Elephant maxicard realised in Hiroshima. The cancel shows an elephant in Asa Zoo:
Zebra and elephant maxicards realised using a pictorial cancel offered at a Toyama post office, showing a zebra and an elephant at Toyama Family Park:
Edit: According to Toyama Family Park’s map, zebra do live there but not elephant. I am not sure why this pictorial cancel shows an elephant.
Interessting they have no elephants but they are very present at the postmark. But all in all very great creations
Aww, this pretty Pokemon Postmarks you’re doing great work Linda
And this elephant card is incredible, love it, B&W photo makes it more beautiful
I received this adorable otter maxicard from @Seracker! What a delight to find in my mailbox!
Thank you so much for thinking of me
Lovely Maxicards from a Indian pal to celebrate nice Events
- World Sparrow Day (20 March)
- World Red Cross day (8 May)
- World Malaria day (25 April)
This elephant card features a drawing by the Dutch artist Ferdy Remijn.
Good morning, this is a question that may seem naive to the more experienced postcrossers: when you send a maxicard do you still have to put a stamp on the written side?
This depends on your post office.
For maxicards you make yourself, some allow the postage on the front to be counted, some do, but only if you post it at the moment that it is cancelled, and some don’t at all.
In Australia, the maxicards that our post office makes come with postage pre-paid; I’m not sure if that is the case for other countries.
Some do have pe-paid Maximum cards (Like Australia, New Zealand, Aland islands) some not.
my newes creations
The anime sensation of the 90’s: (the original) Evangelion!
These maxicards were created in Evangelion’s creator Hideaki Anno’s hometown, Ube (Yamaguchi prefecture), on his 64th birthday, 22 May 2024.
Stamps were taken from the set ‘Animation Hero and Heroine Series no.5: Evangelion’ issued in Japan in 2007, which showcases the (original) main protagonists.
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I never thought I’d ever see Ube mentioned anywhere! It’s where I was assigned when I first moved to Japan - spent a year there before being transferred to Hiroshima.
Well, now you know Ube has a famous resident
The mecha anime TV series Neon Genesis Evangelion (commonly called ‘EVA’ for short) directed by Hideaki Anno has become quickly one of the instant classics of Japanese animation since it was premiered in 1995. Years later, the new film tetralogy Rebuild of Evangelion still attracts countless admirers even though nobody pretends to understand the ending ().
Since 2012, Evangelion Store has opened in ‘Tokyo-III’ that is Hakone in real life. I had the chance to acquire a set of postcards showing promotional illustrations published on the store’s anniversary every year, and the second set of the ‘frame’ stamps that commemorates the the third film of the tetralogy Evangelion: 3.0 You Can (Not) Redo (click here to see the scan of the stamp set). I realised this series of maxicards using these materials in Hakone, whose fukei-in shows the iconic Mt. Fuji, on EVA’s creator Hideaki Anno’s 64th birthday, 22 May 2024.
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P.S. It would make sense to have these cards postmarked on 17 November, the date when the film was premiered in 2012. But sadly, this date falls on a Sunday this year when all post offices in Hakone will be closed, and Japan Post plans on increasing domestic postage rate in the fall, making these individual stamps of 80 yens insufficient to request a postmark, so I have no choice to create these maxicards earlier. The stamps being already pretty huge (the postcards are standard-sized), adding a second stamp to request a postmark wouldn’t yield very pretty result.
Beautiful stamps and cards
Very well done. They are amazing. I’m not really an EVA fan. But these cards are really great. You did very well
The next edition of the Pantone series is back from the Philatelic Bureau.
- Anzac Day 2024: Picturing War
- Around Australia Flights – 100 Years
- Christmas Island Airport – 50 Years
- Cocos (Keeling) Islands: 40th Anniversary of Self-Determination
Also, some Australian flora and fauna:
Maxicards on the theme of Ghibli’s animated feature film Whisper of the Heart, realised using 2 sets of matching ‘frame’ stamps that were exclusively sold at the newly inaugurated Ghibli Park, and the pictorial cancel (this one is a kogata-in) showing the antique store that appears in the film. This kotaga-in is only available to mails posted into the postbox located on the Hill of Youth within the Park, therefore is the rarest kind of cancels offered by Japan Post that one can collect.
Originally, this pictorial cancel was scheduled to be retired after one year. But they decided to prolong its usage for a second year, making it available until 30 September 2024.
Many thanks to Fiona (@marupiter) for flying to Japan and putting my cards into the postbox!
[Date of cancellation: 24 May 2024.]
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[This is a pop-up card.]
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In case you wonder, this is how the postbox looks like:
[Picture by Fiona.]
Just adorable