Famous people

The Black Heritage series stamp issued by the United States in 2024 features Constance Baker Motley (born September 14 1921, died September 29 2005), who was the first African-American woman to become a US federal judge – being appointed by…

A small selection of stamps added to PostBeeld’s stock recently can be seen below. Please note: for each country featured in the article, there will have been many more stamps added to PostBeeld’s freestampcatalogue.com website. In 1950, Venezuela issued this airmail…

Collectors of butterfly stamps consider the issue seen here to be the world’s first butterfly topical postage stamp. In 1891, the Kingdom of Hawaii issued a 2¢ dull violet Queen Liliuokalani stamp. Liliuokalani (1838-1917) was the only Hawaiian queen to…

In 2025, to commemorate the 350th anniversary of the home of modern British astronomy – London’s Royal Observatory Greenwich – Great Britain’s Royal Mail has produced some very fine items. The Miniature Sheet seen here has four First Class stamps…

A small selection of stamps added to PostBeeld’s stock recently can be seen below. Please note: for each country featured in the article, there will have been many more stamps added to PostBeeld’s freestampcatalogue.com website. This souvenir sheet from the…

If one of your favourite topics is parachuting here we have a small selection of stamps which might be of interest. The items in the article do not include stamps featuring paragliding, of which there are also many. The 5th…

In 1938 Poland issued a stamp to commemorate what turned out to be a failed attempt to break the record for reaching Earth’s stratosphere in a manned balloon flight. The balloon “Gwiazda Polski” (Star of Poland) was going to attempt to…

The Rubik’s Cube (Magic Cube) is a mechanical puzzle invented in 1974 by Hungarian sculptor and architecture professor Ernő Rubik. It was patented in Hungary in 1975 and gained extraordinary worldwide popularity during the 1980s. Both Hungary and Kyrgyzstan produced stamps to…

Dear readers/PostBeeld clients, in case you are not aware PostBeeld holds an online auction that takes place on the first day of each month. Bidding is always possible from the 16th day of the previous month. In the auctions PostBeeld…

World-renowned scientists feature on the stamp sheets and definitives produced by Paraguay in 1965. The imperforated stamps above include portraits of Einstein and Galileo. Born in March 1879 in Ulm, Germany, Albert Einstein was awarded the Nobel Prize for Physics…

Here we have a very small selection of stamp sheets from Great Britain recently added to PostBeeld’s vast stock. Please visit PostBeeld’s website for a more comprehensive view of many more. In 2012 Great Britain hosted the Olympic Games, previously…

There were so many great stamps issued by France last year I find it difficult to make a small selection for this article! Above and below: could these be the first postage stamps depicting electric bicycles? Please enlighten me if…

In 2023 Great Britain’s Royal Mail issued various philatelic items to commemorate the remarkable 70-year career of the Welsh-born singer Dame Shirley Bassey. Shown above is the cover of a Royal Mail Prestige Stamp Book, an informative 24-page publication written…

Daniel Defoe’s book “Robinson Crusoe” is regarded as the first true English novel. It is also the first novel with a first-person narrator. Crusoe ends up on an uninhabited island where, after some time, he experiences various adventures with his…

On 15 April 1912, the RMS Titanic struck an iceberg in the Atlantic Ocean and sank within three hours, with the loss of more than 1,500 lives. Recent events, with the tragic loss of life of those in the OceanGate Expeditions’ “Titan”…

The Spaniard Juan Sebastián de Elcano and the Portuguese Ferdinand Magellan were navigators and explorers who jointly sailed under the flag of both Portugal and Spain. Magellan organised an expedition to the East Indies from 1519 to 1522, which resulted…