Maximum cards: white sturgeon, the largest freshwater fish in America

Not from the bowels of Hell, but from... Hells Canyon, Idaho (I-da-ho?), says this postcard:
From the 40-stamp series "Wonders of America". Look at the fish, not at the guy.

:)

He is not fishing for compliments.

The postmark in the second maximum card is almost invisible - that post office didn't have superior ink. That's why a label under the postmark would have made it visible.

Now that you're done looking at the fish, go ahead and look at Macho Camacho / Muscleman / Chess champion Bobby The Fisher (yeah, right).

"Like a sturgeon.../Caught...for the/ Very FIRST time..."

Pick your preferred name:

"The white sturgeon (Acipenser transmontanus, meaning "sturgeon beyond the mountains"), also known as the Pacific sturgeon, Oregon sturgeon, Columbia sturgeon, Sacramento sturgeon, and California white sturgeon, is a sturgeon (a fish of the family Acipenseridae) which lives along the west coast of North America from the Aleutian Islands to Central California.

It is the largest freshwater fish in North America and is the third largest species of sturgeon, after the Beluga [not beluga the dolphin - Dorin's note] and the Kaluga. The white sturgeon is known to reach a maximum size of 816 kg (1,798 lb) and 6.1 m (20.1 ft)." (http://www.wikipedia.org)

Beluga, Kaluga...wait till you see Azuga!

Nah...just kidding. That's a small city in Romania :D, renowned for skiing slopes and beer brewing. Two activities that can knock you down.

http://www.primariaazuga.ro/module.php?module=newsannounce&catid=105&item=722

Halloween costume idea? WTH is this, a scary pig - the swine flu source, host of H1N1 virus? No. It's just a babirusa!

USA declares swine flu 'emergency'.
Just don't blame the babirusa, an innocent wild animal. :)

http://i289.photobucket.com/albums/ll201/dorincard/World%20collections/Indonesia/INDONESIA3a.jpg
The two tusks that went thru the roof of the snout are crossed, in the case of the male in this photo. Read the text in the link above. :)

This is a freestyle maximum card (non-FIP), that I made from a cut-out from a book, with a matching Indonesian stamp that has been appropriately courtesy-handcanceled in Indonesia (I have other items from the same shipment where the handcancel / postmark is more visible - that's why sometimes I use transparent or white labels under the postmarks).

If I want to fully postcardize this item, I could apply white adhesive shipping label on the back - I could have even asked to be sent directly thru the mail, as a big postcard, with additional stamps on the address side, all wear, tear and loss risks assumed.

But I didn't do it here, because the back has a rare photo/article about aye-aye. I could eventually make an aye-aye MC -> double-sided maximum card, giving me 2 scanning opportunities.

Forgeries: how to spot fake stamps from St. Vincent about Michael Jackson, apart from the real ones

I suppose that the above maximum card, from my collection, is genuine. :)

From myphilately.com, a very nice and useful forum for stamp collectors, and not only - here's how to spot the fake stamps:

http://www.myphilately.com/blg_view.php?blog_id=1356