Greetings from Winter Games!

The Ski Museum’s Greetings from Winter Games exhibition looked at the history of Winter Olympics through a spectator’s eyes. The Ski Museum’s magnificent philatelic collection presented the Winter Olympic Games from a new angle. The visitors were taken on a tour around the world, with Finland’s most successful skiers and ski jumpers as the guides. The exhibition highlighted the Winter Olympics through postage stamps from nearly every continent of the world. 

The Winter Olympic Games are an astonishingly popular theme on stamps – even in countries that never see a snowfall. In addition to Finland, Finnish winter athletes have made it to stamps in rather surprising countries, such as Congo and Paraguay. On Finnish stamps, you can spot the national heroines and heroes Marja-Liisa Kirvesniemi, Marjo Matikainen, Veikko Hakulinen, Veikko Kankkonen and, naturally, Matti Nykänen. Matti Nykänen is the Finnish athlete most frequently featured on stamps around the world, but surprisingly many other Finnish winter athletes can also be found on stamps around the world. 

Some traditional winter sports countries, particularly in Eastern Europe, have a rich assortment of stamps featuring winter sports. On the other hand, some countries that excel in winter sports have not excelled in issuing winter sports-themed stamps. Many countries that had recently become independent may have been eager to issue lots of stamps of their own, also highlighting the Winter Olympics. With respect to stamps on Nordic ski sports in the Winter Olympic Games, the most popular games seem to be Sapporo (1972), Innsbruck (1976) and Albertville (1992). 

Many Central and South American, African and Asian countries as well as European microstates started issuing stamps mainly for collectors and not postal delivery. The themes of the stamps were chosen with the collectors in mind, instead of using themes associated with local activities or history. It is very probable that these stamps on winter sports were never actually used for local postal delivery. Stamps have been an important source of income for many small and poor countries. 

The compilers of the exhibition made delightful discoveries but also had to apply strict limits. This exhibition focused on Winter Olympics and, particularly, the Nordic sports: cross-country skiing, ski jumping and Nordic combined. 

The expedition into the Ski Museum’s stamp collection was both exciting and rewarding. The Post Museum in Helsinki provided expert assistance with research and display.