December 2017 – Page 3 – The-Philatelist

Welcome readers to todays offering from The Philatelist. So slip on your smoking jacket, fill your pipe, take your first sip of your adult beverage, and sit back in your most comfortable chair. We have an interesting story to tell about how the energy behind big progressive projects can sap away.

Todays stamp is from Brazil from perhaps the pinnacle of Brazilian postage in the early seventies. Almost every stamp was about a new dam, a new industry, and in this case the Rondon project, a new project to provide water to the interior regions of Brazil. Almost every stamp in Brazil today is the 200th anniversary of this or that. Still interesting, but lacking a certain optimism about the future. The early seventies also saw an improvement in the color and quality of printing of Brazil’s stamps. All in all, The-Philatelist declares the seventies the golden era of Brazilian stamps, at least to date.

The stamp today is issue A638 a 50 centavo stamp issued by Brazil on May 5th, 1970. It was a single stamp issue with a map of Brazil stylized to emphasize water resources. According to the Scott catalog, it is worth $3.00 cancelled.

Marshal Rondon was tasked in the Brazilian army with laying telegraph lines in the interior of Brazil around the turn of the 20th century. This involved a lot of map making and first contact with Indian tribes in the interior. That the contact with the Indians went well was a major boon to the project, although Marshal Rondon was once caught with a poisoned arrow. Rondon was a member of a small religion called Positivist that came out of the teachings of the French philosopher Comte. They believed that human progress would gradually transform the earth into a paradise without anything supernatural involved. In later years Rondon took up projects to advance the conditions of Indians even leading to Brazil’s first Indian reservation. He was recognized as a hero leading him to be awarded the rarely granted army rank of Marshal.

After his death, Rondon was named in many memorials. There are also the Rondon projects of which I came across several. Brazil invokes his name on big projects that involve raising the standards in rural areas. In the case of todays stamp, it was a project to provide water for agriculture in rural areas. This would be very controversial today as the cost in terms of deforestation and loss of natural habitats is more seriously cosidered. There is little mention of this project today so I think it is safe to assume it was not successful. There was another Rondon project that involved setting up educational academies in rural areas to bring up the standards of education. Much online about this is forming alumni groups of graduates of the academies. From this it is reasonable to assume that some education actually took place. One does get a sense though that men like Rondon are missed because the system that put together todays great projects never seem to have measurable results, just big bills. In Rondon’s day, the telegraph messages had to get through before he was celebrated.

Well my drink is empty so it time to open up the discussion in the below comment section. Could Rondon have made his later namesake projects work if he had been around to lead them? Come again tomorrow for another story that can be learned from stamp collecting.

Welcome readers to todays offering from The Philatelists. So slip on your smoking jacket, fill your pipe, take your first sip of your adult beverage, and sit back in your most comfortable chair. Today we wrestle with when a trading post stops benefiting everybody.

The stamp is an issue of Portuguese Africa. The individual colony, in this case Inhambane, is then printed on. Then there is a further overprint which announces republica. In 1910 A republic was declared in Portugal. Then an overprint of a new currency from 1913. The strange part of this is that the underlying stamp celebrates an anniversary from 1898. The post office in Inhambane must have had slow sales to be still pushing the same stamp 15 years after the original issue. Inhambane is located in present day Mozambique which did something similar. In 1975, independence was declared and the new post office sold issues of the colony dating back to 1953 with a new overprint celebrating the independent republic. Perhaps they were new printings but I suspect the post office just had a huge, old inventory.

The stamp today is issue CD25, a seven and one half centavo overprint for Inhambane in 1913 of a Portuguese Africa stamp from 1898. The original denomination of the stamp was 75 Reis, the earlier currency. The stamp celebrates the 400th anniversary of the voyage of the explorer Vasco de Gama. This was part of an eight stamp issue. According to the Scott catalog, the stamp is worth $2.00 mint. The stamp to look for in the set is the one with the inverted overprint of the new denomination. It is worth $35. There are also versions or this issue with the Inhambane overprint on stamps of Macao and Timor. other Portuguese colonies that got the Vasco de Gama issue.

Inhambane was discovered by Vasco de Gamma in 1498 as it says on the stamp. de Gama landed seeking supplies and labeled the area a “Land of good people.” This catch phrase is still used for the area today. It was already an active trading post with Arab and Persian traders arriving in the 11th century. Trade routes had developed from the interior routing ivory, gold and slaves to the trading post. For the most part the traders, including the Portuguese did not venture much in to the interior. Instead tribute was paid to local chiefs. Over time, many of the traders were ethnic Indians and Chinese from the Asian Portuguese colonies. Portugal did not feel the need to formalize the colony of Mozambique with protected borders until Britain occupied neighboring Rhodesia. By then the present day capital/port of Maputo had greater economic and administrative importance. The last Inhambane stamp was from 1917 although the city and province retain the name today.

In theory the idea of these sort of international cities/trading posts make a lot of sense. Trading after all benefits all and allows the interior lands to be left to there own to develop in their own way. In old movies such places seem such romantic oasis’s of spies, quick money, and intrigue. To look at the list of what was traded requires one to give additional thought. Some of this is just modern eyes looking back criticaly, but the trade going on would seem to dirty many hands.

Well my drink is empty and so it is time to open the conversation in the below comment section. Often the incorporation of trading post cities in to the surrounding country leads to their decline. This is the case with present day Inhambane. Should they have been kept international? Come again tomorrow for another story that can be learned from stamp collecting.