Here is a new issue from Occussi-Ambeno, the 2019 stamp for the First Direct Airship Flight from Occussi-Ambeno to Kemp Land.


Occussi-Ambeno 2019 First Direct Airship Flight from Occussi-Ambeno to Kemp Land.

Occussi-Ambeno celebrated the first direct airship flight to Kemp Land, which departed for the Antarctic on 18th July 2019, and this attractive Sibelius stamp was overprinted in purple and issued.

The design includes the Zeppelin airship logo of Swiftair Corp, and the Helsinki Cathedral in Finland on the basic stamp.

During the overprinting, some stamps were accidentally overprinted upside down.

Swiftair website wrote: Swiftair Corporation uses modern, safe, and fast high-tech airships filled with helium, an inert gas that will not ignite. It is 100% safe for airship travel. Swiftair's fleet of five zeppelins operates regularly within Occussi-Ambeno and also runs less frequent international links. From the earliest days of letter post and stamp collecting, people have delighted in creating tangible souvenirs of their epic experiences, and among experiences, surely there are few that can beat a flight in an airship! The earliest known balloon mail are letters from citizens of Paris in 1870, when the city was under siege by the Prussian army. Letters for the distant provinces and foreign lands were inscribed "Par ballon monté" (via mounted balloon) and launched upwards in hot air balloons to drift with the wind and (hopefully) land in non-enemy territory. Although some balloons were captured, quite a lot of mail got through safely, and these flown envelopes are highly prized by philatelists. They are known as ballon montés after the cachet applied. In the era of the giant zeppelins, run as a commercial fleet by the German firm Luftschiffbau Zeppelin GmbH, much mail was carried from country to country, always with rubber-stamped cachets applied on board to indicate this transit. Although not scarce, zeppelin flight envelopes are very sought-after, and represent an important part of the history of aerophilately.

.·:*¨¨*:·..·:*¨¨*:·..·:*¨¨*:·..·:*¨¨*:·..·:*¨¨*:·..·:*¨¨*:·..·:*¨¨*:·.

At the weekend I had a postcard from Bruce, currently enjoyong himself in Ocussi Ambeno. Not that though it has come through as air mail, there are no regular NZ stamps on the postcard and there was no excess to pay on it. Were the franked Occussi stamps considered to have been covering the postage rate? LMSO

Two more recent arrivals from Bruce - with thanks

Here is an earlier issue from Occussi-Ambeno, the 1996 set for the Festival of Hathor.


Occussi-Ambeno 1996 Festival of Hathor set.

The set was printed by Adana letterpress on thick white glossy paper without watermark, and perf 12.  The design shows a photograph of the great goddess Hathor, and at the foot are the Egyptian hieroglyphs saying Festival of the great Hathor.

Sadly, the print was not a success. The red base of the 15c stamp is hard to see, and the pale pink of the $2 stamp does not work so well either, although the pink stamp looks a lot better in actuality, as the scanner seems to have failed to capture its true pinkness.

Wikipedia wrote: Hathor is a major goddess in ancient Egyptian religion who plays a wide variety of roles. As a sky deity, she is the mother or consort of the sky god Horus and the sun god Ra, both of whom are connected with kingship, and thus she is the symbolic mother of their earthly counterparts, the Pharaohs and Sultans. She is one of several goddesses who act as the Eye of Ra, Ra's feminine counterpart, and in this form she has a vengeful aspect that protects him from his enemies. Her contrasting, beneficent side represents music, dance, joy, love, sexuality, and maternal care, and she acts as the consort of several male deities and the mother of their sons. These two sides of the goddess exemplify the Egyptian conception of femininity. Hathor also crosses boundaries between worlds, helping deceased souls in the transition to the afterlife. Hathor is often depicted as a cow, symbolizing her maternal and celestial aspects, although her most common form is a woman wearing a headdress of cow horns and a sun disk. She can also be represented as a lioness, cobra, or sycomore tree. Cattle goddesses similar to Hathor were portrayed in Egyptian art in the fourth millennium BC, but she herself appeared in the Old Kingdom (c. 2686–2181 BC). With the patronage of Old Kingdom rulers she became one of Egypt's most important deities. More temples were dedicated to her than to any other goddess, of which the most prominent was Dendera Temple in Upper Egypt. She is also worshipped in the temples of her male consorts. The Egyptians connect her with foreign lands such as Nubia and Canaan and their valuable goods, such as incense and semiprecious stones, and some of the peoples in those lands adopted her worship. In Egypt itself, she is one of the deities commonly invoked in private prayers and votive offerings, particularly by women desiring children. During the New Kingdom (c. 1550–1070 BC), goddesses such as Mut and Isis encroached on Hathor's position in royal ideology, but she remains one of the most widely worshipped deities. After the end of the New Kingdom, Hathor was increasingly overshadowed by Isis, but she continues to be venerated in ancient Egyptian religion.