Vilnius 1940

This is a registered cover sent in 1940 from Vilnius 4 during the Soviet occupation period to the Swiss capital Bern. It has a nice arrival cancel of Bern on the back. It even has a letter inside still but unfortunately my Polish sucks therefore I'm unable to tell you guys what is it written about... Given the fact that the Soviet took Vilnius by force from the Poles, I can imagine that the Polish author of this letter (it's obvious from his Polish name and the Polish text) didn't just write a "what's up dude"-kinda letter but rather a serious one. The interesting part is that he wrote his address as "Vilnius, Latvia", which makes it look like he probably isn't from Vilnius/Wilno originally. It is indeed pretty confusing for those who is not familiar with Lithuania's name in other languages, Most worldwide stamp collectors probably know that Lietuva is the Lithuanian name for Lithuania as you can see on their postage stamps but it sounds and looks closer to Latvia than Lithuania. I actually don't know why is it called Lithuania in English...

Coat of Arms series - 3

 2003 issue is an unusual issue of 5 stamps with the coat of arms of 

Gargždai Kretinga Palanga Papilė and Rietavas

 2004 issue with Mažeikiai Radviliškis and Ukmergė

2005 issue is a dual issue with Druskininkai and Vabalninkas

Coat of Arms series - 2

 2000 issue with the coat of arms of Raseiniai, Tauragė and Utena

 2001 issue with Lazdijai, Biržai and Veliuona

 2002 issue with Anykščiai, Prienai and Birštonas

The coat of arms of Anykščiai features Šv. Jonas Nepomukas (St. John of Nepomuk), the patron saint of bridges. He was Czech (Sv. Jan Nepomucký) and was the symbol of the Catholic Counter Reformation in the Commonwealth of Poland-Lithuania.

Coat of Arms series - 1

Modern Lithuanian stamps are not really my speciality but however, there are several of them I really like. One of them are those Coat of Arms series, issued every year from 1992. It shows you different city coat of arms (except in the first issue, there is a national one) across the nation. 

 1992 issue - Kėdainiai, Vilnius, Republic of Lithuania

This first issue is the only one with Talonas as the face value.

The size is slightly smaller than others.

1993 issue - Skuodas, Telšiai, Klaipėda

 1994 issue - Punia, Alytus, Perloja

1995 issue - Virbalis, Kudirkos Naumiestis

This issue is the only one with 2 stamps.

 1996 issue - Šeduva, Panevėžys, Zarasai

Zarasai has an eccentric coat of arms with an imaginary creature symbolizing the wealth of its nature.

1997 issue - Neringa, Vilkaviškis, Pasvalys

1998 issue - Kernavė, Trakai, Kaunas

Trakai's arms has a head of St. John the Baptist, just in case you are wondering... It supposed to symbolize the Christianization of the town.

1999 issue - Marijampolė, Šiauliai, Rokiškis

Very nice coat of arms of Šiauliai

This modern arms is based on the 1791 arms with the Samogitia bear (Šiauliai was the center of  the duchy Samogitia), Eye of Providence symbolizing parliament and the red calf of the House of Poniatowski, the royal family of King Stanislaus August Poniatowski who granted this arms.