New Postcard and E-Coupon Offer from www.GoldenCockerel.com

Cartoonist Scott Adams once quipped, "I get mail; therefore, I am." Make someone's day with this adorably quirky matryoshka postcard, 50 cents from Golden Cockerel.

The back reads: "Improve your mood naturally with the Stress Reliever matryoshka. This fun take on the traditional nesting doll features five Russian peasant girls whose emotions change from frustrated to peaceful. Once you reach the last doll, you’ll feel better, too! In fact, no one can resist smiling after opening up any nesting doll. Since their birth in the 1890s, Russian dolls have entertained the world with their folksy, whimsical, clever, and often beautiful guises. There seems to be no end to the variety of designs, or to the nesting pieces inside. Open one today, and SMILE!"

Now through the end of July, you can save 10% on all orders by simply typing “stress free” into the e-coupon field when you check out (It’ll be on the left hand side of the screen.). Gold Club members:combine this offer with your discount to save even more!

In the meantime, searching Google for the photos to paint a new sample of Dolphin nesting doll, I discovered that there are almost 40 species of dolphin in 17 genera. They vary in size from 1.2 m (4 ft) and 40 kg (88 lb) (Maui's Dolphin), up to 9.5 m (30 ft) and 10 tonnes (the Orca).
Can you believe that Orca is the second-most widely distributed mammal on Earth (after humans)!?
For the 5 pc. nesting doll I selected just 5 species of 40 :)

I'd bettermake the doll #3 to be a deep sea diver suite, like the one we had on a Deep Sea Diver nesting doll long time ago. It would have a round window hole, so one could see the doll #4, a diver, through it. Then #5 would be an octopus. Not bad.

Jules Vern

Zvi HarEl suggests that Jules Vern's Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Seas is really a public domain. It could be an interesting nesting doll: the legendary Nautilus, brave and handsome Captain Nemo, a dolphin, an octopus and a starfish. I can see it!

Eleven years ago I took a blank nesting doll, stared at it

for a couple minutes and saw no more a Russian maiden in this piece of linden wood but some bizzare creatures hidden inside. Tilt it a bit. Can you see a frog? Lay it down. Can you see an elephant? Or space shuttle? Lay it on a stand. Man, it's a submarine!

What submarine that has a crew of four inside would you think about? No doubt, the Yellow Submarine and the four Beatles inside -- that naturally came to my head! So the Yellow Submarine nesting doll was born.

That time one could find nesting dolls of any kind at the Russian market: Lenin, Clinton, Beatles, Chicago Bulls... Long story short, but recently the nesting doll maker Golden Cockerel received a Cease and Desist letter from the Beatles agent, and, with respect to the law, we stopped making and selling this nesting doll. I guess, our annual sales of this item would not cover the minimum royalty...

But what to do about the shape? I still have blank wooden submarines with four nesting fellows inside. How would I paint them? Paint a pink submarine and put on diving masks with snorkels on Beatles so no one recognize them? :) When the Russian submarine named "Kursk" sank in the Barentz Sea one of our artists painted a memorable nesting doll: it was a really sad one :(

Maybe Jules Vern's books are public domain and we can paint Nautilus and Captain Nemo's team? Decisions, decisions....