New Zealand Letter

A letter received from New Zealand Philatelic Federation Inc. Affixed with beautiful birds stamps and a frama label.  

New Calendonia Postmark

This is a Christmas greetings card I received from New Calendonia post office in 1994. The cards sent to all it's customers with a complementary postage stamp with special Christmas postmark. I am not sure this can be considered part of the philatelic item, but it certainly warm my heart when I received it. Wonder if our Pos Malaysia will do the same to all SODA customers. A small token that will generate bigger milestones in promoting philately and stamp business. 
Well, you may wonder where is New Calendonia?  It is part of a French territories, comprises of islands located in the southwest Pacific Ocean. For details, you may refer to the Internet for its rich French's influential and uniqueness of culture.  

Hong Kong Postmark Series

This is an old pictorial postmark I found in my stack of old letters. Hong Kong 1997 Stamp Exhibition. Posted from Kowloon, Hong Kong on 7am, 11 Jan 1997. Noticed the Queen Elizabeth II definitive stamp was used, 6 six months prior to the Hong Kong, sovereignty from UK transferred to mainland China on 1 July 1997.  After the transferred, there was a new set of definitive stamps replaced the Queen series. Nevertheless, the Queen series still valid for postage. Red color postbox with "ER II" symbol gradually replaced with the new designed green color post box.

Malaysia Pictorial Postmark Series

"Sudahkah anda mendaftar sebagai pemilih? Pendaftaran Pemilih dibuka mulai 9 Mei hingga 19 Jan 2000." I used Google to translate this from Malay to English. The result is "Have you registered as a voter? Voter registration is open from 9 May to January 19, 2000".  This letter postmark dated 2 Jun 2000 (Bukit Raja), that was within the voter registration period.

Registered Letter from former Soviet Union (CCCP) - Part 3

Another similar Soviet Union letter. This letter sent on 24 Nov 1989 from Moscow and received on 8 Dec 1989, Kuala Lumpur. The back side of this cover is badly infected by fungus due to long period and not keep in proper storage. The front side of the cover looked fine. The mailing rate was 150k with registered airmail and heavier weight than the standard letter. 
A common pictorials can be found in Soviet's stamps are space related topics, sports and famous communist figure such as Valdimir Lenin. With Soviet's interesting history, cold war, revolution, it's rich communist development and finally collapsed and dissolved. It is worth to study USSR through philately. 

Airmail Letter from Soviet Union (CCCP)

This is the airmail letter sent from Soviet Union in 1990. I was writing a letter to the USSR Philatelic Bureau on opening a Standing Order Deposit Account. Unfortunately, the company not entertained foreign individual collector. The above shown is the standard weight letter rate at 50k, with franking postage and a hand stamped Par Avion (Airmail) postmark. 

Registered Letter from former Soviet Union (CCCP) - Part 2

Another similar cover from Soviet Union. Date sent was 19 Oct 1990 from Moscow. Received on 11 Nov 1990 at Kuala Lumpur mail center, next day dispatched to Sungai Besi (postmark not very clear) post office on 12 Nov 1990. Notice the hand stamped "Recommande", meaning Registered Letter. 

Registered Letter from former Soviet Union (CCCP) - Part 1

This is the Registered letter I received 20 years ago from Soviet Union (USSR - Union of Soviet Socialist Republics or abbreviated as CCCP). Date received 9 Feb 1990, with Kuala Lumpur circular date postmark. Date sent from Moscow was 28 Jan 1990. It took approximately 2 weeks via registered airmail. The postage rate was 1.5 Ruble (or 150 kopeks, 3 stamps with 50k each). For standard weight letter, only cost 50k during that time. 

Then why it was 3 times higher than the standard weight rate? It is because it contained a lot of stamps inside this cover :-) 20 years ago, when I am still a student, I actively into pen pal for exchanging stamps and postcards. There is no Postcrossing that time, no Internet, one common way of acquiring postally used cover is through pen pal. 

I also wrote to almost all the philatelic bureau around the world to get new issues information, bulletins and in the later stage, with many years of efforts, I compiled a valuable list of Philatelic Bureau addresses worldwide. I learned the world map through these interesting and fun process. After 2 decades, when I looked back the list, there are many changes in the world map, Soviet Union is no longer appear and separated into many countries such as Russia, Ukraine and Kazakhstan. New country independence such as East Timor. Hong Kong and Macau returned to Mainland China, Yugoslavia dissolved and many more. 

Today, with a simple Google search, you can download these address list effortlessly. You can even go to respective philatelic bureau website to check for new issue information and place order online. This is the power of today technology. Collectors today can leverage FaceBook, Blog, online Forum, Postcrossing to make new friends, exchanging covers, postcards and stamps.

The above cover shown is the pre-stamped enveloped, with a printed 50k stamp and airmail label. The registration label is indicated by the hand stamped rectangular postmark. These simple cover bring back lot of my youth day memories.

I will post few more similar covers in my later posting.

To view details, click the cover for enlarge viewing.

Bukit Raja Rectangular Postmark

Found this postmark while cleaning up my old covers. I publish it since it is not too often we seen a rectangular postmark.

Bangkok 2010 Singapore MS - Year of the Tiger Overprint