Archive for April, 2009

50th Anniversary – Auckland Harbour Bridge

April 30th, 2009 srmodh view 39 views

Name: 50th Anniversary – Auckland Harbour Bridge
Date of Issue: 1 May 2009
Country: New Zealand
Denominations:50c , $1.00, $1.50, $2.00.

Fifty years since its opening, Auckland Harbour Bridge is an icon of New Zealand’s landscape. Replacing a 40-kilometre drive or a cross harbour ferry ride, it’s been key to growth in the region – transforming North Shore’s seaside villages and rural communities into a thriving city, and opening Auckland City and points north and south to previously unimaginable opportunities for expansion and development.
Join us in celebrating the anniversary of this remarkable structure’s opening, with four gummed stamps, one self-adhesive stamp and a first day cover that are bound to be snapped up by Kiwis and international collectors alike.

50c – Opening Day 1959
On 30 May 1959, Governor-General Lord Cobham officially opened the box truss bridge after a week of celebrations that included a crossing by thousands of pedestrians before it was opened to vehicles. Retailers prepared for the event with ‘bridge specials’ and competitions, while parades, fashion shows and dances were held to welcome the new landmark.

$1.00 – Our Bridge 2009
By the late 1960s it was apparent that the Bridge would soon reach its capacity. To cope with the growth in traffic volumes, Japanese company IHI clipped two new lanes to each side of the bridge using the existing pier supports. The work was completed in 1969, with the only major maintenance required since being a girder strengthening project in 2006.

$1.50 – Our Icon 1961
From the day it opened until 1984, Auckland Harbour Bridge was a toll road, charging 25 cents per car with the aim of recovering the costs
of construction. After one year of operation, 4.9 million vehicles had crossed the bridge, a figure that increased to 10.6 million in 1966 and reached more than 60 million in 2008. To help manage the traffic flow, the world’s first ‘moveable lane barrier’ was installed in 1990 – it’s now moved four times a day to create an extra lane at peak times.

$2.00 – Our Link 2009
Today, the Auckland Harbour Bridge is an essential link between the North Shore and Auckland City – providing commuters, travellers
and tourists with an easy, direct link to motorways stretching north and south. It’s also a visitor destination, with bridge climbing and bungy jumping experiences now on offer to those with an adventurous spirit.

www.mycovercollection.blogspot.com
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100th Anniversary of the Founding of the ITGWU

April 30th, 2009 srmodh view 36 views

Name: 100th Anniversary of the Founding of the ITGWU
Date of Issue: 30 April 2009
Country: Ireland
Denominations:55c

The Irish Transport and General Workers’ Union was founded by the legendary workers’ activist ‘Big’ Jim Larkin. In the early 1900s, Larkin organized the transport and dock workers of Dublin. By the end of 1908 the ITGWU was born, attracting members from all over Ireland. The response of Dublin employers was the great 1913 Lockout against ITGWU members.

In 1914 Jim Larkin turned his attention to the labour movement in the United States. In his absence James Connolly, soon to be one of the leaders of the Easter Rising, took control. William O’Brien stepped in following Connolly’s execution in 1916.

Larkin’s return from the US in 1923 marked a period of great tension between him and O’Brien. Larkin led a breakaway movement, the Workers’ Union of Ireland, in 1924.

It took until 1990, and the establishment of the Services Industrial Professional Technical Union – SIPTU – to bring the two great workers’ movements together, under one banner a hundred again a century after the founding of the ITGWU. The stamp was designed by John Conway and shows a photograph of James Larkin addressing a crowd in Sackville Street, now O’Connell Street, used courtesy of RTÉ Stills Library. Over this is superimposed the ‘Starry Plough’ representing the Irish labour movement.

www.mycovercollection.blogspot.com
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40th Anniversary of the Foundation of ZSF

April 28th, 2009 srmodh view 31 views

Name: 40th Anniversary of the Foundation of ZSF
Date of Issue: 29 April 2009
Denominations:T2 50g

www.mycovercollection.blogspot.com
Posted in Slovakia No Comments »

