The Åland Islands are a region of Finland but autonomous. They lie closer to Sweden (38 kilometres or 24 miles) than to Finland and the official language is Swedish. Interestingly, I live even closer than that to France. Should I be speaking French? It was tried in 1066.
In 1984 The Åland Islands issued their first stamps and here they are on this postcard which arrived over New Year from Finland.
This is a post for Sunday Stamps, now hosted by Violet Sky at "See it on a Postcard!"
What a fine lot to receive.at one time.
ReplyDeleteThey had a nice variety of design and style for their first year.
ReplyDeleteNever heard about Aland Islands from before! Thanks so much for your feature!
ReplyDeletethese are so cool! Ive always loved the colours of their flag...like some fire flames against the freezing ice :)
ReplyDeleteInteresting postcard!
ReplyDeleteOh, now I can hope to receive these through Postcrossing. I can hope, yes? thank you for participating.
ReplyDeleteInteresting memento of those first stamps. I think it would be an interesting place to visit, they still produce some lovely stamps.
ReplyDeleteAlways learning from Sunday Stamps.
ReplyDeletewhat a treasure to received those!
ReplyDeletePostage Stamp:My Sunday Stamp#75M
Now I did know about the Aland Islands as they often get bunched with the Canary Islands, where I live, and which are also autonomous.
ReplyDeleteLovely stamps and a very nice flag.
ReplyDeleteI lived there at the time these stamps were issued. The little boat in the first three stamps was the postboat, which carried the mails from Eckero, at the far west of Aland, to Kapellskar in Sweden, no matter how dire the weather. In winter they would attach sled runners to the boats to drag them over the sea-ice.
ReplyDeletesomewhere, i think, i have postcards of these stamps, certainly, i have some first-day covers.
the middle picture on the bottom of your postcard is a view of the harbour, looking at modern ferries from the Viking Line and Silja line approaching the terminal, seen beyond the masts of the four-masted steel barque 'Pommern', which was one of the last of the great cape-horners, the grain-race ships, operated by the Mariehamn firm of Ericsson up until the second world war. Pommern is part of Aland's Maritime Museum.
I lived about a hundred yards from Pommern, and sailed and kayaked those waters.
Happy memories.