Hello, I hope you are having a wonderful weekend. With perhaps some time for your stamp collecting.  Perhaps even looking at the specials in the cddstamps online store  or click here for the list of countries we stock (over 25,000 listings) as this weekend we are having a 10% discount special. A first because our prices are always very competitive we think, and perhaps this will help you get a few stamps for your Christmas present to yourself.

Anyway while sorting some stock the other day I found these two. The difference is obvious isn’t it J 

Rather interesting gentleman. Willem de Vlamingh was a Dutch sea-captain who explored the central west coast of Australia in the late 17th century. The mission proved fruitless, but Vlamingh charted parts of the western coast and did leave us with something. Do you know what?

The stamps were issued in 1996 to commemorate the 300^th anniversary of his  voyage. In December 1696  he landed on what is now Rottnest Island. He saw some local wildlife and believing they were rats he named the island Rats’ Nest (Rattennest in Dutch) because of them.

The following year, in January, he traveled up what is now the Swan River. He saw Black Swans and so named the river the Swan River.

Stamps are interesting to collect for many reasons and learning the history portrayed through stamps is certainly enjoyable for me. I hope the same goes for you.

Have a great weekend and please, if you want to fill a few gaps in your Australia collection we have over 3000 Australia lots listed in the Online Store. Just click that link to start searching

Best wishes   Michael  cddstamps.com