Just or just not

We regularly receive emails from members who believe to have found a motorcycle that we have missed on a stamp or postal stationery. That can actually happen, because we also have just human eyes and regularly miss something. Therefore we are happy with every notification we receive.
Most end up with me because I try to keep the stamp catalog up to date. My criteria are that it must at least look like a motorcycle or related vehicle before I want to report it to you, or that several members mention the dot or abstract figure saying that they recognize it as a motorcycle. I would like to show a few of those debatable reports because you can easily interpret them as a motorcycle.

From Australia I received a message about the stamp from Botswana shown below.

On the occasion of the 10th anniversary of the University of Botswana, a series of four stamps was issued on May 8th 1974 with images of the Universities of Botswana, Swaziland and Lesotho, as well as a stamp with a map depicting the three countries.
On the three cent stamp we see the Gaborone Campus of the Uni and a roundabout at an intersection. On the road two vehicles, one of which is clearly recognizable as a car, and a vague image of a two-wheeled vehicle, a bicycle or a motorcycle. In any case, it is not clear what it really is.

We at the MFN use the rule for motorcycle stamps that, independent of how small it is, you must be able to see that it is a motorcycle.
For inclusion in the catalog other rules apply, there we report everything that one or more members consider to be a motorcycle. If you conlude that a stamp does not fit in your collection, forget it. Therefore this one will be included in the catalog.

The next stamp was mentioned by a Canadian ex-member and concerns an issue from Tunisia from May 2019.

The picture shows a townscape of Tunis, in 2019 appointed Capital of Islamic Culture, with a two-wheeler in front of the gate:

The wide mudguards and the cap that can be seen as a helmet would indicate a motorcycle. Given the nature of the drawing, toddler-like, I don't see a motorcycle in it, but well, we include it.

Next a page-filling, but here just small reproduced, item: a portrait of John F. Kennedy. The portrait is issued in the series "Faces of the Millennium" (2001-06-14) by Guyana, and consists of hundreds of small pictures with the theme JFK.

Of course there are also a number of pictures amongst them that show the famous motorcade, and it would be strange if there would not be not a few motorcycles here and there.
And see, with some enlargement and detective work, there is on several places in the portrait a picture that we previously reported in NB 121 on the block of St. Vincent and Grenadines from 2011.

Now there are still more photos that are eligible to be called motorcycle philately but they are so small.......

Of more recent date is the stamp from Estonia on the occasion of the celebration of 100 years Estonian Patent Office. The stamp was issued on May 23rd 2019 in sheets of 20 stamps, with the same image on the sheet margin as on the stamp.

With some imagination you could recognize an early (electric) motorcycle in the image, but I miss that fantasy and see it more as a bike with testial suspension.

And then there are of course the very deceptive stamps, such as this one by Frans Andorra from 2015.

Many people saw a motorcycle in this and that is not surprising. But this is really a mountain biker. UCI is the Union Cycliste Internationale, and BTT stands for BMX Track Trials.
The confusion is understandable because the Spanish Andorran post issued a motorcycle stamp two months earlier.
And there are still a few other stamps like this that are debatable.

Also on the cyclist in the middle of this bridge there has been a lot of discussion:

 

Hans de Kloet

 

Top   -   Back to former page   -   Home