Stamping Letters Trivia Quiz

The image shown is from a 1969 Soviet Union stamp commemorating space exploration. It is a based on a photograph of the Earth taken by the Zond 7 satellite, probably on 9 August 1969. This was an unpiloted test flight (although there were four turtles on board) which then went on to have a Moon-flyby before achieving a soft landing in Kazakhstan.

The Russian painter Gherman Alexeyvich Komlev was the designer of the stamp. The Soviet Union (1922 -1991) was more properly known as the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. CCCP are the initials for the Cyrillic equivalent of that name.

The image shows a block of Penny Black stamps. The Penny Black was issued in 1840 and is famous for being the first adhesive stamp issued in a public postal system. The profile shown on the stamp is that of Queen Victoria. A country name was not used on the stamp and Britain remains the only country to continue this practice. The Penny Black was soon replaced as a red cancellation ink on the stamp was too difficult to see. The Penny Red replaced it with a change to black cancellation ink. The black ink was also harder to remove, making fraudulent re-use of stamps more difficult.

From 1913 the Swiss post office issued an annual charity stamp series (except in 1914) to support the work of Pro Juventute, a Swiss charity foundation for children. Early examples were marked as valid for a limited time period, a common practice for many Swiss semipostals and commemoratives until 1960. The photogravure process for printing the stamps led to many small flaws, making them more attractive to collectors. Helvetia is the national personification of Switzerland, officially in Latin form known as Confoederatio Helvetica, and is used on Swiss stamps and coins.

The first regular mail service in Iceland was establish in 1776, however it was not until 1873 that the first Icelandic postage stamp came into service. This was based on the Danish "numerical" issue which appeared from 1870 but with "ÍSLAND" replacing "DANMARK".

The Icelandic currency was changed from the skilling to the aurar in 1876 so that suggests the image shows an early stamp. On the other hand, forgeries or unofficial copies were common. For example, between 1864 and around 1880, the German printers Spiro Brothers produced some 500 different postage stamp reproductions. Reproductions which, if nothing else, would muddy the water.

The image shows a Hungarian postage stamp which celebrates the launch of the first manned spaceflight. This was on 12 April 1961 when the Soviet cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin in the Vostok 1 spacecraft managed one orbit around Earth. Magyar Posta is the name for the Hungarian postal service. Magyars is the name Hungarians call themselves and dates back to 810 in written records. The tribal Megyer were one of the seven semi-nomadic tribes of the region and came to dominate the others. The 'Sz' combination on the stamp is not an error, just one of the 44 letters of the Hungarian alphabet.

The UAR initials stand for United Arab Republic, a sovereign state which was formed by a political union between Egypt and Syria in 1958. Syria seceded from the Union in 1961 following a military coup d'état in Syria. The UAR, essentially just Egypt, continued until 1971 when it became the Arab Republic of Egypt. The currencies used in UAR stamps were milliemes for the Egyptian versions and plasters for the Syrian ones.

Japan issued its first postage stamp in 1871. Three years later the Japanese painter known by the pseudonym Hishida Shunsō was born. He was to die of kidney disease in 1911. Known for his numerous cat paintings, his 1910 'Black Cat' painting has been designated an Important Cultural Property and was included as part of the Modern Art series of stamps in 1979. He himself appears in a 1951 stamp as part of the Cultural Leaders series. The word 'NIPPON' only started appearing on Japanese stamps from 1966.

Hrvatska is the Croatian word for the country. The source of the non-native name 'Croatia' is unclear. Croatia, as part of the Austrian-Hungarian Empire, first started using the Empire's stamps, then Austrian or Hungarian stamps (depending on the Croatian region concerned) as political boundaries changed. From 1919 Croatia printed its own stamps.

After World War Two, Croatia became part of Yugoslavia but with independence in 1991, Hrvatska stamps appeared again. The stamp "Death of King Petar Svačić" is a 1944 war victims issue.

The N.D. HRVATSKA is short for the Independent State of Croatia, a puppet state set up by Germany and Italy between 1941 and 1945.

Sverige is the Swedish word for Sweden. The country first issued stamps in 1855. Displaying the coat of arms, five denominations were produced with values of between 3 and 24 Swedish skillings. The Swedish currency was changed in 1858, resulting in a change to the stamps. The three-skilling stamp is normally blue-green in colour whereas the one in the image is yellow. A possible explanation for this is that an eight-skilling printing plate was damaged and replaced in error with a three-skilling one. The eight-skilling stamp is yellow-orange in colour.

This particular yellow stamp, known as the Treskilling Yellow, appears to be unique and has changed hands multiple times. It sold in 1984, 1990 and 1996, each time for a world record price for a stamp. The last known sale price was 2.88m Swiss Francs (about US$3.5m) in 1996. There was also a court case in London where someone tried to find a bank negligent in allowing nine Treskilling Yellows to be stolen whilst in their care. The judge felt the story was implausible. The (sole?) stamp was sold again a few months after the decision.

The image shows Meteora monastery with the lettering in the Greek alphabet including the word 'Hellas', a Greek word for Greece. The stamp was issued during wartime occupation in 1942 as part of a new definitive set depicting Greek landmarks. The first batch of nine stamps had values ranging from 2 to 200 drachmae.

By the time the second set were released in 1944, inflation saw the values set at 500 to 5,000,000 drachmae. Later that year, post-occupation, the values were overprinted in new drachma where 50 billion old drachmae was the equivalent of 1 new drachma. Such is the power of inflation.

The 1949 South Korean stamp in the image is celebrating the 75th anniversary of the Universal Post Union. It also shows the South Korean flag with the text in French including South Korea's name. This was probably a nod to the UPU as French was the official working language of the UPU. Korea joined the UPU in 1900 but was under colonial rule by Japan from 1910 to 1945.

It was divided politically into North and South Korea in 1945 with both countries retaining UPU membership. South Korea issued its first stamps in 1946.

The stamp represents two cultures. The name on the 1982 stamp is the local language in Madagascar, namely Malagasy which has an Austronesian heritage rather than African. The island was presumably populated by outrigger canoes coming from present-day Indonesia. Madagascar is the European name for the island.

The stamps from the country have borne 'Madagascar', 'Malagasy' and 'Madagasikara' (which is the Malagasy name for the place). A French colony until independence in 1960, the French connection continues with the subject matter of the stamp.

This is celebrating the 150th anniversary of the birth of French modernist painter Édouard Manet. The painting is "The Tavern", also known as "Open Air Cabaret", from 1878.