People in FOLK COSTUMES, on colorful stamps from ROMANIA (including 1 from then-SSR MOLDOVA, 1961). Also, my "Spirit of Observation TESTS" for y'all MENSA member wannabes: name the region from which the costumes depicted in these 4 postcards are! All the stamps are inscribed with the folkloric region, but not all costumes in the postcards are also depicted on stamps (or are they?) - [don't sweat it] :)

The following are "tests" of Spirit of Observation - not of folkloric knowledge!

Only a few Romanians, and the Japanese guy are experts on Romanian folk costumes.

All I'm asking you is to match a costume on a postcard, with a costume on a stamp (which also has the name of the folkloric region). If possible.

Again, don't sweat it. :)

Test 1: from what folkloric region of ROMANIA are these costumes?

Test 2: from what folkloric region of ROMANIA are these costumes?

Test 3: from what folkloric region of ROMANIA are these costumes?

I have recently sold this vintage postcard from 1910, for $12.

Sent by J. Montagne (?) [no, not Michel de Montaigne, the famous essayist] on 28 June 1910 (or 27 June, according to the postmark - one of them is wrong) from Sinaia, ROMANIA, to Jean Henry, in France.

Can you decipher the handwriting?

...affair...amitié...?

I have read about a Japanese expert in ETHNOGRAPHY and FOLKLORE, who traveled around the world 3 times, in search of regions where the folkloric traditions are rich, and not-so-spoiled by modern civilization.

He declared that THIS region from Romania (starts with M), represented in the postcard/maximum card above, is categorically his favorite, the best-preserved and the most complex folkloric region in the world.

Hand-sewn folk costumes, wood carvings such as the traditional home gate above, songs, many cultural traditions, the whole way of life - they all impressed deeply our Japanese researcher.

Arigato, and welcome to the club - many other people have discovered and appreciated all that, before and after you. :)

Now, the stamps, scanned in 300dpi, so click and click them:

I have purchased all these stamps one series at a time, many years ago, as a young boy in Romania.

So what if they are CTOs? (canceled-to-order)

They served my purpose of affordable collecting.

It would have been almost impossible to gather all these as really circulated thru the mail.

And 4+ times more expensive to get them mint, not postmarked.

Now, decades after, I share them with the World.

Which "World" is actually only a few individuals, here and there in the cyberspace, most of whom will be marginally interested, at best.

But hey!...Japanese ethnography expert, if you're still alive: konnichi-wa! :)

Romania România
Flag Coat of arms
Anthem: Deşteaptă-te, române! Awaken thee, Romanian!
Location of  Romania  (dark green) – on the European continent  (green & dark grey) – in the European Union  (green)  —  [Legend]
Capital (and largest city)		Bucharest 44°25′N 26°06′E
Official language(s)		Romanian
Ethnic groups (2002)		89.5% Romanians, 6.6% Hungarians, 2.5%Roma, 2% others[1]
Demonym		Romanian

"Romania (ⁱ/roʊˈmeɪniə/ roh-may-nee-ə; also spelled: Rumania,^[6] dated: Roumania;^[7]Romanian: România [romɨˈni.a] ( listen)) is a country located at the crossroads of Central and Southeastern Europe, on the Lower Danube, within and outside the Carpathian arch, bordering on the Black Sea.^[8] Romania shares a border with Hungary and Serbia to the west, Ukraine and Moldova to the northeast and east, and Bulgaria to the south.

At 238,391 square kilometers (92,043 sq mi), Romania is the ninth largest country of theEuropean Union by area, and has the seventh largest population of the European Union with 21.5 million people.^[9]

 Its capital and largest city is Bucharest (Romanian: București [bukuˈreʃtʲ] ( listen)), the sixth largest city in the EU with about two million people.

The Kingdom of Romania emerged when the principalities of Moldavia and Wallachia were united under Prince Alexander Ioan Cuza in 1859. 

