Israel Stamp Reviews

The " Ludwig van Beethoven, 250 Years " stamp was issued by Israel Post on 15 December 2020 to mark the semiquincentennial of Ludwig van Beethoven's birth. Face valued at ₪11.80, corresponding to the postage rate for domestic priority 100-300g mail, the stamp depicts an image of Beethoven based on a portrait of him by Joseph Karl Stieler and the iconic opening notes of Beethoven's Symphony No. 5 in C minor, Op. 67. The tab below the stamp proper illustrates the opening notes of Symphony No. 5's second subject and features a "Philately Day" inscription indicating that proceeds from the stamp's sale go to the Philately Promotion Foundation. Gray is the stamp's dominant color. It was designed by Zvika Roitman (צביקה רויטמן), who has been a stamp designer with Israel Post since 2003. בולים של מוצארט, באך J.S. Bach, W.A. Mozart stamps Israel Post (2000, 1991) Beethoven was born on 17 December 1770 and, along with Bach (1685-1750) and Mozart (175...

2020 was, in one word, a frustrating year. Plans unraveled, goals weren't reached, and it was often the case that preparations made one day were rendered irrelevant the next. It was a year whose engine never really got started but in some ways still hasn't cooled off. Along with the setbacks, however, there were moments of triumph; and along with the disappointments, rewards. Last year this second paragraph was devoted to an overview of my collection, but that too fell apart as I abandoned Colnect for personal reasons and haven't found a viable alternative since. Moreover, despite my best efforts to regulate my philatelic intake, which included avoiding ordering 2020 stamps from Iceland, Armenia and Azerbaijan, among other countries, stamps still penetrated my defenses at a rate faster than they could be properly accommodated. Philatelic world news 2020 was a year of record news consumption. 1 The main stories trending and making headlines had to do with the gl...

Today was the last day of my school's winter break. I woke up feeling little in the way of pressure to do anything or go anywhere. Instead, I fired up the laptop and cycled robotically through the usual sequence of news and social media sites. Nothing particularly dramatic had happened while I was alseep. On a whim, I visited the Israel Post website to check if there was any information about next month's new stamp issues. There was not. There was, however, a new update in the "Announcements" section: " Country added for overseas delivery -- United Arab Emirates ." This was dramatic news. And seeing as no one else was covering it, I shared it via the Israel Stamp Reviews Facebook page . A couple hours passed and Niall Murphy of the International Moldovan Philatelic Society and FILABRAS replied wondering, "Who will write to who and about what?" It was a good question. Of the people living in Israel who had connections in the UAE, how many sti...

Hobby , identity and community are distinct but closely related concepts. The distinction is one of experience: a hobby is a thing we do, an identity is a thing we have, and a community is a thing of which we are a part. The relationship, meanwhile, is one of progression: engaging in a hobby can form part of a person's identity, and people with common identities tend to cling to one another and form communities. Not everyone who collects stamps will identify as a stamp collector, and not everyone who identifies as a stamp collector will join a philatelic community; however, the distance from point A to point B and from point B to point C is shorter now than at any time in the past. What has shortened the distance has been the rise of social media, because social media has increased the visibility of identities and made accessing communities virtually effortless. Case in point: Had it not been for social media -- specifically YouTube, and more specifically Graham Beck's Ex...