During the month of November 2001 I spent a wonderful three - week - holiday together with my family on the beautiful island of Cuba. Not only did we enjoy the hospitality of Cuban people, we also visited many fascinating places such as Habana Vieja (the old part of the capital), Varadero beach,  Santa Clara (where you can see the Mausoleum of Che Guevara), Cayo Las Brujas (near Caibarien), Santi Spiritu, the wonderful colonial town of Trinidad, Cienfuegos and one of the most beautiful beaches of the Caribbean, Playa Ancón.
But that was not all: Before leaving for Cuba I had made a list of all First Day Covers I wanted to buy there, since a couple of them were missing in my collection. So I visited the Cuban Postal Museum (which has a nice display of the postal history of the country as well as a large collection of stamps from all around the world). In the installations of the musuem there is also a small philatelic shop, where I could get most of the covers I was looking for. Since I already had all the Volleyball stamps from Cuba, I thought that my philatelic excursion during this holiday had ended. But I was wrong. Just read on .....
..... We spent one week in a nice little hotel called "Sol y Mar" on the beautiful beaches of Varadero. Of course, as in all touristy places, postcards were sold at the hotel reception. One card for my parents, one for Orlinda's (my wife's) mother, a couple of cards for some old friends, for the neighbours etc. etc., when suddenly I found a picture postcards with some volleyball players on it. Now that is nothing strange, because on most beaches in Cuba you will find Volleyball courts, so it is not surprising to see those courts on some postcards. But when I turned the card over I found that it was a POSTAL STATIONERY CARD - which means a collectable philatelic item. 
With this find I started to look for more cards wherever I went - and I could collect a total of seven different cards. Back in La Habana, I returned to the philatelic shop, hoping to get more cards and some information there. Well, there were no more cards there, and the information was not very exact, but I learnt the following:
Since about 1998 Cuba has been issuing postal stationery pitcture postcards for the tourist sector, showing the most beautiful places of the island. During 1998 some five or six cards were issued, according to Ms Carmen Ruiz, who attended me in the philatelic shop. Then, in 1999, a new set of cards was printed, this time with some 130 different pictures. They were printed by Reproduccions Gràfiques  MONTGRÒS and the photos were taken by a Mr Ramón González (at least the ones with Volleyball on it). I have no idea where this printing house could be, my research on the Internet did not turn up any results. I could find two cards from this period showing Volleyball.

01 / 1999:  Cuba, Cayo Coco  photo: Ramón González; design: MDL; printing: Reproducciones Gràfiques MONTGRÒS Postage prepaid to anywhere in the world. There is a spelling mistake in the English word „postage“ next to the indicum. It says „potage“ instead of „postage“. This is the same photograph as 04 / 2000.

		This is an enlarged detail from the original card, showing the Volleyball net.
02 / 1999:  Cuba, Varadero Beach photo: Ramón González; design: MDL; printing: Reproducciones Gràfiques MONTGRÒS Postage prepaid to anywhere in the world. There is a spelling mistake in the English word „postage“ next to the indicum. It says „potage“ instead of „postage“.

Then, in 2000, there was an explosion of new issues: According to the reference code printed on the cards there must have been at least some 500 new ones, five of them with Volleyball on it (of course, there might be many more, but at least I could find five of them).

		This is an enlarged detail from the original card, showing the Volleyball net.
03 / 2000:  Cuba, Varadero Beach, Hotel “Internacional” photo: TCI; design: Universo; printing: Universo, Colombia reference number: Ref: A 00 - 164 Prepaid to anywhere in the world.

04 / 2000:  Cuba, Cayo Coco Beach, Ciego de Avila photo: TCI; design: Universo; printing: Universo, Colombia reference number: Ref: A 00 - 381 Prepaid to anywhere in the world. This is the same photograph as 01 / 1999.

05 / 2000:  Cuba, Cayo Coco Beach, Ciego de Avila photo: TCI; design: Universo; printing: Universo, Colombia reference number: Ref: A 00 - 385 Prepaid to anywhere in the world.

		This is an enlarged detail from the original card, showing the Volleyball net.
06 / 2000:  Cuba, Sirena Beach, Cayo Largo photo: TCI; design: Universo; printing: Universo, Colombia reference number: Ref: A 00 - 459 Prepaid to anywhere in the world.

		This is an enlarged detail from the original card, showing the Volleyball net.
07 / 2000:  Cuba, Sirena Beach, Cayo Largo photo: TCI; design: Universo; printing: Universo, Colombia reference number: Ref: A 00 - 457 Prepaid to anywhere in the world.

The cards are sold at the price of US$ 1.00 which includes postage to anywhere in the world.

Of course, there is really only one Volleyball design on the cards (01 / 1999 and 04 / 2000 - they are the same photograph). The other cards show a Volleyball net somewhere, and it is easily understandable that the reason of the photograph was not to show a Volleyball action. Nevertheless I consider these examples as postal stationery cards with a Volleyball relation, and that is why I include them into my collection and also into the postal stationery catalogue. 
Another point is that there might be many more of these cards, so watch out wherever you go - just like me, you might come across some philatelic treasure.

To end this short article, I would also like to show you three of the above mentioned cards, but postally used to proof that they really can be used for international postal services.

Card 03 / 2000, sent from Cuba to Guatemala, with Guatemalan arrival hand stamp of Dec 4th, 2001 and Cuban machine cancel.
Card 04 / 2000, sent from Cuba to Guatemala, with Guatemalan arrival hand stamp of Dec 4th, 2001 and Cuban machine cancel.
Card 05 / 2000, sent from Cuba to Miami, USA, without arrival stamp, but with Cuban machine cancel and postal bar code on ther front- and reverse side.

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