The Anthem Philatelist

I didn't find the most expensive anthem stamp here.....

Ettelbruck  is a commune with city status in central Luxembourg, with a population of approximately 7,500. As of 2005, the town of Ettelbruck itself, which lies in the east of the commune, has a population of 6,191. The town of Warken and Grentzingen are also within the commune. Until 1850, both Erpeldange Schieren were part of the Ettelbruck commune as well, but both towns were detached from Ettelbruck by law on 1 July 1850. This first day cover was issued on June 13, 1989 with special FDC postmark to commemmorate the 12th Anniversary of the Premiere Execution d Hymne National.

I got hold of this wonderful tri-fold stamp set from Suzhou post inside the Humble Administrator's Garden  for 75 Yuan.  The first set of four stamps features the land and waters-capes of the garden, the middle set portrays the art of Suzhou and the miniature set shows an example of the flora of the garden.  The garden had a long history of destruction and modification, changing under several owners  (at least 7 times) along the way until inscribed as a UNESCO world heritage site in 1997. On the Zhuozhengyuan's site was first built a garden during the Shaoxing period (1131-1162) of the Southern Song Dynasty. Afterwards it changed ownership, and was destroyed or modified continually.  It was the residence and garden of Lu Guimeng , a Tang Dynasty scholar. Later in the Yuan Dynasty it became the Dahong Temple's garden. In 1513 CE, Wang Xiancheng, an Imperial Envoy and poet of the Ming Dynasty created a garden on the site of the dilapidated Dahong Temple whi...

After a quick 30 minute bullet train ride from Shanghai train station distancing 100 kilometers, one arrives at Suzhou , a beautiful ancient city which was originally built in the fourth year of the Zhengde period of the Ming dynasty .  The Humble Administrator's Garden , covering 5.2 hectares is one of the four most famous gardens in China.  It is divided into the eastern, middle and western parts.  Centering around the broad expanse of a lake, the poetic and picturesque garden landscapes and waters-capes with exquisite buildings and luxuriant vegetation, seems to be changing at every step and awakening reminisces of the Venetian scenes in the area south of the lower Yangtze .   These scenes are rustic, archaic, extensive and naturalistic.  As a whole, it has kept the style of the Ming dynasty and was inscribed on the UNESCO World heritage list in 2007.

Borobudur, or Barabudur, is a 9th-century Mahayana Buddhist Temple in Magelang, Central Java , Indonesia . The monument consists of six square platforms topped by three circular platforms, and is decorated with 2,672 relief panels and 504 Buddha statues. A main dome, located at the center of the top platform, is surrounded by 72 Buddha statues seated inside a perforated stupa .    Built in the 9th century during the reign of the Sailendra Dynasty , the temple's design in Gupta architecture reflects India's influence on the region. It also depicts the gupta style from India and shows influence of Buddhism as well as Hinduism. The monument is both a shrine to the Lord Buddha and a place for Buddhist pilgrimage.    The journey for pilgrims begins at the base of the monument and follows a path around the monument and ascends to the top through three levels symbolic of Buddhist cosmology : Kāmadhātu (the world of desire), Rupadhatu (the world of forms) and Arupadhatu ...

Candi Prambanan or Candi Rara Jonggrang is a 9th-century Hindu temple compound in Central Java, Indonesia, dedicated to the Trimurti, the expression of God as the Creator (Brahma), the Preserver (Vishnu) and the Destroyer (Shiva). The temple compound is located approximately 18 kilometres (11 mi) east of the city of Yogyakarta on the boundary between Central Java and Yogyakarta provinces. The temple compound, a UNESCO World Heritage Site, is the largest Hindu temple site in Indonesia, and one of the biggest in Southeast Asia. It is characterized by its tall and pointed architecture, typical of Hindu temple architecture, and by the towering 47-metre-high (154 ft) central building inside a large complex of individual temples.Prambanan attracts many visitors from across the world.

The Imperial Citadel of Thang Long is the cultural complex comprising the royal enclosure first built during the Lý Dynasty and subsequently expanded by the Trần, Lê and finally the Nguyễn Dynasty. The ruins roughly coincide with the Hanoi Citadel today.    The royal palaces and most of the structures in Thang Long were in varying states of disrepair by the late 19th century with the upheaval of the French conquest of Hanoi. By the 20th century many of the remaining structures were torn down. Only in the 21st century are the ruin foundations of Thang Long Imperial City systematically excavated. The central sector of the imperial citadel was listed in UNESCO's World Heritage Site on July 31, 2010 at its session in Brazil. Remains of the Imperial City were discovered on the site of the former Ba Đình Hall when the structure was torn down in 2008 to make way for a new parliament building. Various archaeological remains unearthed were brought to the National Museum to be e...

Ha Long Bay is a UNESCO World Heritage Site, and a popular travel destination, located in Quang Ninh province, Vietnam. Administratively, the bay belongs to Hạ Long City, Cẩm Phả town, and part of Van Don district. The bay features thousands of limestone karsts and isles in various sizes and shapes.   Ha Long Bay is a center of a larger zone which includes Bái Tử Long bay to the northeast, and Cát Bà islands to the southwest. These larger zones share similar geological, geographical, geomorphological, climate, and cultural characters. Ha Long Bay has an area of around 1,553 km2, including 1,960–2,000 islets, most of which are limestone. The core of the bay has an area of 334 km2 with a high density of 775 islets.    The limestone in this bay has gone through 500 million years of formation in different conditions and environments. The evolution of the karst in this bay has taken 20 million years under the impact of the tropical wet climate. The geo-diversity of the envir...

