Another philatelic passport arrives

My third new philatelic passport of the year, and the 30th overall in my collection, has arrived. It was issued at a big stamp exhibition in France in 1999, I bought it because it had a Moomin stamp on the first country page!

Moominmamma gets to be the first stamp in the passport because the creators of the passport listed Aland, the small stamp-issuing islands off Finland, first. Finland is on the same page and it's a Finnish stamp. 

Whoever collected stamps in this passport had a whimsical approach. They seemed to pick stamps with cartoons and cute animals. Here are some more highlights:

A great miniature sheet from Germany.

Hang-gliding Santa Claus from Belarus

I'd never seen this Faroese stamp before.

Gabon had a shiny hologram on their stamp, celebrating 150 years of the first French postage stamp.

And a bonus item, a loose 'show card' issued by Monaco. This is the sort of freebie that postal agencies give out at big international exhibitions. It was tucked into the passport so I will keep it in there.

I really enjoy looking through these passports, seeing all the different stamps and postmarks. Every one is unique in its own way. I have two from this exhibition now. This is now my favourite because the other one doesn't have a Moomin stamp. 

Read about the two passports I added to my collection in March.