USPS Celebrate the Century Series

UNITED STATES POSTAL SERVICE (USPS), beginning in February 1998,  released the first sheets of "Celebrate the Century" stamps. Prompted by the upcoming millennium celebration, this  series recognised influential American people and events, arts and entertainment, lifestyles, sports, politics, and science and technology  that shaped the 20th century.  Each sheet contained 15 stamps for each decade, making a total of 150 stamps issued in this series.

 Stamps featured in the 1900s
- Model T Ford
- President Theodore Roosevelt
- The Great Train Robbery (film)
- Crayola Crayons
- St. Louis World's Fair
- Pure Food and Drug Act
- Kitty Hawk
- Ash Can Painters
- Immigrants Arrive
- John Muir
- Teddy Bear Created
- W.E.B. du Bois
- Gibson Girl
- First World Series
- Robie House, Chicago

 

 

Stamps featured in the 1910s 

1st row:
- Charlie Chaplin;
- Federal Reserve System;
- George Washington Carver
2nd row:
- 1913 Armory Show;
- Transcontinental telephone line;
- Panama Canal
3rd row:
- Jim Thorpe;
- Grand Canyon;
- WWI - I Want You;
- Boy Scouts of America;
- President Woodrow Wilson;
4th row:
- First Crossword puzzle;
- Jack Dempsey;
- Erector Set;
- Child Labor Reform

Stamps featured in the 1920s
- Babe Ruth
- Gatsby Style
- Prohibition
- Toy Trains
- 19th Amendment
- Emily Post
- Margaret Mead
- Charleston Dance
- Radio America
- Art Deco Style
- Jazz
- Four Horsemen (Notre Dame Football)
- Charles Lindbergh
- Realism
- Stock Market Crash

Images featured in the 1930s
- Franklin Roosevelt
- Empire State Building
- Life Magazine Debuts
- Eleanor Roosevelt
- FDR's New Deal
- Superman
- Kitchens Revolutionized
- Snow White
- Gone with the Wind
- Jesse Owens
- Streamline Design
- Golden Gate Bridge
- Depression Survival
- Bobby Jones
- Monopoly Game

 

Stamps featured in the 1940s
- World War II
- Antibiotics
- Jackie Robinson
- Harry S. Truman
- We Can Do It!
- TV Entertains America
- Jitterbug Sweeps Nation
- Abstract Expressionism
- GI Bill
- Big Band Sound
- International Architecture
- Postwar Baby Boom
- Slinky Craze
- Streetcar Named Desire
- Citizen Kane

Stamps featured in the 1950s
- Polio Vaccine
- Teen Fashion
- Shot Heard Round the World
- US Launches Satellite
- Korean War
- Public School Desegregation
- Tail Fins and Chrome
- Cat in the Hat
- Drive-In Movies
- World Series Rivals
- Rocky Marciano
- I Love Lucy
- Rock 'n Roll
- Stock Car Racing
- 3-D Movies

Stamps featured in the 1960s
- Martin Luther King, Jr.
- Woodstock
- Man Walks on Moon
- Green Bay Packers
- Star Trek
- Peace Corps
- Vietnam War
- Ford Mustang
- Barbie Doll
- Integrated Circuit
- Lasers
- Super Bowl I
- Peace Symbol
- Roger Maris
- The Beatles (Yellow Submarine film)

Stamps featured in the 1970s
- Earth Day
- All in the Family
- Sesame Street
- Disco
- Pittsburgh Steelers
- Bicentennial
- Secretariat
- VCRs
- Pioneer 10
- Women's Rights Movement
- Fashion
- Monday Night Football
- Smiley Face
- Jumbo Jets
- Medical Imaging

Stamps featured in the 1980s 

1st row:
- Space Shuttle;
- Cats an Andrew Lloyd Webber musical;
- San Francisco 49ers; Iran hostage crisis;
Figure skating
2nd row:
- Cable TV;
- Vietnam Veterans Memorial;
- Compact Disc;
- Cabbage Patch Kids;
- The Cosby Show
3rd row:
- Fall of the Berlin Wall;
- Video games;
- E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial
4th row:
- Personal computer;
- Hip hop culture

China Post Miscellaneous Stamps

CHINA POST miscellaneous stamps from a collector.