Abstract expressionism is the term applied to new forms of abstract art developed by American painters such as Jackson Pollock , Mark Rothko and Willem de Kooning in the 1940s and 1950s. It is often characterised by gestural brush-strokes or mark-making, and the impression of spontaneity Within abstract expressionism were two broad groupings: the so-called action painters , who attacked their canvases with expressive brush strokes; and the colour field painters who filled their canvases with large areas of a single colour. Wenceslao “Tito” Cuevas (September 2, 1938 –March 19, 2012), a renowned third generation Cebuano artist, whose non-conformist attitude paved the way for Filipino modern art to emerge in the Queen City of the South . He is regarded as the Father of Cebuano Abstract Expressionism Cuevas exposed himself to art outside the Philippines. "This exposure paved way for his signature abstract expressionist style. Splatters of paint and bold brush strokes done...

Wuzhen , a 1300 year old water town on the lower reaches of the Yangtze River, is a national scenic area and one of China’s top ten historical and cultural towns. It is also one of China’s most charming towns. Located on the Hangzhou-Jiaxing-Huzhou Plain in north of Zhejiang Province , it is at the center of the golden triangle consisting of Shanghai, Hangzhou and Suzhou . Wuzhen is easily accessed through a number of expressways and national highways. The ancient Beijing-Hangzhou Grand Canal flows through the town, which is divided by waterways into four areas, Dongzha, Xizha, Nanzha, and Beizha. Since its foundation in 872 A.D., Wuzhen has never changed its name, location, waterways, or way of life. Its traditional buildings have survived hundreds of years of weathering but remain intact today. In 2001, Wuzhen was named as a candidate for UNESCO’s World Cultural Heritage List. At the end of 2006, it was included in the revised List of China’s Candidates for UNESCO World Cultura...

The de Young Museum, also known as the M. H. de Young Memorial Museum, is a fine arts museum located in San Francisco's Golden Gate Park. It is named for early San Francisco newspaperman M. H. de Young. The museum opened in 1895 as an outgrowth of the California Midwinter International Exposition of 1894 (a fair modeled on the Chicago World's Columbian Exposition of the previous year). It was housed in an Egyptian style structure which had been the Fine Arts Building at the fair. The building was badly damaged in the earthquake of 1906, closing the building for a year and a half for repairs. Before long, the museum's steady development called for a new space to better serve its growing audiences. Michael de Young responded by planning the building that would serve as the core of the de Young Museum facility through the 20th century. Louis Christian Mullgardt, the coordinator for architecture for the 1915 Panama-Pacific International Exposition, designed the Spanish-Plate...

The task of creating a Palace of Fine Arts for the 1915 Panama-Pacific International Exposition fell to the architect Bernard R. Maybeck, then fifty years old and known for his innovative ideas. Setting to work on this new project, he chose as his theme a Roman ruin, mutilated and overgrown, in the mood of a Piranesi engraving. But this ruin was not to exist solely for itself to show "the mortality of grandeur and the vanity of human wishes .... " Although it was meant to give delight by its exterior beauty, its purpose was also to offer all visitors a stimulating experience within doors. In playing host to the Panama-Pacific International Exposition, The Fair, which opened on February 20, 1915, San Francisco was honoring the discovery of the Pacific Ocean and the completion of the Panama Canal; it was also celebrating its own resurrection after the shattering earthquake and fire of 1906.   The problems of choosing the exact site in the city had finally been overcome a...

Nkosi Sikelel' iAfrika was composed in the year 1897 by Enoch Sontonga, a Methodist school teacher. It was originally sung as a church hymn but later became an act of political defiance against the apartheid government. Die Stem van Suid-Afrika is a poem written by C.J. Langenhoven in 1918 and was set to music by the Reverend Marthinus Lourens de Villiers in 1921.[2] Die Stem was the co-national anthem[3] with God Save the King/Queen from 1936 to 1957, when it became the sole national anthem until 1995. The South African government adopted both songs as national anthems from the year 1994, when they were performed at Nelson Mandela's inauguration.[4] They were merged in 1997 to form the current anthem. The new English lyrics were adapted from the last four lines of the first stanza of The Call of South Africa (the English version of Die Stem), and were modified to reflect hope in post-apartheid South African society.

The Kinderdijk-Elshout mill network is an outstanding man-made landscape that bears powerful testimony to human ingenuity and fortitude over a millennium in draining and protecting an area by the development and application of hydraulic technology.  It is located in the north-western comer of the Alblasserwaard. It drained the internal drainage districts of De Overwaard and De Nederwaard until 1950, when the mills were closed. The 19 mills that form this group of monuments are all in operating condition. The Alblasserwaard is bounded by the rivers Lek to the north, Merwede to the south, and Noord to the south. The properties consist of discharge sluices, Water Board Assembly Houses, pumping stations, and brick and wooden mills. Owing to changed technical requirements, the discharge sluices were reduced to two and reconstructed in the mid-1980s. The Water Board Assembly Houses of De Overwaard and De Nederwaard survive intact. The former was built in 1581 and purch...