National Year of Environment 2009

April 26th, 2009 srmodh view 40 views

Name: National Year of Environment 2009
Date of Issue:
Country: Pakistan
Denominations:Rs. 5 x 4

  • Chukar (Bird)
  • Markhor (Animal)
  • Deodar (Tree)
  • Jasmine (Flower)
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Popular dances

April 26th, 2009 srmodh view 43 views

Name: Popular dances
Date of Issue: 27 April 2009
Denominations: 0,43 € x 2
Las Sevillanas, native to Seville, is the most popular dance and song in Andalucía where the following are also very well known: The Olé gaditano from Cádiz, the Jaleo from Jerez, the Rondeña from Ronda, the Malagueña from Málaga and the Granadina from Granada. Technically, they are an evolution from the Castilian seguidillas which in time developed into a more flamenco style.

Las Sevillanas are danced in twos and have four different movements: paseillos, pasadas, careos and remates in 3 x4 timing. There is a wide variety of Sevillanas but the best known are the boleras, rocieras, corraleras and bíblicas and they take their name depending on the theme of the song or the background conditions. They are mainly accompanied by guitar playing, hand clapping by the palmeros and, castanets or, palillos (drumsticks) as they are called in Andalucía. Their fame spreads all over the country as they are performed throughout Spain in festivals, celebrations and dance clubs and especially in the Feria de Sevilla and El Rocío pilgrimage. Since the sixties, the Sevillanas have evolved with new artists, themes and musical interpretations though observing the original essence and the graceful arm and leg movement.

www.mycovercollection.blogspot.com
Posted in Spain Tags: 2 Comments »

Fred Zinnemann

April 26th, 2009 srmodh view 23 views

Name: Fred Zinnemann
Date of Issue: 29 April 2009
Country: Austria
Denominations:0.55 EUR

Fred Zinnemann was born in Vienna on April 29, 1907. As a child, he was a close friend of Billy Wilder, who like himself was later to become a famous Hollywood director. After finishing school in 1925, Zinnemann initially began to study law before taking a course in camera work at the Paris Ecole Technique de Photographie et de Cinématographie two years later. After a stay in Berlin, where he was employed as a camera assistant, working together with such stars as Marlene Dietrich, he went to Hollywood.

www.mycovercollection.blogspot.com
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Cocos (Keeling) Islands: 400 Years

April 24th, 2009 srmodh view 44 views

Name: Cocos (Keeling) Islands: 400 Years
Date of Issue: 21 April 2009
Country: Australia
Denominations: 2 x 55c, 1 x $1.10, 1 x $1.65

  • 55c – 1609 Captain William Keeling’s first sighting
  • 55c – 1836 Charles Darwin visited the islands on The Beagle
  • $1.10 – 1827-1978 Clunies Ross family
  • $1.65 – 1955 An Australian Territory
www.mycovercollection.blogspot.com
Posted in Australia Tags: 1 Comment »

Birth Centenary of Francis Bacon

April 24th, 2009 srmodh view 34 views

Name: Birth Centenary of Francis Bacon
Date of Issue: 24 April 2009
Country: Ireland
Denominations: 55c

Francis Bacon was born at 63 Lower Baggot Street, Dublin on 28 October 1909. His parents had moved to Ireland from England to breed and train racehorses. Francis left home at the age of 16 after an argument with his father, travelling to London, Berlin and Paris.

It was in Paris that he was inspired to become an artist, when he visited an exhibition of Picasso drawings in 1927. Returning to London at the end of the 1920s, he found some measure of fame as an interior designer, but Francis Bacon’s destiny lay elsewhere. He devoted himself to painting. His breakthrough came with ‘Three Studies for Figures at the Base of a Crucifixion’ in 1944. A series of paintings of heads, often depicted violently, sealed his reputation as a major artistic figure.

www.mycovercollection.blogspot.com
Posted in Ireland Tags: No Comments »
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