Passenger ferries- Ålandsfärjan

Many Ålanders associate the name Ålandsfärjan with the ship servicing between Mariehamn and Kapellskär 1987-2008. However, the ship featured on the 2013 stamp is the very first ferry named Ålandsfärjan.

Following a disagreement between the founders of Rederi Ab Vikinglinjen, the shipping company that pioneered passenger traffic between Åland and Sweden in 1959, a group of owners started the competing shipping company Rederi Ab Ålandsfärjan.

S/S Ålandsfärjan was built in Scotland in 1933 and named S/S Brittany. Ålandsfärjan was the first ferry in service for the newly started company. Operations between Roslagen on the Swedish coast and Mariehamn in Åland began on 20 June 1963. The ferry was originally owned by the British Railways and in service on the British Channel.

S/S Ålandsfärjan was withdrawn from service in 1972 and demolished in Teijo, Finland, after having run aground and been damaged.

Technical Details

Issue Date: 19.02.2013

Designer: Håkan Sjöström

Printer: Cartor Security Printing, France

Process: 4-coloroffset

Colours: 4 colour

Size: 35,4 x 26 mm

Åland Art Museum 50 years

Stamp

Gutter Pairs

First Day Cover with stamp

 The 50th anniversary of the Åland Art Museum in 2013 will be marked with a stamp issue. The stamp motif was chosen through a public vote between seven pre-selected works of art from the museum collection.

A vote organized in the spring of 2012 allowed voters to choose between seven works of art by Henrik Nylund, Guy Frisk, Sigrid Granfelt, Robert Hancock, Hildur Stenbäck, Ture Bengtz and Johan Scott. An expert group had selected the seven works of art that are all part of the art museum collection.

Votes could be cast at the Åland Art Museum, on the Post's homepage and at the post office in Mariehamn. Guy Frisk's painting ‘Yearning' won with as much as 42 percent of the total of 1 582 votes cast. The artwork is one of the most popular pieces in the museum collection. The painting mediates a meditative force that captures the onlooker, enticing him or her to return to it. Painted in oil on panel between 1973 and 1975, the work measures 103 x 120 cm. The artwork is part of an extended series of around 400 paintings, the last of which is named ‘Sea of Oblivion'.

The Åland Art Museum is owned and administrated by the Government of Åland. Promoting knowledge about Åland art, stimulating artistic activities and increasing the general interest in the subject field are some of the core operations of the museum.

Technical Details

Issue Date: 09.10.2012

Designer: Minna L. Immonen

Printer: Cartor Security Printing

Process: 4-colour offset

Colours: 4 Colours

Size: 35,4 x 26 mm

Values: €0.60

A Pink Charity Stamp

In many parts of the world, October is pink.

This is the month when various organisations arrange fund-raising activities to benefit breast cancer research and to promote awareness about the disease. 2012 sees the first Åland charity stamp.

The Åland Cancer Society receives part of the selling price.

The stamp is issued in connection with the Pink Ribbon awareness campaign in October.

Åland graphic designer Carina Sommarström, previously a breast cancer patient herself, has created the stamp.

The Åland charity stamp sells at €1.20, €0.20 of which is awarded in full to the Åland Cancer Society.

Also available on the day of issue are other Pink Ribbon products such as postcards, pins with the pink ribbon logo, a pink model car and a stamp watch.

More products will appear in the Post's web shop at www.posten.ax in October.

A specified percentage of the selling prices of these products will be donated directly to the Åland Cancer Society.

Carina's stamp motif holds a great deal of symbolism, featuring an Amazon, a female warrior without her right breast.

The woman's right breast has been replaced by a tattoo with many different symbols representing important issues to consider when going through cancer treatment.

Technical Details

Issue Date: 01.10.2012

Designer: Carina Sommarström

Printer: Joh. Enschedé Stamps

Process: 4-colour offset

Colours: 4 Colours

Size: 31.5 x 36.25 mm

Values: €1.00, €0.20

Sea-inspired Christmas

Finnish artist Minna L. Immonen created this year's Christmas stamp, combining a traditional Christmas motif with typically Åland features.

Minna L. Immonen has been drawing since childhood, focusing on painting since her senior school days.

Having completed an education as a graphic designer and attended various art schools, she started her own company Minna-Kortti in the 1980s.

Minna's watercolour paintings are today familiar to large parts of the Finnish population, her illustrations distinguishing themselves by the individual story told by each illustration. In addition to cards, stamps and paintings, Minna has designed China ware for Arabia of Finland, including a children's series with teddy bears and Christmas mugs and jars with traditional Christmas designs such as pixies, apples and gingerbread biscuits. In 2008, she designed the cover of a Fazer's chocolate box, and she has also illustrated a number of books. Minna describes the Åland Christmas stamp in this way: "Inspired by the sea, the motif still has a Christmassy accent.

The motif on the first day cover symbolizes the arrival of Christmas mail."

Technical Details

Issue Date: 09.10.2012

Designer: Minna L. Immonen

Printer: Cartor Security Printing

Process: 4-colour offset

Colours: 4 Colours

Size: 35,4 x 26 mm

Values: €0.60

Smugglers' Bus and Tired Theodor

The history of public transportation in Åland started some 90 years ago.

Quite a few buses have rolled on the Åland roads since then.

Two stamps now feature two of them - a Ford TT and a Volvo L224. The Ford TT from 1924 was initially owned by Rafael Virtanen in Saltvik.

The nickname ‘Smugglers' bus' derives from an incident in August 1925, during the Prohibition when it was illegal in Finland to sell alcoholic beverages.

One night, the bus, its passenger and driver Rafael Virtanen were stopped in a small road in Saltvik by a police constable, the head of the enforcement district and the county sheriff.

The bus as well as the cargo of "crayfish", which proved to be liquor, was confiscated.

The case was treated in the district court twice, Mr Virtanen and his partner being sentenced to pay a fine for complicity in trickery with liquors. The other bus stamp shows a Volvo L224 from 1954.

It had 29 + 1 seats and was owned by Toivo Williams in Lumparland between 1954 and 1967. The bus was out of use until 1978, parked in a coach house in Lumparland. It was later displayed at various shows in Stockholm and Helsinki, and in 1999 it was inspected to operate as a classic bus.

It is currently owned by Roland and Rolf Lundström in Inkoo in southern Finland.

Tired Theodore got its nickname because of its original weak 90 horsepower engine.

Presumably, the vehicle was not meant for quite as heavy loads as it turned out to carry.

Technical Details

Issue Date: 19.09.2012

Designer: Alexander Lindén

Printer: Southern Colour print

Process: Offset

Colours: 4 Colours

Size: 38.5 x 30 mm

Values: €0.95