12 Months, 12 Stamps: Valladolid

In 2017 Correos (Spanish Post) started to issue every month a stamp dedicated to a Spanish province. In total Spain counts 52 provinces, so started in January 2017 they can go on until end of April 2021. Every first working day of the month a new stamp is presented. The authorities in the respective province ship all their post in that month with this stamp, which is only sold in the province itself and in that month (and at the philatelic service).
On July 2nd 2018 the turn was for the province Valladolid (region Castile and Léon) with the capital of the same name. Special is that Valladolid is the province to which the Canary Islands belong.

On the stamp series the letters used for identification of vehicles in the province are placed, and in the letters several interesting buildings and events are depicted. On the Valladolid stamp with the letters VA these are regional costumes, the famous library, the Calderon theater which has every year the Seminci International Film week, Mudejar ceramics, the squirrel that is present all over the province and a wine barrel. But off course we pay our special attention to the penguin on the motorcycle.

The local motorcycle club Turismoto has given itself a cold logo of a penguin riding a motorcycle, and not without reason as the club organizes since 1981 a yearly motorcycle meeting (Concentration Motera) in the 2nd weekend of January. Cold thus! Despite this the event draws every year more than 25.000 motorcyclists to the valley.
Also Spain has environment movements, and these protested against the meeting, with the result that is was cancelled in 2015. But the province mingled in this conflict and appointed a region where the motorcyclists can camp and hold their meeting. In 2018 for the 35th time, with that year almost 30.000 participants.
Most times it is in this period nicely fresh in Valladolid, but there were also years when more than 25 cm of snow had fallen. Br.....

Every year Correos also issues a piece of postal stationery with all province stamps on it, and the penguin stamp can also be found on it.

The date of issue is January 31st 2018, and the serial number is 80-29.

FDC

Hans de Kloet

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