* 04/12/2009 :

New issues on December 4, 2009

80th ANNIVERSARY OF GRACE KELLY’S BIRTH
Born on November 12, 1929 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, Grace Patricia Kelly attended the American Academy of Dramatic Arts in New York and had her first leading role in High Noon in 1952. She then became Alfred Hitchcock’s favourite actress, starring in three of his films: Dial M for Murder, Rear Window and To Catch a Thief. Grace Kelly won an Oscar for Best Actress in 1955 for her performance in A Country Girl. In 1956, when she married Prince Rainier III, she became Princess of Monaco and put a stop to her acting career.

2009 ASCAT GRAND PRIX
ASCAT, the International Association of Stamp Catalogue Publishers, will give the 2009 Grand Prix for Philately to William H. Gross, one of the very few people to have gathered a complete collection of 19th-century classical American stamps. This collection was completed in 2005 with one of the two known examples of the 1-cent “Z Grill” stamp obtained in exchange for a block of four “Inverted Jenny” stamps. Since 2007, he has been auctioning off some of his collections for the benefit of humanitarian associations, Doctors without Borders in particular.

THE NUDE IN ART
The stamp shows La Naissance de Venus, a mythological work by William Bouguereau dated 1879 on display today at the Musée d’Orsay in Paris. The French artist, who was born and died in La Rochelle (1825-1905), attended the Paris School of Fine Arts and painted in the academic style.

150th ANNIVERSARY OF ANTON PAVLOVITCH CHEKHOV’S BIRTH
Anton Pavlovich Chekhov was born in Russia in 1860 and died in Germany in 1904. This Russian short story writer and playwright was a physician by profession. His short stories and plays made him famous in his lifetime, when he was recognized as one of the national glories of Russia, on a par with Dostoyevsky and Tolstoy. The stamp shows scenes from three of his best-known plays: Three Sisters, The Cherry Orchard and The Seagull.

VANCOUVER OLYMPIC WINTER GAMES
The 21st Winter Olympics will be held in Vancouver from February 12 to 28, 2010. A new discipline, ski cross, will make its entry in the family of freestyle skiing. For the very first time, the opening and closing ceremonies will be organized in the covered 55,000-seat BC Place Stadium.

AUTOMOBILE CLUB DE MONACO 120th ANNIVERSARY BLOCK
In 1890, cycling aficionados founded Le Sport Vélocipédique Monégasque, which became Sport Automobile et Vélocipédique de Monaco in 1907. The current name, Automobile Club de Monaco (ACM), was adopted in 1925. The Rally and Grand Prix are the two main events organized by ACM. Today, the club has over 5,000 members all over the world.