Ships

Japan’s first European trading partners were the Portuguese, who reached Japan in 1543. However, the Dutch became Japan’s sole European trading partner for nearly 250 years, starting in 1609 and continuing until Japan reopened its doors to the West. From 1633,…

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…

This set of four stamps feature the Isle of Man’s renowned ‘three legs’ triskelion, one of the oldest continually-used national symbols in the world. The ‘three legs of Man’ symbol can be seen everywhere on the Island, on historical buildings,…

Here is a very small selection from the hundreds of stamps added daily to PostBeeld’s vast stock. For a better insight you are welcome to visit the company’s websites. In 2001 this beautiful stamp sheet was produced by Botswana. It…

The 2022 Royal Mail stamp miniature sheet seen here is a compilation of various stamp issues designed by a very special man – David Gentleman, the most prolific and influential stamp designer in UK philatelic history. Below are the original…

Here we have a small selection of items recently added to PostBeeld’s vast stock. We kick off with these se-tenant PHILEXAFRIQUE ’85 stamps from Central African Republic issued for the exhibition held in Lomé, Togo, in 1985. Great set of Cook…

The opening of the Ceneri Base Tunnel in December 2020 will mark the completion of the New Rail Link through the Alps (NRLA), turning the dream of a flat rail link through the Alps into reality. The NRLA provides Switzerland…

Is the collection of stamps with the theme ‘Shipwrecks’ popular? There have been many issues worldwide on the subject over the years and this article features a small selection that may encourage interest for the collector looking for a new…

Below is a small selection of stamps recently added to PostBeeld’s vast stock. Stamps from Kenya (1981) commemorating the International Year for Disabled Persons and also from Kenya (1978) a set of “Road Safety” warning stamps.

Shown below is a small selection from the thousands of new stamps added to PostBeeld’s stock recently. A 1956 stamp showing the provinces of Cyrenaica, Tripolitania and Fezzan that came together to form modern Libya in 1951. We have added…

As a child I was always fascinated by the puzzle of how it was possible to place a quite sizeable model of a ship inside a narrow-necked bottle. One of my uncles, an ex-navy man, had a beautiful example in…

The Hanseatic League, or Hanse, was formed as a northern European trading organisation, founded in the middle of the twelfth century in the north German city of Lubeck and continued as a powerful force for around 500 years. It grew…

I’ve long been fascinated by the incredible feats of the brave and extremely tough men who set off from Europe and Scandinavia in search of fabled lands. It’s possible that those featured in this article were preceded by unknown explorers…

Naturally, the ease with which one can communicate with people worldwide via email and other modern instant messaging systems has its advantages, but these methods have caused a great decline in the act of physically writing a letter and sending…