Wednesday, June 29, 2011

Singapore Vietnam Joint Issue Stamps


Just got my hands on a new set of stamps. It is the Singapore Vietnam joint issue fruit stamps. I bought the presentation pack at $3.45 and the set of stamps too at $1.75.

If you look at the picture above, you can probably see the 2 stamps featuring the two different fruits. One is the dragronfruit while the other is the durian. The cover of the presentation pack (bottom picture) shows the dragronfruit plant and a durian on a branch.

Both these fruits are tropical fruits and I am not sure how many people have tried both fruits. I have since I live in tropical Singapore. Unfortunately, being a city, most of our fruits are imported from neighboring countries.

Dragonfruits are usually grown on wooden stakes around 1m high. The plant looks like a kind of cactus. There are two kinds of dragonfruit. One has red flesh while the other has white flesh. It tastes sweet and I like the red flesh one much better. The texture of the fruit is abit like peach (well that is the closest fruit I can think of).

Most people are probably familiar with the durian fruit so I shall not bother explaining it. What most Westerners probably don't know is that there are really many different "brands" of durian and each so called "brand" really has their own unique taste and texture. The best place to eat a durian is to go to a durian plantation where they will probably have a eat all you can kind of buffet where you get to sample the various kinds of durian. Durian has a texture like custard and there are those that tastes sweet as well as those that tastes bitter.

Saturday, June 25, 2011

Fujeira 101 Dalmatians Stamp Set


Was dusting off the dust from some of my old stamp albums when I came across this set of stamps which I thought was a set of Cinderella stamps. The words Fujeira was printed at the bottom of each stamp and it featured scenes from the cartoon 101 Dalmatians. I had never heard of Fujeira before so I decided to do some Googling.

To my surpise, this was not a Cinderella stamp. Fujeira or Fujairah is actually one of seven states belonging to the UAE. This explained the somewhat Arabic prints on the bottom of the stamps which I could not make out too. I can't really recall how I landed my hands on this set of stamps but it is a set of MNH stamps cancelled out nicely in the year 1972. A total of 20 stamps, the market value of this stamp is around US$3 based on a quick check from eBay thought I am sure the actual value might be somewhat lesser since eBay prices are always sort of marked up by a fair bit of 10-30%.

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