Sunday 30 August 2015

Fish on stamps



These two stamp cards are part of a larger series, British River Fishes, issued in 1983.  The other two which I no longer have were salmon and trout.

I've always said that collecting postcards, and in this case also stamp collecting, is educational.  In many parts of France, they fish and eat a river fish called "sandre".  They happily told me it was a hybrid of pike and perch but I see now from the stamp cards that in fact pike and perch are not only different species but different families.

So I investigated further and Wikipedia tells me that "sandre" or zander is called pike-perch only because it resembles both fish.  Apparently it's considered a delicacy in many places in Europe.  I can certainly vouch for it being very pleasant to eat.

Back to the present, and the task in hand. This is a post for Sunday Stamps, hosted by Violet Sky at "See it on a Postcard!"  As usual, click on the link to see some other fishy tales.

6 comments:

  1. Both are beautiful stamps! Makes me curious to know the other ones from this serie.

    Thank you for your research regarding the perch / pike, interesting story!

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  2. I'm not used to river fishes, being a Mediterranean woman :D
    I agree that stamps are highly educational.

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  3. I never saw this set. When I was a boy it was quite common to catch perch in the river near us. I never succeeded in catching a pike,

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  4. I know Pike! These are 2 great stamps and love to hear about some history on it. I wonder what the other 2 looked like

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  5. It's hard to imagine that these two very different fish have a combination name.

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  6. I've never eaten either of these two fish.

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Welcome to my postcard collection! I love hearing what you think of the cards - but spam WILL be deleted.

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