Maximaphily

Excellent, like so many other maxicards that you have acquired from various collectors, countries and time periods! Plus many creations of your own.

Maria Laach Abbey is a XII century Benedictine abbey situated on the southwestern shore of the Lake Laach, near Andernach, in the Eifel region of the Rhineland-Palatinate in Germany. 1956 card commemorating its 8 centuries.



Dedicated to our Californian friends. Card of Fra Juniper Serra, postmarked in Petra (Majorca), his hometown, commemorating the 250 years of his birth.

1964 card of Andorra la Vella, capital of Andorra. Although the Spanish PO , used their own spelling "Andorra la Vieja".

The Principality of Andorra
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andorra

The post card and stamp show the Valley of Andorra ; the postmark with date :4-12 43 ( 4 December 1943) and name of the valley written in French and Catalan ( the official idiom )

Now in my collection, this maxicard was in the collection of a great Andorran maximaphilist , Ramon d'Areny Plandolit.

Congratulations, You've got a very good maximum cards collection.

I pick cards, whenever I find them on my subject: Barcelona & Catalonia, provided they've the triple coincidence.

Like these two:

Marià Fortuny (Reus, 1838 - Rome, 1874). His main works are on the Catalan Fine Arts National Museum, in Barcelona. Portrait of Fortuny, from an unknown artist, held at the said museum, with pm of an exhibition on Fortuny subject in 1966.



1983, Santa Maria del Mar (Our Lady of the Sea's) Church in Barcelona's old town. Old poscard, with the stamp and the pm commemorative of the 6 centuries of the building being finished, bearing the church's arms.

WEST BERLIN- Brandenburg Tor



The postmark from " Berlin 12 " P.O. is a FDI with date : 1.3.63 ( 1 March 1963 )

During the Cold War the famous Brandenburg Gate was located in the British Sector of West Berlin.
The post office "Berlin 12" was located on Goethestraße ( Charlottenburg District - British Sector ),near the railway station Zoologischer Garten, and doubled as a philatelic outlet. It also provided special first day cancels like the one on my card.

The P.C's photo was taken from West towards East Berlin. That's why there is a special sign with a warning in German language , which in free translation means : " Attention ! You are leaving the West-Berlin "

More on Branderburger Tor ( Brandenburg Gate ) here :

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brandenburg_Gate

Well, according to my information and what I saw when I was there, back in 1990, the Brandenburg Door, was not in the British, but on the Soviet occupation sector of Berlin. In fact, it became a part of the Berlin Wall.
That's the reason for the sight, "You're leaving West Berlin" being placed in front of the Door. If it would have been on the British Sector, the sight should have been placed "behind" the Brandemburg Door. Or say "You're leaving East Berlin"...

I meant the Branderburg Gate is between British Sector and Soviet Zone.

Before the Wall the Branderburg Gate was a crossing point between British Sector and Soviet Sector.( the post card picture was taken before the building of the Wall ). After building the Wall Branderburg Gate was located a bit inside Soviet Sector and the crossing point was closed by communist on 13 August 1961 http://www.nytimes.com/learning/gen...ig/0813.html

But my point was the maxicard postmark which was applied at a P.O. from British Sector divided by Wall ( which included the Gate ) hence the concordance of place. ( postmarks from other allied sectors would not have been OK ! )

The closeness of the Gate to the British Sector can be seen in this picture with Reagan delivering his famous speech in Berlin in 1987. He stands right in front of Branderburg Gate( the British Sector )





Here is another m.c. from 1953 ( when the Wall was not built ) . At that time the P.O. had the name Charlottenburg , a district of British Sector

Christopher Columbus (Cristóbal Colón ) and his comrades the Pinzon Brothers
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pinz%C3%B3n_brothers




1930 IBEROAMERICANA stamp , FDI maximum card , postmark : CORREO AEREO 29 SEP 1930 CARABELA COLON SEVILLA

I'm not an expert, but I've read a little on Spanish philately. Your Columbus card, looked "somewhat fishy" to me. So, I went to my copy of the Edifil Specialized and found the following:





The Spanish text says:

Matasellos especiales
Se hicieron los siguientes:

(under the drawings): Posteriormente fueron falsificados para la elaboración de "tarjetas máximas" extemporáneas.

Which translate as:

Special postmarks
The following were made:

(under the drawings): Later, forgeries of these potsmarks were made to prepare out of date "maximum cards"

Just for you to know...

" Later, forgeries of these potsmarks were made to prepare out of date "maximum cards""


Which is the postmark used on FDI if any ?!?

11 August 1999 - Luciano Pavarotti's concert in Bucharest, Romania . Same day with the Total Solar Eclipse ! ( see the stamp )

RO's P.O. issued this m.c. with a nice pictorial cancel :11.08.1999 BUCURESTI

Falkland Island - RSS John Biscoe
Postmark : PORT STANLEY 18 DE 57 FALKLAND ISLANDS

The very interesting story of this vessel (which changed the flag 5 times !) , here :
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RRS_Jo...iscoe_(1944)

In 1983 the RO Post Office issued a Souvenir Sheet ( " EUROPA" series ) to commemorate 100 years from first trip of the "Orient Express " train.
It shows the famous train arriving in Bucharest Railway station .

On 2 August 1987 was opened in Bucharest, RO an international exhibition with topic " Transport" .
On this occasion a maximum card was made with the Souvenir Sheet stamp . On the back of the card was glued the souvenir sheet stamp's " frame " which was cancelled with same pictorial postmark.

More on this famous train here :
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orient_Express

Please, March, see my private message. Thank you.