Thursday 24 May 2018

Grand Duke Henri & Grand Duchess Maria Teresa of Luxembourg - Birthday Reply (2018)

I sent two letters to Luxembourg recently, one for Grand Duchess Maria Teresa's birthday in March and one for Grand Duke Henri's birthday in April.

The replies came in the usual sort of envelope. But what was most interesting is the stamps are from 2002 & 2005, so they are both over a decade old. But was it really cool is they are actually the old stamps you have to lick. Most countries stopped making these kinds of stamps around 2008.



It also interesting to see that the two sets of stamps are for different amounts. I looked it up and the price to mail sometime like this from Luxembourg to USA is 1,30€, so they overpaid with both replies. I assume they were just trying to use up their old stamps and weren't too worried about overpaying.

Inside was the typical reply from Luxembourg, a flat card, with a pre-made message for the occasion. Before I've always gotten an English reply from Luxembourg. I assume this time they just ran out of the English replies, so they had to use one of the others. Luxembourg has three official languages: Luxembourgish, French, & German.

Grand Duke Henri's reply is in French.



Translated the card reads:
Luxembourg, 16th April 2018
His Royal Highness the Grand Duke warmly thanks you for the kind wishes on the occasion of his birthday.
This attention gave him great pleasure.


Grand Duchess Maria Teresa's Reply is in Luxembourgish. 


Translated the card reads:
Luxembourg, 22nd March 2018

Your dear birthday wishes have given me much joy and touched me deeply.

I thank you very much with all my heart.

Maria Teresa 

You will notice in addition to being in different languages, the two replies are formatted a little differently (color, 1st person vs. 3rd person, title vs. name, etc.). That is just the Luxembourg Royals. While they always reply with a flat card, they do not have a consistent format or style.

You will notice both replies are dated with the Royal's birthday.

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1 comment:

  1. Lickable stamps are alive and well. Here in Australia I need to lick every stamp for overseas mail!

    ReplyDelete