In the catalogue(?) or not

Several days after the last club meeting I was phoned by member Haaksema from Ridderkerk, who asked whether I knew about a snow scooter on a stamp from New Zealand. I took the Michel and searched for this stamp. Indeed, on stamp number 889 (01-02-84) from the series about Antarctic research, a snow scooter is depicted. Alas for the discoverer, but we already knew this stamp.

The reason that this stamp has not (yet) been included in the catalogue is that we have chosen to include at first only those stamps that clearly belong to the category motorcycles. However, we kept the possibility to include other stamps when enough people report them. Eric compiles the catalogue, so if he receives enough notifications about certain stamps, they have a change to appear in the catalogue pages.

Lets go back to the criterion what makes a thing a motorcycle. I have looked through some Dutch regulations (W.V.R., Handbook for Police, encyclopaedia etc.). In general the rule is that a motorcycle has not more than 3 wheels (motorcycles with sidecar form a separate category), has at most 1 driven wheel (while 2 wheels on 1 fixed shaft, so without differential count as 1) and does not move by rail. For this moment we forget that the Netherlands are one of the few countries that have a separate law for mopeds, and thus we also gather the mopeds and related items under the header motorcycle.
Do caterpillar driven snow scooters fall under this heading? I suggest that everyone makes his own decision on this.

I myself have some stamps which deviate from the definition given above, but which I keep in my collection. You will find some examples hereafter.

Benin (01-07-87) 100 years automobile Dion-Bouton steamtricycle Michel # 454

		Cuba (06-06-87) Stamp Exhibition Capex Delivery vehicle of French Post Michel # 3103

Comoren (09-10-84) Vintage cars Dion-Bouton steamtricycle Michel # 722

		Korea-Nrd (25-01-85) Histoy of the automobile (Series already known by us) Cugnot steam tractor Michel # 2625

Ross Dependance (20-01-82) Antarctic life (another) snow scooter Michel # 18

Further I have some stamps with engines and other objects that are related to motorcycles. I would like to show one of them to you. It is a block of Turks & Caicos, which shows the engine Daimler used in his Einspur (Michel # block 18).

Zegel Turks & Caicos, o.a. motorblok Daimler Einspur

Diverse zegels met motor-gerelateerde afbeeldingen

Off course this compilation is not complete. If you have a stamp which you think would fit in this category, please report this to me so I can make a list of them.
However, always keep in mind: collect those things that you like! Thank you in advance.

Hans de Kloet
(Translation: Paul Essens)

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