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Sunday 19 August 2012

Channel Tunnel - Sunday Stamps

I have a First Day Cover for this week's post. The Channel Tunnel, the first fixed link between the United Kingdom and France, was opened in 1994.

Great Britain - Channel Tunnel - FDO 3 May 1994

The Royal Mail and the French Post Office worked together to produce a set of se-tenant stamps. The twenty miles (narrowest width) between England and France has been a barrier between the two countries since the Ice Age. The tunnel under the English Channel (La Manche) now carries vehicle shuttles, passenger and freight trains with a journey time of about 35 minutes.

The left-hand stamp of each pair shows the French cockerel embraced by the British lion across the channel; the right-hand, hands across the Channel with the tunnel and a train underneath.

To see stamps chosen by other participants please visit Viridian's Sunday-stamps-84.html

9 comments:

viridian said...

That was an amazing feat of engineering. I remember the opening but not the stamps. Thanks for sharing a cover.

Lisa B said...

I don't recall seeing any of these with the lion and the cockerel. Lovely cover.

Marcie said...

Wonderful stamps!

VioletSky said...

Interesting that they chose to coming together of the ttwo nations rather than the engineering of the Chunnel.

Sheila @ A Postcard a Day said...

I don't remember seeing these stamps ever. We were still living in Paris at the time so that's possibly why. Maybe nobody wrote to us.

♥♥ Willa ♥♥ said...

Thos is an amazing set of covers,I love it!!!
My Sunday Stamp Entry

Jo said...

Love the stamps. Chunnel opened after I emigrated so we have never had the opportunity to use it.

Alan Burnett said...

Good gracious - if you would have asked me to guess the opening year I would have guessed earlier. I remember going through in the first week it was open but it seems so many lifetimes away.

Anonymous said...

Thanks for the look at this, Bob, one of our sons has a fantastic stamp collection dating way back - but I don't remember these at all.