamp shows in the Netherlands. At the end of October I will visit Vienna and I hope to visit the Vienna International Centre and take a tour of the UN buildings there.

UNOstamps comment - 20 July 2008 - Busy, busy, busy

Frequent visitors have noticed that the last few months not a lot of new additions were made to the website. This is because I'm trying to finish my latest book on local history and because in September our local historical society celebrates its 35th anniversary with a lot of activities. There is an exhibition, a film viewing, a small exhibition in the local library, several attendances at manifestations and of course the new book. As a board member I'm working hard to help organize all these things.

So these are busy times, but that doesn't mean that nothing happens. I try to add something to the website every weekend and of course the Newsletter will be published as usual. New on the website are the stamps from Portuguese Timor, a former overseas province that we now know as Timor-Leste or East Timor.

Monday I'm taking a day off to go to the fair in Tilburg. It is the largest in the Benelux with 246 different attractions, making it 3,5 kilometres long. I hope to write something about it in the next few days.

UNOstamps comment - 30 April 2008 - Queen's Day

Today is Queen's Day in the Netherlands. It is the day we celebrate the official birthday of the Queen. This day had been a national holiday since 1948 (until then it was 31 August). This morning was the traditional musical tribute in front of our town hall. The Queen and her family visited the province of Friesland in the north of the country.

Especially for this day I have made an extra edition of the UNOstamps Newsletter with a special and difficult quiz. There are three prizes to be won but... send in your answer before the deadline mentioned in the Newsletter.

And finally I have added country number 65 to the website: Bangladesh. A large country with a lot of UN related stamps. Together with British Antarctic Territory and Tibet I have added three countries in one month. The website is almost two years old and it has come a long way with 65 countries, 223 subjects, 42 persons and lots of other items.

UNOstamps comment - 13 April 2008 - Passion for stamps

This weekend saw the Stamp Passion 08 stamp fair in 's-Hertogenbosch. I spent two days browsing through the two halls where the fair was held. The Stamp Passion celebrated the 80th anniversary of NVPH, the Netherlands Association of Stamp Dealers. There were a lot of dealers but unfortunately (for me) most of them sold only Netherlands and the colonies. There were a few foreign postal administrations: Belgium and the Scandinavian countries. Also the United Nations were represented but it was not an official presence, so there was no special cancellation and no blue card (photo: the UN stand).

I did buy some nice stamps from Niger, Thailand, Turks and Caicos Islands, Grenada, Belgium, Indonesia, Guinea-Bissau and other countries. Finally on Sunday I found some time to add a new country to the website. In light of the protests surrounding the Olympic flame I chose Tibet. There is one series issued by or on behalf of the government in exile for the UPU centenary in 1974. As I wrote in one of my previous Newsletters I take no political stand point on the status of a country. In this case the stamps (whether or not official) have a UN theme so they are in my collection.

UNOstamps comment - 7 February 2008 - New and improved!

This comment sounds more like a television commercial for washing powder but it is serious. When I started this website in July 2006 it was primarily to organize my own collection and to let other interested collectors see what I have acquired over the years. In more than one and a half year I have my own domain name, a newsletter and a website with almost 350 different pages, lots of information and thousands of images. So it was time for some restyling.

Fortunately I have a colleague at the office who is very skilled in graphic design. Today Dick designed a new logo for me. To me it has a feeling of style and movement. Plus it has a bluish UN colour and a distinct stamp edge. What more could I wish for? Well, maybe your opinion. Send it to me on info@unostamps.nl.

During all this I am taking some time to check all pages on dead links and links that do not open in a new frame. And there is a new country: Suriname. This is the name of the former Dutch territory since independence in 1975. Before that it was called Surinam. They added an e at the end when the young republic became a member of the United Nations. Country number 60. Another milestone. On to the next one.

UNOstamps comment - 27 January 2008 - Busy weekend

I'm writing this just after midnight so it is Sunday now. The last two days have been very busy. On Friday I visited the annual Filateliebeurs in Nieuw-Loosdrecht. There I bought a lot of stamps, some of which are added to the site. New stamp images from Solomon Islands, Germany, Austria, Aitutaki and German Democratic Republic are now available. Apart from these stamps I bought a lot of issues from Pakistan, Singapore, Qatar and Sri Lanka.

There are not only stamp dealers at the Filateliebeurs, but also a lot of stamp clubs present themselves there. One of the clubs I joined some years ago was there as well: VN-VE Filatelie (sorry, no website yet). It was founded in 1960 for those who collect United Nations (VN) or United Europe (VE) stamps.

Saturday was a special day because Sophie in 't Veld, Member of the European Parliament for D66, paid a visit to COC The Hague Region. There she spoke about protecting LGBT rights across Europe and about the way our personal data is being collected and stored at the moment. She told us that if we send post to the United States the names of the sender and recipient and the contents are registered somewhere. After all the heavy things, she formally opened the website for The Hague Pink City 2009 (www.rozestaddenhaag.nl) by writing the first entry in the guestbook. In a few days the site will be available for everyone to see.

On Sunday afternoon I have this year's final New Year's reception in Amsterdam. It is probably going to get a little late, so I took the precaution of taking Monday off.

UNOstamps Comments 2006 (21 November - 31 December)

UNOstamps Comments 2007 (12 January - 30 December)

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last revised: 3 January 2010