World-Building: Historical Stamps

Quite some time ago I scanned some of my stamps for blog posts and then forgot to do them all.  So here are some great stamps showing items of historical interest.

It's cool to see what's considered important enough by society to be made into stamps.  Above are some castles, a few medieval manuscript images (one of Hildegard of Bingen), some of scenes of life and historical boats.

I love series stamps, the ones that show progressions through history of something - like sailing ships.  They let you see how things change over time and how technology progresses.

History is full of complexities, and remembering the past - through mementos or specific references - is important to making the history in your fantasy novel feel real.  People have pasts, but so do places, technologies, 'old wives tales', mythologies, buildings, medicine, etc.  Everything comes from something, so a world that just plops down with no past doesn't feel grounded, doesn't feel real.  If you don't choose to map out thousands of years of history for your world, at least remember to add in a few tidbits of information about the past, and some mementos of that past lying around houses or pubs, or as scars on bodies.  Remind the reader that the ways things are done 'now' isn't how they were always done, or have changed and improved over time.