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 of a new nation discovering who it is.
What I find so interesting about todays stamp is how different it if from a stamp issued in the same place 20 or 30 years before. Today we are learning together about a stamp from the Asian city state of Singapore.
The stamp today is issue A113, a 5 cent stamp issued on April 24th 1985. The stamp depicts a brightly colored damselfly. The stamp was part of a sixteen stamp issue in various denominations up to $10 Singapore dollars. It has a current value of 25 cents cancelled.
Singapore was founded as a trading post for the British East India company in 1819 by Stanford Raffles. Intrigue and payments to who we would now describe as Malaysians and Indonesians allowed Singapore to get going in a natural harbor at the end of the Malaysian peninsula. Ownership passed to Great Britain in 1826 and except for about 3 years under Japanese occupation during World War II, Singapore remained in British hands until the late 1950s. In fact the British Military remained until 1971.
Independence was also a gradual process. It was the initial intention of Singapore to unite in federation with Malaya and the old Straits Settlements that Great Britain also controlled. This just did not work out. Singapore at it’s heart was still a multi-ethnic multi-language trading post. This created many tensions with the more ethnically uniform Malaysia and Indonesia. In 1965 Singapore became a sovereign city state within the British Commonwealth.
One might expect this history to result in a strong British influence on the post independence stamp offerings. There is some influence. Singapore is spelled out in English script as it is the governmental and most commonly spoken home language in Singapore.
When one looks at the stamp, one sees a color palate that gives away Singapore’s location in Asia and the fact that a majority of its people are ethnically Chinese Mandarin. Yet at the same time the stamp is not Chinese. Instead the influences of the different people and the climate of Singapore are well depicted in this simple only at first glance stamp. I also sense some of the optimism that stamps from newly independent states often have.
The Damselfly exists all over the world on every continent except Antarctica. The bight colors indicate that the depiction on the stamp is of a male. The fly is most common in jungle areas where it eats smaller insects around grass. The damselfly is threatened by deforestation and the aspect of climate change that sees ecosystems drying out. One might wonder how the damselfly is doing in a thriving crowded city state such as Singapore. Perhaps there is an element to this insect stamp issue of lets enjoy them while we still have them.
Well, my drink is empty and so it is time to open the conversation in the below comment section. Come again tomorrow for another story that can be learned from stamp collecting.
Authors note: When I was entering this offering, news had just come in on the death of Hugh Hefner at 91. While this website does not feature nudity, it does at it’s most basic sell the lifestyle of the connoiseaur. Intellectual pursuits were always a part of that in the early Playboy and are front and center at what I am trying to do at the-philatelist.com. When Hugh Hefner started, male magazines were just about hunting, fishing, and war stories. Mr. Hefner as Mr. Mincus and Mr. Harris realized that the best parts of the lifestyle of a British Duke were now available to masses of newly educated and prosperous people. They prospered in bringing out how to get into that. RIP