The Faroe Islands have been issuing postage stamps for almost half a century. We are now entering the digital stamp scene, as Posta Faroe Islands is the first Nordic Postal Service to issue crypto stamps. These new crypto stamps – also known as NFT stamps (non-fungible tokens) – are being issued under the name Stamps of Maybe. Therefore, unlike other conventional Faroese stamps, they do not have FO numbers but their own NFT numbers.
The crypto stamps are quite from regular stamps - but they can still be used for franking - while each stamp has a digital twin on the Internet. How this twin will look depends both on external circumstances and you yourself, the owner of a crypto stamp.
The digital stamp is linked to Veðurstova Føroya (The Faroese Weather Station). This means that the weather in the Faroe Islands influences how the twin will look at the time of its activation. Each crypto stamp has a QR code to be used when the digital twin is activated. The activation time is entirely up to you - you can activate immediately or wait until the perfect moment arrives. It is, therefore, a kind of digital time capsule.Multi-artist Heiðrik á Heygum has been given the distinguished task of designing the first issue of the Stamps of Maybe. The motif of the four seasons looks pretty appropriate for this occasion.
Spring, summer, autumn and winter
In this series, Heiðrik á Heygum gives us his unique view of the four seasons in the Faroe Islands. He does so with four beautiful picture collages or bouquets, as we can also call them, representing the year's seasons. Each bouquet contains flowers, various other plants, birds, and animals. The Faroese have always been very attached to nature and nature's resources, as evidenced in these pictures.
Spring
Unsurprisingly, Heiðrik has chosen the lamb, the oystercatcher and the marsh marigold to represent the spring bouquet. Nothing is more reminiscent of spring than the familiar sound of the oystercatcher and the little lambs playing in the infield. Nature wakes up, the grass grows, and flowers, animals and people delight in the long-awaited victory of light over darkness. Both the infields as well as the outfields abound with life. The marigold, the national flower of the Faroe Islands, begins to bloom and spreads its yellow colour across small streams and other moist areas. If you go for a walk on a beautiful spring day, you will hear the birds singing happily, celebrating this wonderful time of year.
Summer
In summer, grass and plants are in full bloom, and the Faroe Islands are never as green and flourishing as in summer. Red clover, dandelions and other flowers adorn our summer bouquet, along with two of the Faroe Islands' most famous birds, the puffin and the gannet. You can also see the tail fin of a pilot whale protruding from the bouquet. At this time of year, the Faroe Islands show their most beautiful side — days with a calm breeze, brilliant sunshine, and the sea shining like a mirror.
An old Faroese song has this refrain, "It is so beautiful, so beautiful to live in the Faroe Islands", and we can only salute the poet, Fríðrik Petersen, for this excellent and totally correct observation. It is beautiful to live in the Faroe Islands.
Autumn
The grass is fading in the field, and the migratory birds have moved south to spend the winter in warmer climes. Now the time has come to harvest potatoes and other crops. This is also the season when the sheep are herded down from the mountains to their final destination in the abattoir. The autumn bouquet also contains the ram and the mallard, along with mushrooms and faded leaves. The days are getting shorter and the evenings longer. But autumn is also an exciting time. Schools and other activities are starting again, and many young people will be travelling abroad to study. We sincerely hope most of them, like the migratory birds, will return home after concluding their studies.
Winter
It is no secret that the Faroese winter can be harsh and windy. Low-pressure areas gather over the islands, affecting the weather. Thunderstorms and hurricanes may not be commonplace, but they are not entirely rare. Seeing the northern lights dancing over the mountain tops on a beautiful, clear, snow-white winter evening is a unique experience. These two natural phenomena, snow and northern lights, adorn the winter bouquet beside the hare and the goose. Geese have been kept on the Faroe Islands since the settlement period, and the Faroese goose is believed to be a direct descendant of the geese brought by the Vikings.
The hare, however, only arrived recently in the Faroe Islands. The first hares were brought to the Faroe Islands in 1855, from Kragerø in Norway. The hunting season for hares is from November 2nd to December 31st.
Thus the cycle of the year continues. The seasons change, and each season has its distinctive charm. Nature wakes up, blooms, fades and goes to sleep – and wakes up again, repeating the endless cycle.