The "540" stamp was part of joint China-Germany issue.

Russian Post Miscellaneous Stamps

 

RUSSIAN POST (Pochta Rossii) miscellaneous postage stamps received from a fellow collector.

Ukrposhta (Ukraine Post) German National Minority of Ukraine

UKRPOSHTA (Ukraine Post) in 2020 issued four first day cover stamps dedicated to the German minority in Ukraine. This was another set of stamps in their long running national minorities of  Ukraine. 

Designer: Mikolai Kochubei
Paper: chalky
Printing process: offset
Perforation: comb 13 1/4
Size of a stamp: 30 x 40,50 mm.
Printing run: 130.000

Illustrations:
9.00 (G). multicoloured. Architecture.
9.00 (G). multicoloured. Farming.
9.00 (G). multicoloured. Music.
9.00 (G). multicoloured. Folk Dance.

 

Ukrposhta (Ukraine Post) Jewish National Minorities of Ukraine

UKRPOSHTA (Ukraine Post) in 2016 issued four first day cover stamps dedicated to the Jewish minority in Ukraine. This was another set of stamps in their long running national minorities of  Ukraine series. 

Designer: Mikolai Kochubei
Paper: chalky
Printing process: offset
Perforation: comb 13 1/4
Size of a stamp: 30 x 40,50 mm.
Printing run: 130.000

Illustrations:
3.00 (G). multicoloured. Dance "Freilachs".
4.40 (G). multicoloured. Religious feast.
4.40 (G). multicoloured. Synagogue. Zhovka.
5.40 (G). multicoloured. Tailor.

Russian Post Dagestan Heritage

RUSSIAN POST (Pochta Rossii) in 2008 issued a series of stamps on the art heritage of Dagestan, in particular their traditional attire, headdress and jewelry. Shown here is the mini souvenir sheet.

The people of Dagestan include a large variety of ethnicities. According to the 2010 Census, Northeast Caucasians (including Avars, Dargins, Lezgins, Laks, Tabasarans, and Chechens) make up almost 75% of the population of Dagestan. Turkic peoples, Kumyks, Azerbaijanis, and Nogais make up 21%, and Russians 3.6%. Other ethnicities (e.g. Tats) each account for less than 0.4% of the total population.

Dagestanis are largely Sunni Muslims, of the Shafi rites, that has been in place for centuries. On the Caspian coast, particularly in and around the port city of Derbent, the population (primarily made up of Azerbaijanis) is Shia. There is also a Salafi population, which is often a target of official repression.

China Post 70th Anniversary of Korean War

CHINA POST in 2020 issued a first day cover stamp and maxi card marking the 70th anniversary of China’s entry into the Korean War to fight on behalf of North Korea. 

In October 1950, Chinese troops crossed the border into North Korea at the Yalu River (depicted on maxi card) to fight the U.S.-led U.N. forces. Beijing says just under 200,000 Chinese died in the Korean War, while some U.S. estimates have put that figure at 900,000.

The Korean War remains the only time China has gone to war with the U.S., which was commanding United Nations forces in the 1950-1953 conflict.

Pos Malaysia 75th Anniversary of Radio Televisyen Malaysia

POS MALAYSIA in April 2021 marked the 75th Anniversary of Radio Televisyen Malaysia (RTM) with four First Day Cover stamps. The stamp sheet commemorates RTM’s progress in each era - The Radio Era, The Radio and Television Era, The Coloured Television Era and The Digital and Multimedia Era. This was a limited edition release with only 2,000 folder sets for sale.

 

 

 

 

Correios de Moçambique Tsutomu Yamaguchi

CORREIOS DE MOÇAMBIQUE in 2010 issued a series of commemorative stamps honouring Tsutomu Yamaguchi (1916 – 2010), a Japanese marine engineer and a survivor of both the Hiroshima and Nagasaki atomic bombings during World War II. Although at least 70 people are known to have been affected by both bombings, he was the only person to have been officially recognised by the government of Japan as surviving both explosions.

