[press release, translated using Google]
Stamps about the quietest area in the Netherlands
Issue date: January 4, 2021 Larger picture at bottom of page
PostNL is publishing the first stamps in this year’s Experience Nature series. The stamp 
sheet Experience Nature – Dwingelderveld pays attention to the unique flora and fauna of this heather landscape in the middle of Drenthe.
In the Experience Nature series, PostNL will be issuing 4 stamp sheets with a total of 40 stamps this year. The stamps contain images of plants and animals in special Dutch nature reserves. Later this year, stamp sheets will be published about the swamp landscape De Onlanden (22 February), the dune area Duin en Kruidberg (14 June) and the park near the Haarzuilens estate (16 August).
Wet slits, dry sand ridges
The Dwingelderveld National Park is the largest wet heathland area in Western Europe. This protected nature area was also voted the quietest area in the Netherlands at the end of 2020. Wet ditches and dry sand ridges alternate on the extensive moist heathland of the Dwingelderveld. As a result, there is a lot of variation in plant growth and animal life.
Natural environment
The stamps published today depict 10 striking residents of the Dwingelderveld in their natural environment. These are the Drenthe Heath sheep, the sand lizard, bee wolf, Scots pine, grass snake, yellowhammer, slow worm, crane, sphagnum moss and deer. A 
separate graphic layer on the stamp sheet contains transparent images of a kestrel with spread wings, the needles of a Scots pine, a creeping dung beetle, the profile of the head of a Drenthe heather sheep and a bare pedunculate oak.
Natural monuments
The Experience nature for 2021 series is, just like the previous issues, designed by graphic designer Frank Janse from Gouda. Janse collaborated with nature conservation organization Natuurmonumenten in the selection of the nature areas. “During that intensive search,” says Janse, “it became clear to me again how incredibly beautiful nature in the Netherlands is. These stamps about Drenthe also show that. ”
Sheep and Yellowhammer
The stamp sheetlet opens with an intense winter image of the Drenthe heath sheep. According to Janse, this animal can still be considered as semi-wild because it can keep itself alive. “On the stamp next to it, there is the yellowhammer, a beautiful bird, on a twig. Typical for the east of our country, especially in Drenthe. And, very special, his vocals resemble the opening bars of Beethoven’s 5th symphony.”
Availability
The stamp sheet Experience nature – Dwingelderveld has 10 different stamps with the value indication Nederland 1, intended for mail up to 20 grams with a destination within the Netherlands. The stamps will be available from 4 January 2021 at all PostNL points of sale, the post office in the Bruna stores and via the website. The stamps can also be ordered by telephone from the Collect Club customer service on telephone number 088 – 868 99 00. The validity period is indefinite. 
Dartmoor is a world of high moorland, open space and huge skies. Here is a place to roam for miles across high and wild expanses punctuated with spectacular granite outcrops, called tors, which stand proud of the landscape like castles. But although the world of humans can feel far away indeed, this once-forested landscape is strewn with remains from 12,000 years of habitation, agriculture and industry. Visitors to the park are bound to encounter Neolithic stone circles, Bronze Age burial mounds and Iron Age hill forts. Dartmoor’s uplands are still farmed in the same ways they have been for centuries.
The New Forest is actually very old: it was created as a hunting forest almost a millennium ago by William the Conqueror, and centuries of use for grazing, timber and fuel have produced a landscape that is more of a mosaic of heathland, open pasture and ancient woodland dotted with mires and streams. Much of this area is not enclosed, meaning that ponies, donkeys and cattle owned by local people called Commoners roam freely. The National Park also has 42km of coastline, with spectacular views across to the Isle of Wight. The New Forest is a wonderful haven for wildlife and people alike.
William Wordsworth described the Lake District as “a sort of national property”. This could apply to all of the UK’s National Parks, but few can lay claim to as many hearts as this one. The ingredients of the landscape — a UNESCO World Heritage Site — include volcanic uproar 450 million years ago, the sculpting power of Ice Age glaciers and the much more recent handiwork of sheep farmers. For centuries now, the area has seduced visitors with the gentle pastoral ambience of its villages and valleys, the splendour of its lakes and the ruggedly sublime beauty of its fells. The obsession of the English Romantics with the Lake District helped crystallise the appeal of this iconic landscape.
Bejewelled with emerald islands, fringed with beautiful wooded shores and surrounded by grand hills and mountains, Loch Lomond is where the Scottish Highlands ‘begin’. This National Park encloses 21 Munros (Scottish mountains above 3,000ft, or 914.4m) and includes some of the most popular mountains in Scotland, such as Ben Lomond — ‘Glasgow’s mountain’ — and the Cobbler, with a magnificent crown of rock on its summit. The Trossachs have been described as ‘the Highlands in miniature’, a compact and picturesque cluster of hills, lochs and pine forests. A network of water buses links points across Loch Lomond and Loch Katrine, providing a convenient way to explore the park by joining up foot and bike trails.
