Hands On Stamps

The great man-made river of Libya taps into the ancient water resources beneath the Sahara and provides clean water to coastal cities and for irrigation. What happens when these resources become depleted?

according to known reserves, this water will last for 60,000 years

The hands of the famous surgeon Risto Jeremic are especially featured on this commemorative sheet. Hands and eyes are a surgeons most valued tools, but the sheet also shows surgical tools. Jeremic was active for cultural and educational improvements and was a prolific writer.

(Hi Alexey, I do hope you are right about the water and that taking it from deep down will not destabilize geological layers nor bring up radioactivity from low levels. Greetings, K.)

In 1955, the Republic of Korea issued a two stamp set of identical designs but different values, to commemorate the 10th anniversary of the United Nations. Shown here is the 55 won high value (Sc #222). The central design is 12 handshakes surrounding the UN emblem.

Patrick, with bound hands, as a very young man who had been abducted into slavery in Ireland and Mount Croagh Patrick with the statue of Patrick as Bishop.

(Happy St. Patrick's Day to anyone who might be celebrating the Saint!)

Great Britain's May 2, 1995 Europa set of five stamps recognizes 5 different significant anniversaries. The high value 30p stamp (SG #1877) commemorates the 50th anniversary of the United Nations.

Ignaz Semmelweis (1818–1865) was a Hungarian physician and scientist, an early pioneer of antiseptic procedures. Semmelweis discovered that the incidence of childbed fever could be drastically cut by the use of hand disinfection. Semmelweis proposed the practice of washing hands with chlorinated lime solutions long before bacteria had been discovered to be the cause of infections. stamp for his 200th birthday.

100 year anniversary of Robert Koch presenting his discovery of the bacterium which causes tuberculosis, 1982. The stamp shows a hand warding off the bacteria as they appear under the light microscope. TB still causes thousands of deaths per year, although it can be cured.

The Cuban stamp of 1953 shows a child's hands reaching toward the double-barred cross symbolizing the fight against tuberculosis. At that time the incidence of the disease was high in Cuba - nowadays it is comparable to that of the US.

This late 1940's cinderella was issued by by Ukrainian exiles in Munich, Germany.

On January 26, 1984 Denmark issued this stamp (Facit #626) to commemorate the country's hosting of the World Billiards Championships.

Here is the high value 300 +100 (pf) stamp from Germany's February 17, 2000 set of four semi-postal "sports aid" stamps. The theme of this set is sports and peace. Inscription on stamp says, "culture of encounter".

This 2.20 colones airmail stamp of El Salvador commemorates the state visit of Mexican President Carlos Salinas de Gortari on July 13-4 of 1993.

On February 25, 1991 The Netherlands issued this 75c stamp to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the February Strike.

From Wikipedia, "The February Strike was a general strike in the German-occupied Netherlands in 1941, during World War II, organized by the then-outlawed Communist Party of The Netherlands in defense of persecuted Dutch Jews and against the anti-Jewish measures and activities of the Nazis in general. It started on 25 February 1941 and lasted for two days; on 26 February, 300,000 joined the strike...The 1941 February Strike is considered to be the first public protest against the Nazis in occupied Europe and the only mass protest against the deportation of Jews to be organized by non-Jews."

This Italian 25c stamp (Mi #419) of October 27, 1932 is from a long set of 20 values including 2 airmails and 2 special delivery stamps. It shows hands, tools and a book (indoctrination?) pushed together to cast a shadow of fascism.

The set was issued to commemorate the 10th anniversary of the fascists' "March on Rome."