A resident of Nagasaki, Yamaguchi was in Hiroshima on business for his employer Mitsubishi Heavy Industries when the city was bombed at 8:15 AM, on August 6, 1945. He returned to Nagasaki the following day and, despite his wounds, he returned to work on August 9, the day of the second atomic bombing. That morning, whilst he was being berated by his supervisor as "crazy" after describing how one bomb had destroyed the city, the Nagasaki bomb detonated. In 1957, he was recognized as a hibakusha ("explosion-affected person") of the Nagasaki bombing, but it was not until March 24, 2009, that the government of Japan officially recognised his presence in Hiroshima three days earlier. 

Source: Wikipedia

PostNord Sverige Swedish Film History

POSTNORD SVERIGE (formerly Posten AB) in 1981 issued their first maxi card with a first day cover stamp commemorating the history of film in Sweden. The film PostNord Sverige chose to profile was Ingmar Bergman's award-winning film, "Cries & Wispers."

This 1972 Swedish period film is set in a mansion at the end of the 19th century. It is about three sisters and a servant (Anna) who struggle with the terminal cancer of one of the sisters (Agnes). The servant is close to her and prays devoutly, while the other two sisters confront their emotional distance from each other. While Agnes' sisters remain emotionally distant, Anna comforts the suffering Agnes by baring her breasts and holding her at night. It is this scene which is highlighted in the stamp.

Academic Arthur Gibson likened it to Michelangelo's Pietà, saying "Anna is holding in her arms the pain and loneliness and sin of the world caught up in the innocent Divine Sufferer." Film scholar Marc Gervais suggested that to Bergman "a touch, on certain occasions, can make life." 

Source: wikipedia
 

 

La Poste France da Vinci Portrait of Isabelle D'Este

LA POSTE FRANCE in 1986 issued this first day cover stamp of Leonardo da Vinci's portrait of   Isabella D'Este.

Isabella d'Este (1474 – 1539) was Marchioness of Mantua and one of the leading women of the Italian Renaissance as a major cultural and political figure. She was a patron of the arts as well as a leader of fashion, whose innovative style of dressing was copied by women throughout Italy and at the French court.

She served as the regent of Mantua during the absence of her husband, Francesco II Gonzaga, Marquess of Mantua, and the minority of her son, Federico, Duke of Mantua. In 1500 she met King Louis XII of France in Milan on a diplomatic mission to persuade him not to send his troops against Mantua.

Isabella played an important role in Mantua during the city's troubled times. When her husband was captured in 1509 and held hostage in Venice, she took control of Mantua's military forces and held off the invaders until his release in 1512. In the same year, 1512, she was the hostess at the Congress of Mantua, which was held to settle questions concerning Florence and Milan. As a ruler, she appeared to have been much more assertive and competent than her husband. When apprised of this fact upon his return, Francesco was furious and humiliated at being upstaged by his wife's superior political ability. This caused their marriage to break down irrevocably. After the death of her husband, Isabella ruled Mantua as regent for her son Federico.

Source: Wikipedia

La Poste France Marytrs of Deportation Memorial

LA POSTE FRANCE in 1983 issued this first day cover stamp and maxi card commemorating the Memorial to the Marytrs of Deportation during WWII.

The Mémorial des Martyrs de la Déportation (English: "Memorial to the Martyrs of the Deportation") is a memorial to the 200,000 people (mostly French Jews) who were deported from Vichy France to the Nazi concentration camps during World War II. It is located in Paris, France, on the site of a former morgue, underground behind Notre Dame on Île de la Cité. It was designed by French modernist architect Georges-Henri Pingusson and was inaugurated by Charles de Gaulle in 1962.

A "flame of eternal hope" burns and The Tomb of the Unknown Deportee bears the inscription: "Dedicated to the living memory of the 200,000 French deportees sleeping in the night and the fog, exterminated in the Nazi concentration camps." At the exit to the chamber is the injunction, engraved, found at all sites memorializing the victims of the Nazis: "Forgive but never forget."

 

 

Source: Wikipedia

China Post The Silk Road

CHINA POST in 2012 issued a series of commemorative stamps dedicated to the ancient Silk Road. Shown here are the stamps and mini souvenir sheet.

Stamps were entitled:

- Strong Pass in Desert (Green Horse)
- Mystic Ancient Lands (Pitcher)
- Scences of the Western Regions (White Horse)
- Ancient City with Thousands of Years' History (Black Camel)

Designers: Chen Jingyi, Hui Bin, Li Qun