Poland: Koszalin Music Festival

Koszalin is a town in central Pomerania. It along with seven other towns hosts an international organ festival each year. Concerts of organ music, various chamber ensembles, and choral music make up the event each summer. The 52nd series was held in 2018. This card was issued to mark the event in 1972. The postcard stamp image shows a sailboat, definitely not organ-related. But the postmark includes a row of organ pipes. The card appears to have been issued in 1971, and cancelled to promote the music festival the following summer. Address details make up the obverse; my copy is in mint condition, so it's blank on the reverse. This was a gift from Mark Jameson.

Poland: Kamien Pomorski Music Festival

This postcard shows the Pomeranian Dukes Castle in Szczecin, Poland. Below is some of the text on the card the a translation.

ochrona zabytkow
baszta siedmiu peaszczy XIII w.
zamek ksiazat pomorskich

protection of monuments
Szczecin: bastion of seven coats 13th cent.
Pomeranian Dukes' Castle

The castle dates from the 13th century.

What makes the card interesting to me is the commemorative postmark, celebrating the beginning of the International Organ and Chamber Music Festival in Kamien Pomorski. The medallion in the center of the postmark shows organ pipes in the UR corner. The postmark is dated 17 June 1977. So the card was issued (as part of a series highlighting the need to protect national monuments) to mark the Duke's Castle in Szczecin, and the music festival in nearby Kamien added a fancy postmark to celebrate the music festival in 1977. Text running in the middle of the card would indicate the card was issued by Polish Post that same year, 1977 (a print run of one-million copies, perhaps?). The reverse of this card has a couple of pencil markings made by the dealer selling it, but otherwise the card is blank. It was a gift from Mark Jameson.

 Cathedral organ, Kamien Pomorski

Poland: Organ Chamber Music Festival

This card was issued to mark the Miedzynarodowy Festiwal Muzyki Organowej Kameralnej w Kamieniu Pomorskim (International Organ and Chamber Music Festival in Kamień Pomorskie) in Poland. The only date I can find on the card is 2005, so I am guessing that it was issued that year. Kamien Pomoski is in the northwest region of Poland on the Baltic Coast. A Roman Catholic co-cathedral serves the region. The St John the Baptist Cathedral serves as the locale for the music festival.

This site provides some information about the music festival and give a bit of information about the organ in the cathedral.

In the years 1669-1672, the monumental organs were built in the Kamienna shrine from the foundation of Pomeranian prince Ernest Bogusław Croy. They belong to the most famous in Poland. The wonderful sound of this extraordinary instrument (47 voices and 3300 pipes) can be heard during the annual International Festival of Organ and Chamber Music, organized throughout the summer. The concerts start at 19.00 always on Fridays, starting from the last Friday of June to the first Friday of September.

The cathedrals website gives just a bit more information about the organ.


1669-1672 Construction of present organs according to Breyer's instructions from Stargard, then built by M. Berigel, repaired in the early 18th and the beginning of the 19th century. A new instrument built in 1888 by B. Gruneberg from Szczecin, keeping the baroque prospectus.

I have not been able to to find a stoplist anywhere yet. The card shows hands playing an instrument with more than one keyboard, representing an organ. There are no pipes nor any other content on the card. The reverse in black, presumably for the card-writer's message. This card was a gift from my friend in Great Britain, Mark Jameson.