Itella Posti Oy's five new stamp releases on Monday, May 6th, feature 16 different images. They include odd Finnish sports, Nuuksio National Park, beautiful summer flowers, and mail delivery vehicles from two decades. The May release is crowned by the ever-popular Moomins, who will be featured on a colorful booklet of six stamps.
Finns have a passion for odd contests and they even arrange world championships in various weird sports. Artist Bruno Maximus has picked four peculiar Finnish sports as the themes of the Finnish Oddity stamp booklet: wife carrying, air guitar playing, anthill sitting, boot throwing, old-geezer carting, and swamp soccer.
- Shy Finns can vent their feelings and anxieties in odd contests where you can just be yourself. I hope that these stamps will travel around the world and put a smile on the recipients' faces, Bruno Maximus says. The graphic designer of the Finnish Oddity stamp booklet is Tero Jämsä.
Since 1991, there have been about one hundred exhibitions by Bruno Maximus, both in Finland and abroad. His works are famous for unexpectedness, fairy tale elements, and delightful humor. Designing stamps was a very pleasing assignment for Maximus; he has been dreaming of it since he was ten. Bruno Maximus painted the originals in oils; they are 40 cm x 60 cm in size.
National Park stamp comes to life onlineThe series featuring Finnish national parks continues with a sheet of ten stamps dedicated to Nuuksio national park. Nuuksio is the southernmost inland national park in Finland. It can be accessed by public transport or even bicycle from the Greater Helsinki area. The forest-covered landscape of Nuuksio is rolling and spotted with lakes and ponds. The Haukkalampi Lake area is the theme of the Nuuksio National Park first-class stamp designed by Teemu Ollikainen.
What makes this stamp so special is the Chameleon Code embedded within the image. Using a smart phone or tablet, you can use the code to access the internet and watch a video of beautiful Finnish nature. The service works on all Android and iPhone telephones and tablets. Customers can download the Chameleon eXplorer app free of charge from Apple's App Store or from Google Play.
The Summer Bouquet first-class stamp, released as a sheet of ten stamps, is perfect for all kinds of summer greetings. Summer flowers are popular on postcards, and now they come on a stamp as well. The Summer Bouquet stamp was photographed and designed by Päivi Viita.
Modern times meet history on the Mail Delivery Vehicles stamp sheet. The first-class stamps designed by Susanna Rumpu and Ari Lakaniemi belong to the EUROPA series of European mail operators.
Modern times are represented by a 2012 Ford Transit Connect delivery van, standing next to a row of mailboxes in a sparsely populated area. The other stamp features a 1933 Volvo LV-70 delivery truck, which used to serve the Suolahti–Reisjärvi–Haapalahti route. In addition to mail, the truck could accommodate 20 passengers. Today, the 80-year-old Volvo is standing in the Mobilia automobile and road museum.
Six dynamic Moomin characters
The Moomins are ever-popular favorites on Finnish stamps. This time Itella Posti Oy will release a booklet of six stamps, called Moomin Favorites. The colorful first-class stamps designed by graphic artist Satu Lusa feature Moominpappa, Moomintroll, Moominmamma, Little My, Snorkmaiden, and Snufkin. The respective Priority stickers also feature Moomin characters.
Satu Lusa wants to portray the vitality of Tove Jansson's drawings and the Moomin characters' zest for life. All the drawings in the booklet come from Tove Jansson's comic strips published in The Evening News in the 1950s. The shape of the stamps follows that of the Moomin characters.
Technical data of Finnish stamps released on May 6th 2013 (PDF)
Itella Posti Oy
Itella Communications
All stamps available for sale are featured in Posti's online shop:
www.posti.fi/ostoksille
