cddstamps on stamps

my thoughts on stamps, stamp collecting, philately in general and maybe a few other topics !

Saturday, December 22, 2018

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year everyone. I hope you all have a wonderful festive season, lots of time for philately and philatelic presents and perhaps my Christmas quiz about the 2019 minisheet.

It is a nice MS I guess. Very collectible although I would prefer a copy of each of the stamps :-)

But do you notice that in each stamp the monarch is looking to the left as we look at the stamp. Why is that I wonder :-)

Quiz question - What GB stamp was issued where the monarch was looking to the right? I will send the stamp in fine used condition to the 10th correct answer if you also include your mailing address so I can mail it to you. Actually I will send the set – there is a clue for you. And just for clarity I am not talking about the Queen’s Head as used in the top left or right corner of QEII commemorative stamps, but the image of the monarch used in the main design of the stamp.

Have a wonderful Christmas Best wishes for 2019 Michael

Sunday, December 09, 2018

This cover is from a 1933 Madrid to Manila flight. it is the best I have to show to accompany the following picture and text.
I was recently in Aparri, northern Luzon in the Philippines. I specifically went there to see if I could find any locations related to the first flights to the Philippines by the early Spanish aviators. Finding something in Aparri, apart from Jollibee that is 🙂 , is like finding a needle in a haystack, but luck was with me because my very quick eyed wife spotted this as we drove along a small and crowded road. The plaque commemorates the first flight to land in the Philippines, in Aparri, in 1926. The pilot was Joaquin Loriga who completed the first long-distance flight from Madrid to Manila of over eleven thousand miles.
The trip, which took 128 flight hours, hopped through North Africa, the Middle East, South Asia, Southeast Asia, Macao, Aparri and then finally on to Manila . Three biplanes with pilots and engineers started the journey but inly Loriga’s plane was the only one that completed the flight. A little background: In 1924, Loriga proposed the idea of an excursion from Spain to the Philippines. At that time no direct air connection existed between Europe and the Far East, even when France and UK were studying that possibility, considering their conquests in the area. The motivation to sponsor the trip was the connection between the old Spanish colony and Spain, with current commercial links and a considerable Spanish population in the capital, together with a memory of the old colonial times as more beneficial than the contemporary American occupation. Three Breget XIX left Madrid on 5 April 1926, but only one plane made it to Manila. The other two planes were forced to land and were abandoned in the North African desert and on the coast of China.
Loriga, together with the engineer Eduardo Ganzalez-Gallarza, (also named on the plaque) continued flying in the last biplane. The two landed in Aparri on 11 May at 2:20 in the afternoon; a multitude of Filipinos, whom the pilots described as frantic with enthusiasm, gathered around them and carried the Spaniards on their shoulders. The pilots later wrote: “We must confess our emotions on stepping on that land, our temples pulsated violently, our hearts beat madly and childish tears flowed from our eyes” The final stage of their flight came in the morning of 13 May. Loriga and Gallarza said farewell to the officials and residents of Aparri, dropping small Spanish flags over Tuguegarao, Iligan and Echague along the way as a salute to them. They were escorted by 12 airplanes of the United States Army as they were halfway to Manila where they landed at 11:20 that morning. Enjoy your philately and aviation Michael cddstamps.com cddstamps@gmail.com

Tuesday, December 04, 2018

Hello, we just loaded some new stock to the store www.hipstamp.com/store/cddstamps bet you don't have many of these / these sets, especially with the nice postal cancels and the new security machins with source codes ranging from B, C, S, and T and more.. :-) .... treat yourself for Christmas. Any order placed before end of our day 9th December with an email to us at cddstamps@gmail.com, just write - you saw our blog ad - whatever value of order, will receive a free pair of cddstamps tweezers (stamp tongs to our US friends). Our Christmas present to you Michael cddstamps.com

Click to zoom in on my visitor map!
Click to zoom in on my visitor map!