Stamps

It might surprise you, but over the whole world a lot of stamps have been issued with an image of a (or even several) motorcycle(s). In fact 3 different types can be distinguished:

Express stamps. Because express post was often delivered by a motorcycle courier, motorcycles were often depicted on this kind of stamps. This category also contains the oldest motorcycle stamp: issued by Mexico in 1919. Other examples are the USA (from 1922), Dominican Republic (from 1925) and Egypt (from 1926, see image on the right).
Stamps with a "motorcycle in function". With this I mean a stamp on which a motorcycle is depicted, but where the motorcycle itself is not the main subject of the stamp. An example is a stamp with an image of a postman or police officer on a motorcycle, or a stamp with a building or streetview on which an accidental motorcycle is visible. This category also covers motorcycle sportsmen in action, like the Hungarian stamp on the right.
Stamps with a "show motorcycle". With this I mean a stamp where the image of the motorcycle is the main subject, and where nothing else is visible. Many of these stamps have only been issued to earn money, on expense of collectors of motorcycle stamps. Often they are issued by "countries" that even do not have a real Postal Organisation, like a lot of the former Sovjet states. For the "real" philatelists (who care much about the postal background of the stamps) this kind of stamps do not really count. For the motorcycle enthusiast there are a lot of very nice images on this kind of stamps, like the one from Congo on the right (1 stamp out of a sheet of 4).

Nowadays many countries offer the possibility to make your own stamps! You can have an image of your own choice printed on them. Those personalised stamps are valid for franking, so you can use them to send your post. And off course they make a nice opportunity to enrich your stamp collection.... eventually with your own motorcycles on them. Recently also Motorpaul had his collection old motorcycles printed on stamps by PostNL (click on the image to get a larger image of the whole sheet of 10 stamps):

The nice thing of collecting stamps is that you can do it exactly the way you want it yourself. Some people are "real philatelists", who are strongly interested in the philatelic background of stamps. Others, like myself, are more interested in the images on the stamps, and less in the philatelic aspects. When you look carefully at your stamp collection, you can see a lot of nice details.

In 1987 a club of collectors of stamps with the theme "motorcycle" has been founded in the Netherlands, the Motor Filatelisten Nederland (Dutch Motorcycle Philatelists) or in short MFN. This very nice club has almost 100 members (amongst them more than 15 from other countries all over the world), and organises a meeting 2x per year, most times including an auction. People who are not (yet) member of the club but want to get acquaintened are very welcome!
Further a newsletter is issued 4x per year, there is a novelty service (new issued stamps are automatically delivered) and members can get advice and information on motorcycle philately. For more information (also on the next meeting) see the website (in English).

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