The mountain that gives the Snowdonia National Park its name is its star attraction. Wales’s highest mountain — Yr Wyddfa in Welsh — is a complex massif of bristling ridges and pyramid-shaped summits, inhabited by agile mountain goats and the elusive Snowdon beetle. With almost half a million visitors a year, Snowdon ranks as one of the busiest mountains in the world, but hikers also flock to the Glyderau, with its pulse-racing scrambles, and the awesome Cader Idris. Legend holds that if you sleep on the slopes of the latter, you will die, go insane or turn into a poet. Numerous attractions such as surf parks, zip wires and underground adventures pull in thrill-seekers from far and wide.
Endless seas of bright-purple moorland, steam trains puffing through sinuous valleys, sun-dappled waterfalls in lush woodland, the smell of fish and chips wafting through fishing villages in coastal coves…the North York Moors National Park has a timeless and idyllic feel, particularly in summer, with its retro-seeming villages and heritage railways — famously used as filming locations for Heartbeat and Harry Potter — evoking the atmosphere of a bygone era. Walking, cycling and sightseeing are the order of the day here, either in the valleys and moorland of the National Park’s interior or on its spectacular coastline — a sweep of high cliffs, hidden coves and rocky beaches, some of which are studded with Jurassic fossils and dinosaur footprints.
The South Downs National Park is the UK’s youngest, created in 2010. As well as incorporating the rolling chalk hills and white coastal cliffs of the South Downs themselves, it includes the wooded patchwork of the western Weald. Lying between London and the south coast, this is no remote wilderness, but walking through the landscape of gentle hills, ancient woods, sunken lanes and vineyards (vine-growing in this part of England dates back to at least Norman times) is a much-needed antidote to city stresses. This is also the easiest National Park to explore by public transport; the whole South Downs Way can be split into sections and accessed by bus and train.
The Peak District is really two landscapes in one: the high moorland and Millstone Grit escarpments of the Dark Peak and the sleepy villages and lush limestone gorges of the White Peak. Its location at the heart of industrial England ensured that it was the crucible of the ‘right to roam’ movement. For workers from Manchester, the Potteries or the steel cities and wool towns of Yorkshire, the big boggy moors, peaceful valleys and climbing crags were the closest source of natural beauty and adventure. It is fitting that, in 1951, it became the first region in the UK to be granted National Park status. Today, around 20 million people live within an hour’s drive.
Pastel-coloured fishing villages hunkered in turquoise bays; long lines of surf rolling up to broad, white beaches; rugged cliffs, sea stacks, rock arches, bird colonies… This is the only UK National Park created primarily for the beauty of its coast — a spectacular Atlantic-battered shoreline. It is an exhilarating place to hike, surf, climb, go coasteering or ride out on a boat trip to the offshore islands and spot puffins, dolphins and seals. The hills and headlands are also dotted with stunning Neolithic burial chambers such as Pentre Ifan, Carreg Samson and Carreg Coetan Arthur, with huge slabs of rock balanced on top of each other at extraordinary angles.
All of the UK’s National Parks are shaped by the hand of humanity in some way, but few as fundamentally as this one: the collection of lakes known as the Broads was formed by medieval peat diggings, later flooded as sea levels rose. Today, it is a labyrinth of over 200km of navigable waterways, criss-crossing a sleepy landscape dotted with picturesque pubs and villages — an idyllic water world to explore by boat. A vibrant wetland habitat, the park is home to a quarter of the UK’s rarest wildlife species. Otters dive around the riverbanks, the surreal boom of bitterns reverberates for miles and vast flocks of birds soar over the marshes.
Stamp set AS6700 £8.50
OTTAWA – As spectacular as the celebration itself, a special set of Lunar New Year stamps was issued today, ushering in the Year of the Ox with a retrospective collection of all 24 colourful stamp designs from the past 12 years.
[en Francais]
Each of the souvenir sheets will represent the current international rate of $2.71.
And a pane of 12 domestic-rate stamps will use the domestic-rate designs from 2009-2020.
These stamps will be water-activated (“lick ‘n stick”).
and to seek out wanted items.
at a nominal cost by the collector or dealer (
Members of the American First Day Cover Society, the largest not-for-profit organization in the world specifically for FDC collectors, have elected six people to its Board of Directors. The 279 ballots cast this year was much larger than usual, more than double the number in 2019.
Board chairman Cynthia Scott and President Lloyd de Vries thanked Elections Committee chair Otto Thamasett and committee members Neal Parr and Jack Ginsburg, all members of the Robert C. Graebner Chapter of the AFDCS, for their work in counting the ballots in this year’s election, and the Nominating Committee chaired by Michael Litvak for recruiting the candidates.
WASHINGTON, DC — Award-winning playwright August Wilson is receiving one of the nation’s highest honors when he takes center stage on a Forever stamp.
The Digital Color Postmark measures 2.70″ x 1.19″
The B&W pictorial postmark measures 2.62″ x .63″ 
The special postmark, for use by other post offices, measures 2.71″ x .94″
