Chocolate postage stamps

Belgium has released a set of special stamps that smell and taste like chocolate!
Bpost, the Belgian post office, has printed more than 500,000 delicious, lip-smacking stamps to celebrate the country's famous chocolatiers. The delectable stamps are printed on special paper "imbued with the aroma of cocoa" and coated in a special coat that looks and smells like chocolate. 

Each stamp features a chocolate treat so you’re given a visual representation of what you’re tasting – it would make me send more letters anyway.

Interesting way of thinking about stamps. I have some similar stamps from Ukraine, they smell like fruits. But here, they say it also tastes like Chocolate. That could be good for those who are on a diet :) low calories chocolate! I think it´s funny.

The series of five stamps cost €6.20 and they were released on March 25th.

Here is a Video about how they were made.

Children Games 1960

For today's theme at Viridian´s Sunday Stamps I have chosen some old stamps from Romania.
They represent quite nicely the way children used to play in small villages: skating on frozen lakes, swimming in summer, playing rounders or sleighing.
I find this set a nice one, especially these days when children don´t play that much anymore outside, it´s good to remind their parents that there are much healthier ways to spend the day than watching TV or playing games on computer. It´s up to each of us to teach them something from our childhood.
So here are the stamps:

They are not that accurate as today´s stamps, but let´s don´t forget they were printed in 15 Oktober 1960 :)

What did you used to play as a child?

WOMEN AND INVENTICS

On the occasion of celebrating the World Intellectual Property Dayon the 26th of April, Romfilatelia introduces into circulation a postage stamps issue dedicated to this event.

Established in 1967, the World Intellectual Property Organisation (WIPO), one of the 15 specialised agencies of the United Nations (UN), has as main responsibilities to develop a world wide intellectual property system able to reward creativity, to boost innovation and to contribute to the economic development.

Conveying a special approach to this theme, Romfilatelia illustrates three female personalities and their inventions on the postage stamps, under the name Women and Inventics.

Stefania Maracineanu (1882-1944), famous in the scientific world as the physicist who discover artificial radioactivity in 1924 is illustrated on the postage stamp with the face value of Lei 1.00. Just found a book about her in Google. Take a look.

Josephine Cochrane (1839-1913), born in the USA - State of Illinois, and illustrated on the postage stamp with the face value of Lei 3.30, was the inventor of the dish-washing machine. More about her here.

The postage stamp with the face value of Lei 9.10 illustrates Grace Murray Hopper (1906-1992), pioneer in the field of informatics, who developed the first compiler for a computer programming language and created one of the first modern computer programming languages - COBOL. Read about her.

Great Women, great inventions.

Crowns of the Kings of Romania

The postage stamps issue “Crowns of the Kings of Romania” reminds to former generations and presents to new ones the symbols of the Romanian royalty on the background of the great events in the history of our people which marked the State Independence and recognition of Romania as a sovereign country and a fundamental piece of the state structure that has still been forming the European community.

We can see on these stamps the Steel Crown of King Carol I, symbol of Independece:

The Crown of Queen Elisabeta 

and the Crown of Queen Maria. 

See specific details about these here.

Title: Crowns of the Kings of Romania
Date of Issue: 28 February 2013
Country: Romania
Denominations: 3L30, 4L30, 14L50
Source: http://www.romfilatelia.ro

Sunday Stamps: Astronomy

Just looking around and found this special postcard from Ulrich. So I decided to write this post for Viridian´s Sunday Stamps.

Here the stamp itself, a bit bigger. It´s beautiful. 

The Horse-head Nebula is part of our Milky Way. Though the mist in the form of a horse's head is a deep dark cloud that absorbs all light, you can see it with a telescope - a silhouette in front of the glowing Orion Nebula.

And here the whole set:

A special feature is the tenant of the 55-cent stamps of the solar system in a sheet. The sun and the Milky Way combine both brands. The four special stamps were designed by the graphic artist Hans Werner Schmidt. Year of print 2011. 

Which one do you prefer?

125 Jahre Schmalspurbahnen im Harz

Because today Viridian´s theme is means of transportation, I couldn ´t stop myself of presenting a railway stamp. This time from Germany.

The Harz Narrow Gauge Railways (German: Harzer Schmalspurbahnen) or HSB is a network of 1,000 mm gauge railways in the Harz mountains, in central Germany. It connects the principal towns of Wernigerode, Nordhausen and Quedlinburg and several smaller towns in the area with about 140 kilometres of track, much of which is steeply graded and picturesque. The most popular destination on the network is the Brocken, an old Soviet listening post on top of the tallest peak in the Harz mountains, accessed by a spiral railway line, the Brocken Railway. The railway is notable for running a significant number of its trains with steam haulage, mostly employing 1950s vintage 2-10-2 tank locomotives, hauling traditional open-platform bogie carriages. The network is currently operated by the Harzer Schmalspurbahnen GmbH, whose members are chiefly the various local authorities whose territories it serves.
Particularly precious are the historic steam locomotives. So today two Mallets made ​​before 1897 are in use. During the course they pass over almost 400 bridges, water culverts and a tunnel.
Find out more about this anniversary here: 
http://www.hsb-wr.de/hsb_barrierefrei/hsb/hsb_e.htm 

Title: 125 Jahre Schmalspurbahnen im Harz
Date of Issue: 9 Februar 2012
Country: Germany
Denominations: 0,45 euro
Source: https://philatelie.deutschepost.de

My most unusual stamp

Lunar New Year - embroidered Year of the Dragon stamp issued by Micronesia.



I never knew a stamp can look like this too. It´s more a self adhesive piece of cloth. Quite weird. What do you think, is this really a stamp?

I have won it by joining the Facebook page of Cyberstamps.

Please visit Viridian´s Suday Stamps for more interesting stories on stamps.