From Bicycle Rehm, our bicycle brother from Germany (website: bicyclestamps.de), I received the message that Ålandpost issued a funny postal stationery on the 7th of June this year.
It is a card with a drawing, made by Lasse Harkkala and edited by Jahanna Finne. In the drawing a boy with a helmet in his hands, in the air a kind of fairy and a human goat (wearing a shirt from the Geta Nostalgic Motor Museum on Åland) with a wheelbarrow full of parts that should make the damaged incomplete motorcycle rideable again. The museum has everything with a motor in its collection, thus also cars and mopeds, etc.

The card comes from a set of four that was printed in an edition of 2500. The set has been given the title Yearning which means something like "deep longing for". The word Kram is projected on the ground which means embrace. On the address side as a value impression a "speed snail" with a helmet as its house on its back.

This year marks the 80th anniversary of the start of the largest military operation ever. On D-Day (Decision Day), "Operation Overlord" began on the beaches of Normandy during the night of 5 to 6 June 1944, after months of preparation and training. More than 5,000 vessels brought some 150,000 men, 1,500 tanks and many other vehicles, including many motorbikes and motorcycles, ashore in France.
Of course it was expected that this event would receive a lot of philatelic attention, and that a stray motorcycle might well appear on it. But to date I have not found any stamp or block with a motorized two-wheeler.

Isle of Man has dedicated a nice series of ten stamps to Operation Overlord with an issue on June 6, 2024. One set of five is dedicated to D-Day and the second set of five to the failed airborne landing at Arnhem with the code name "Operation Market Garden". The stamps themselves do not show a motorcycle. But there is a nicely illustrated FDC set, with the five stamps per event per envelope and also an image of a soldier on a motorcycle.

Detail with the motorcyclist

So still something to collect for us. I will keep an eye on the issues to see if a stamp of interest to us turns up somewhere.

Efiro 2024. Under this name, the International Philately Exhibition in Bucharest was held for the sixth time this year. This year it was from 16 to 19 April. It is one of the larger exhibitions and FIP meetings in the world.

The event was held in the National Library of Romania and counted no less than 550 exhibitors, many dealers and 27 postal administrations. Of course the Romanian Post had a large stand and issued a number of special philatelic items at the time of the exhibition.

One of those items, a set of three commemorative envelopes, features, among other things, the well-known Romanian stamp from 1974, issued on the occasion of 100 years of U.P.U., depicting a deliveryman standing next to his "moped" talking to a customer.

The set could be bought, besides on the Efiro itself, also in six philatelic offices in Romania but is now sold out. The size of the edition is unfortunately still unknown.

Malaysia has served us regularly in recent years with motorized postmen on stamps. Many sub-products of these stamps have also been offered for sale. We know the maximum cards as shown here. Sometimes a bit sneaky.

However, the new issue on 4 May 2024 in honour of the emergency services takes a different approach. On the series of 3 stamps, the lowest value of 50 sen honours the fire brigade’s sea rescue service with an inflatable watercraft. The second stamp of 60 sen shows a helicopter used by the fire brigade in the mountains, and the one with a value of 1.30 ringgit shows a fire engine.
No motorcycle anywhere? No! But the post office has found a solution for that. In the middle of the collection sheets, a vignette with the size of four stamps is included showing several vehicles used by the fire brigade, and one of them, on the most expensive sheet, is a motorcycle with fire extinguishing means.

Thus no stamp, but instead a complete sheet to collect. The sheets are included in a collection folder with the three sheets, an FDC (only available in the folder) and information in Malay and English.

For those who collect everything vaguely related to motorcycles also a nice FDC to obtain, because a jet ski can be found in the illustration.

Hans de Kloet

Top   -   Back to former page   -   Home