Five stamp publications will be released on May 7 in Finland. Each contains a total of ten new 1st class stamps. The visual theme deals with nostalgic tourism and disabled sports. Nature is represented by a national park, clouds, and a flower.
Old Finnish tourism posters are included on the Visit Finland self-adhesive sheet of ten stamps designed by Johannes Ekholm. Two of the included tourism posters originally date back to the 1930s. The Saimaa poster from 1939 is by Paul Söderström and Göran Englund. The designers of the Hanko poster are unknown.
The Visit Finland stamps have been released in the Europa series, for which every European postal administration picked its own stamp motifs. The posters included on the stamps have also been published in the popular Come to Finland book.
Our internationally successful disabled athletes will have their own stamp. The two stamps on the Disabled Sports miniature sheet depict Leo-Pekka Tähti, the world record holder in wheelchair racing, world champion and Paralympic gold medalist, and Saana-Maria Sinisalo, an archer who has finished in points winning places at the World Championships. They both are potential medalists in the Paralympics that will take place in London next summer.
In addition to the stamps, the miniature sheet designed by Klaus Welp depicts other successful disabled athletes. The miniature sheet will contain the text “disabled sports” in Finnish and Swedish Braille, together with the 1st class stamp designation.
Next in the series is the Bothnian Sea National Park, which introduces Finnish national parks. Teemu Ollikainen has designed a 10-stamp self-adhesive stamp booklet.
The archipelago of the Bothnian Sea National Park has an abundant set of species, and it is a key resting location for migratory birds. The park has an ascetically beautiful, barren and stony milieu. Ninety-eight percent of the park, located off Rauma and Pori, is below the water's surface, which is also indicated on the stamp where about half of the visual theme is above and half is below the water's surface.
In May, stamps sold in rolls of one hundred stamps each will become available. The visual themes include three different types of clouds: the amygdaloidal altocumulus cloud, the hazy stratus, and the fibrous storm cloud.
The stamps, which are based on into-the-sun photographs, are by Timo Berry. The Clouds stamps' surface has pictograms printed using transparent lacquer, which indicate the cloud types, number of clouds and the weather types.
The sunflower will get a designated stamp when a 10-stamp self-adhesive sheet is published in May. The stamps are by Ossi Hiekkala and depict two different sunflowers. The sketch-like implementation of the stamps emphasizes the colors of the flowers and impressively makes them stand out from the background. Sunflower is an excellent choice for all cards and greetings during the summer.
Technical information of Finnish stamps issued on May 7, 2012 (pdf)
Itella Posti Oy
Itella Communications
Visit Finland
Sunflower
Disabled Sports
Bothnian Sea National Park
