Saturday, June 14, 2008

Love stamps





I love you !

I Love You are three simple words which everyone has in mind but always blushes to express. Four months have already passed to Valentine's Day, but I just came across three beautiful stamps through globe trotting on net issued by Poland and Norway for this year's Valentine Day. I want to share it with You. Although this Lover's Holiday is imported from the West, it has achieved in India great popularity, in particular among the young people. It is the best opportunity to show someone our sympathy or to make a nice surprise with unexpected gift or letter. As it is generally much easier to express someone's feelings in writing, St. Valentine's Day opens an opportunity for the shy and timid people. 14 February has become a letter-writing day all over the world. Text messages and e-mails may be the modern form of communication, but people still write letters, particularly for St. Valentine’s Day. There’s nothing to beat a hand-written love letter, and a letter accompanied by a romantic stamp .


Perhaps you remember it or not that 15th June is celebrated as Father's Day in many countries. To celebrate a Father's Day has never been a tradition in India as social and family set up is different in our country. Like Valentine's Day this day is also imported from the west. But our card shops always display beautiful cards on Father's Day for the sons and daughters to express their love for father. You too can share your feelings as its always really nice to express your feeling to whom you love and care. Here I have selected above stamp for Father's Day. If you have not decided how to make this day special for your Dad just go to see him or give him a call and talk to him and if he is not around, just remember him...&..... it will be the best gift for him. ........Happy Father's Day !


As the rational thinking do not go in pair with love, the picture on this St. Valentine's stamp do not relate much with reality, being taken more from the world of fairy tale or a dream. Here we can see an entrance to the land of love, peace and joy, for the garden gate when opened takes upon a shape of heart. The key to this gate is hidden in the postmark. On the FDC envelope shown at the top there is a postal symbol, an open postcard in the form, similarly to the mysterious gate, of a heart. Close to the white clouds one can find in this pictured card the handwritten passage from Petrarca's sonnet 132: "If it is not love, what then is it that I feel? But if it is love, what kind of thing is it?".



St. Valentine
He was a Roman bishop of the 2nd/3rd centuries AD, recognised originally as a patron of the suffering of epilepsy and related illnesses. Only later, due to the pious legends about his care for the young lovers, whom he used to marry even against the Emperor's will, he became a patron of those being in love as well. It has become very popular to celebrate St. Valentine’s Day. According to legend, St. Valentine was thrown into prison and condemned to death in 270 AD because he would not deny his God. While he was in prison, he gave lessons to the jailer’s blind daughter, Julia, and taught her about God. One day while Valentine and Julia were praying together, a light appeared in the cell. “I can see, I can see!” Julia cried, while Valentine fell to his knees and thanked God. Before he was executed, Valentine wrote a letter to Julia declaring his love for her. On the day after his execution, 14 February, Julia planted an almond tree on Valentine’s grave. Today the almond tree remains the symbol of abiding love and friendship. 14 February was later established as St. Valentine’s Day and in more recent times has become an international day of celebration − perhaps more in the spirit of commerce than of the church, but nevertheless a success.


Tradition of the St. Valentine's Day Correspondence

Love letters are probably as old as the art of writing itself but in the course of time they became more and more elaborated. Such a letter could be perfumed, adorned with laces or hand-made pictures, or even encoded. Such preparations required much work and time, of course, so in the half of the 19th century came into use the ready-made Valentine postcards. Obviously, they were richly decorated with hearts, cupids, doves, and flowers together with standard sentention "From your Valentine". Usually, such postcards were not additionally undersigned in any other way.The Valentine's stamps had been issued all over the world since some 20 years already. In 1999 the French Post has issued the first stamps in the shape of a heart and although they were hard to detach not breaking their perforation, they looked perfectly well while applied at the letters or postcards. Poczta Polska issues the occasional stamps for St. Valentine's Day for 15 years as well. Frequently they bear a heart motif, but there were also stamps with flowers, fruits and butterflies, and even stamps featuring pictures of a dog and a cat.