Finland - Tampere

One of my favourite stamps and covers to collect are the ones from Finland because of their unique shaped and colourful stamps.

The stamp on the left is from the spring blossoms set issued on March 23, 2012. The flowers are shown in six retro-styled 1st class stamps in a miniature booklet depicting the liverwort, spring pea, least gagea, lung-wort, marigold and spring corydalis.

2013 Finland Valentine's Day sheet

The other stamp on the envelope, though it might not look like it, was issued on January 21, 2013 for Valentine's day. It is one of six 1st class self-adhesive stamps that come in a booklet. In keeping with the theme for Valentine's Day, these stamps feature playful landscapes made of sweets - ice cream, lolly, chocolate etc. There are also four stickers that you can use to decorate letters or cards. They look really fun. I don't know how you can resist these stamps.

Malaysia - Penang

These hexagonal shaped stamps on cover are really lovely. 



2012 Malaysia stamp - Banknote stamps miniature sheet

Malaysia issued these stamps - the second in a series - on July 16, 2012. Eight 60 sen stamps show the front and back of the new coins issued by Bank Negara Malaysia. Six new banknotes were also issued and are depicted in RM5 stamps in two separate pieces containing 3 miniature sheets each. These set of stamps are printed with hot stamp foiling and the 60sen stamps are embossed to bring out the details of the coins. The RM5.00 stamps featuring the banknotes contain silver foil hot stamping to represent the security thread on the notes.