Independence from the Ottoman Empire was declared on May 9, 1877, and was internationally recognized the following year. 

At the end of World War I, Transylvania, Bukovina and Bessarabia united with the Kingdom of Romania. 

Greater Romania emerged into an era of progression and prosperity that would continue until World War II. 

By the end of the War, many north-eastern areas of Romania's territories were occupied by the Soviet Union, and Romania forcibly became a socialist republic and a member of the Warsaw Pact.

With the fall of the Iron Curtain and the 1989 Revolution, Romania began to transition towards democracy and a capitalist market economy. 

After a decade of post-revolution economic problems, extensive reforms fostered economic recovery and the country joined the European Union on 1 January 2007. 

Romania is now an upper middle-income country with high human development^[10] and relatively high standards of living.^[11]

Romania joined NATO on 29 March 2004, and is also a member of the Latin Union, of the Francophonie, of the OSCE and of the United Nations, as well as an associate member of theCPLP. 

Today, Romania is a unitary semi-presidential republic, in which the executive branch consists of the President and the Government.^[12]"

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Romania

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Happy Sunday Stamps meme!

Please visit: http://viridianpostcard.blogspot.com/

Gee! Less than 1,200 left in the wild...Gee's Golden Langur (Trachypithecus geei), or simply the GOLDEN LANGUR. WWF maxicards from BHUTAN

"Gee's golden langur (Trachypithecus geei), or simply the golden langur, is an Old World monkey found in a small region of western Assam, India and in the neighboring foothills of the Black Mountains of Bhutan.^[3] It is one of the most endangered primate species of India.^[3] Long considered sacred by many Himalayan peoples, the Golden Langur was first brought to the attention of science by the naturalist E. P. Gee in the 1950s."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gee%27s_golden_langur

Kingdom of Bhutan འབྲུག་རྒྱལ་ཁབ་ 'Brug Rgyal-khab (Wylie) Dru Gäkhap
Flag Emblem
Anthem: Druk Tsendhen
Capital		Thimphu
Official language(s)		Dzongkha
Demonym		Bhutanese
Government		Constitutional democratic monarchy
-	King	Jigme Khesar Namgyel Wangchuck
-	Prime Minister	Jigme Y. Thinley
Formation		Early 17th century
-	Wangchuk Dynasty	17 December 1907
-	Constitutional Monarchy	2007

"Bhutan (ⁱ/buːˈtɑːn/; Dzongkha: འབྲུག་ཡུལ་; Wylie: 'druk yul; Tibetan pinyin: Zhugyü;Nepali: भूटान, officially the Kingdom of Bhutan, is a landlocked state in South Asia, located at the eastern end of the Himalayas and bordered to the south, east and west by the Republic of India and to the north by the People's Republic of China. 

Bhutan is separated from the nearby country of Nepal to the west by the Indian state of Sikkim, and from Bangladesh to the south by West Bengal.

Bhutan existed as a patchwork of minor warring fiefdoms until the early 17th century, when the area was unified by the Shabdrung Ngawang Namgyal, who was guided by a prophecy^{[citation needed]}, fled religious persecution in Tibet and cultivated a separate Bhutanese identity. 

In the early 20th century, Bhutan came into contact with the British Empire, after which Bhutan continued strong bilateral relation with India upon its independence. 

In 2006, Business Week magazine rated Bhutan the happiest country in Asia and the eighth-happiest in the world, based on a global survey."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Taktshang.jpg

                                        The Taktshang Monastery, also known as the "Tiger's Nest". 

Bhutan is a predominantly Buddhist country.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bhutan

Look at the maximum card at the top of this blogpost, from the Lower-Left side of the set of 4.

The denomination is 1 NU (Ngultrum).

What color is that background on the stamp? Pink? Purple?

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Happy Pink Saturday! (still open on Sunday!)

^{Please visit "Pretty in pink"/ "Show us your pink" [objects, that is :)] meme here:}

^{http://howsweetthesound.typepad.com/my_weblog/}