Andersen

This year I got many stamps as Christmas presents. Many of them are from countries which I had not in my collection before.

A new country is Denmark.

Denmark is a country in Northern Europe bordering on Germany. Denmark is a member of the UN, of the EU , of the NATO and of the OECD. Denmark's capital is Copenhagen. Denmark is a part of the Kingdom of Denmark consisting of Denmark, Greenland and Faroe Islands.

One stamp is this:

Hans Christian Andersen (issued 01-06-2012)
- The Shepherdess and the Chimney Sweep
- The Nightingale
- The Wild Swans
- What the old man does is always right

Hans Christian Andersen is born in 1805 in Odense in Denmark as the son of the destitute shoemaker Hans Andersen and the alcoholic laundress Anne Marie Andersdatter. After the death of his father in 1819 he went to Copenhagen to become a actor. But as it does not not work he tried to become a singer and he also wrote his first poems. Finally Jonas Collin, the director of the Royal Theatre in Copenhagen (Det Kongelige Teater), take in charge of him. From 1822 to 1828 he visited different Latin schools and following the University in Copenhagen. He became famous for writing fairy tales. He died in 1875 in Copenhagen. Today he is one of the most famous Danes. The manuscripts and correspondence of Hans Christian Andersen are since 1997 a part of the Memory of the World Programme of the UNESCO.

The fairy tales of Hans Christian Andersen are read in the whole world, so the idea of the Post Denmark was to commission foreign artists to design the motifs. The Chinese designer Shen Jiahong has created this stamps. The stamps are the first stamps of Denmark designed by a Chinese artist. This are the first stamps of the series. The second stamps were issued in 2013.