1996 Butterflies

1996 Butterflies Booklet on FDC

"Butterfly FDC - Design A"

Follow up with the beautiful proton booklet issue in 1995, Pos Malaysia introduced the butterfly booklet in 1996. However, despites high anticipation, no official FDC issued by Pos Malaysia. When I learned about this at that time, I asked myself: " How can this still happening after 43issue of booklet?!! (the previous issues without official FDC were Marine Paradise, Turtle, Proton)". Apparently Pos Malaysia was rather slow in meeting the public demand.

Stamp enthusiasts had designed some rather cretive private cover to commemorate this issue. Design A was my personnal fauvorite. The cover was nicely designed with a butterfly flying towards a HIBISCUS flower. See... Like I told you: Malaysian love their national flower!!!

"Design A - Description"

If you look carefully, the "flying motion line" behind the butterfly was actually made up of words which describe the technical details of this issue. The background of this cover was actually a painting of several butterfly around some lily flower.

The designer had also added some shadow effect to the main flying butterfly (please click design A picture to get a larger picture), which make it more lively and 3d. A true masterpiece indeed, especially with its printing effect. I would suspect that this was done by bubble-jet printer, which was considered a pretty "high-tech" printing in 1996.

"1996 Butterfly Cancellation"

A nicely designed cancellation with curve line to match the flying butterfly. FDC design A had match this theme perfectly by showing the same effect. As illustrated by the cancellation, the booklet was issued on 27 September 2008. I still find it pretty weird today that Pos Malaysia issued an official cancellation but not FDC. If anyone know why Pos Malaysia do it so, please enlighten me as well as fellow readers of this blog.

"Butterfly - Design B"

This was a second design from a Kuala Lumpur stamp dealer. I think his inspiration was from some Chinese paper cutting art. See below for a sample:

"Chinese paper cutting - Butterfly"

Chinese in China would normally hang paper cutting on window and wall during Chinese New Year as decorative. Paper cutting was a rather traditional art skill which still popular among youngsters. Chinese believe hanging paper cutting with auspicious symbol would bring good luck, health and even fortune to the family.

"Butterfly - Design C (Shah Alam)"

Design C was not bad actually (if you don't compare it with design A and B). Did anyone notice that all the FDCs (design A, B and C) had only 2 colours?

Design A: Black and Red
Design B: Blue and Dark Green
Design C: Light Green and Pink

But trust me, in the 1990's, 2 colours private FDC was considered to be really rare already. Just look at the Marine Paradise and Proton issue and you will notice the similarity. Anything more that 2 color should cost quite a bomb even just to produce it.

"Butterfly - Design D (Melaka)"

Lastly, the melake stamp dealer had design this version. It is actually longer than the normal FDC envelope and feature a full pane of butterfly booklet stamps. The empty booklet glued on the side make it rather presentable. An overall good design.

"Istanbul 1996 logo"

As you may notice, the booklet actually carried the Istanbul '96 World Philatelic Exhibition logo. This means that the booklet was also issued to commemorate this event. And yeah, I have also got the exhibition cover for Istanbul 1996. So stay tune to this blog and I will showcase it to you in the future.