Month: September 2018

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India remembers Subramania for advancing Tamil’s, India’s and later even Adele’s culture

An independent India now had the power to honor those that came before that fought for what later had been achieved. The question then becomes is it all what it was supposed to be. 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. Welcome to todays offering from The Philatelist.

The aesthetics of this stamp just do not work to western eyes. Perhaps that is the point. Subramania styled himself as a Sikh despite  being a Tamil. It was the time of the British Raj and perhaps appearing threatening to that was an important point to make.

Todays stamp is issue A138, a 15 Naye Paise stamp issued by the Republic of India on September 11, 1960. It was a single stamp issue honoring Subramania Bharati. According to the Scott catalog, the stamp is worth 50 cents whether it is mint or used.

Subramania was born in Madras in 1882. At an early age he displayed a flare for linguistics and music and already at age 11 his learning was such that he was granted the title of Bharati. He was of the highest Indian caste, the Brahmin, who are the priests and the teachers. Though he did not believe in the caste system and took the progressive Sister Nivedita as his guru. She was an Irish convert who did much to bring Indian mysticism and yoga to the west.

He worked for a series of newspapers and journals where he was able to publish his poetry and expound on subjects far and wide. He wrote in a simpler style than those that came before and included music that promoted patriotism toward the idea of an independent, united Indian state that was not ruled by Britain but included Pakistan, Burma and Ceylon. Over time he became involved in the political movement toward independence. The independence movement was divided along lines of  how many ties to Britain should be cut and whether violence was acceptable in achieving it.

Subramania aligned himself with Tilak, a leader that promoted violent change and as  a result had to try to promote his ideas from a jail in Burma. Subramania himself did not participate in violence against the British but his articles promoted it. To avoid jail himself he moved for several years to the then French controlled Indian city of Pondicherry where he continued to practice his journalism.

At the end of World War I, Subramania returned to Madras but was quickly arrested. Though the British released him after 3 weeks, his situation took a turn for the worst. He was by now beset with poverty and his health declined. He was then struck by an elephant, and not able to recover, he died shortly after at age 39.

Among Subramania many works was the poem “Achamillai Achsmillai” Translated to English the lyrics translate to

Let the Sky Fall

Let it crumble

We will stand tall, together

These are also the lyrics to Adele’s theme song to the 2012 James Bond movie “Skyfall”. It is short and in another language so I don’t think there is any plagiarism involved. Remember though that both Adele and Subramania were trying to imagine life after the collapse of a British institution, whether the British Raj or MI6.

Well my drink is empty and I will pour another to toast Adele, as now I have that song stuck in my head. Come again tomorrow for another story that can be learned from stamp collecting.

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Costa Rica remembers the the drummer boy that saved Central America from an American manifest destiny

We have had a few stamps that allowed us to see how precarious some of the Central American countries were early on. So weak that if not for the bravery of a young Army drummer. A band of adventurers led by an American southerner  might have turned the whole area into an English speaking slave state. 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. Welcome to todays offering from The Philatelist.

The stamp diplays a statue of the drummer boy running with his torch during the decisive battle. Remember that there was no fighting with Spain to liberate Central America. The Filibuster War therefore serves as a worthy substitute. Here was Central America uniting to prevent a private American adventurer from changing the place forever. Sure there were only 60 Americans but they did conquer Nicaragua and how many Spaniards had it taken to defeat the earlier Indian nations.

Todays stamp is issue A30, a one Centimo stamp issued by Costa Rica in January 1901. It displays the statue of Juan Santamaria, a drummer in the Costa Rican Army during the Filibuster War in 1856. According to the Scott Catalog, the stamp is worth 30 cents used. In 1914 the Costa Rican government sold off a large batch of this stamp and others of the time for far less than face value. They were cancelled to order with a distinct cancellation and have an even lower value. Also if you see this stamp in a different color scheme, they are from a private reprint dating from 1948. Also according to the Scott Catalog, these versions have little or no value. That is a fair number of tests for my stamp to have passed only to be worth 30 cents.

William Walker was from Tennessee and spent his early career practicing medicine, the law, and has a journalist. He never married or had children but became enamored with the idea of an American manifest destiny where Central America and Mexico would be brought into the Union as English speaking slave states. The example of Texas was central to his dream. After recruiting a team of 45 adventures he crossed into Mexico and declared the Republic of Sanora. Though for a while he controlled Baja California, the Mexican Army quickly had his group on the run. On his return to the USA, Walker was tried for conducting an illegal war but the jury admired him and acquitted him.

William Walker

Still filled with ambition, he traveled to Nicaragua where the local Liberal and Conservative Party were fighting a Civil War. The Liberal Party recruited Walker and his 60 mostly American adventurers to fight on their side. The Conservatives were quickly defeated and William Walker became the de facto President of Nicaragua. He legalized slavery and made English the official language and American President Franklin Pearce recognized his government. Not everyone did. American Financier Cornelias Vanderbilt and the British had visions of building a canal linking the Atlantic and the Pacific through Nicaragua and those plans did not involve Walker. So the British lobbied the Hondurans and Vanderbilt the Costa Ricans to attack and bring down Walker. The Costa Rican army invaded Nicaragua and defeated Walker’s forces in Rivas. Another force of Hondurans and Salvadorans came down from the North. The US Navy then evacuated Walker and his few remaining men. He tried to come back later by setting up shop in Trujillo Honduras where he made contact with a group of British settlers. He was then arrested by the Royal Navy and turned over to Honduran authorities and quickly executed by firing squad.

Juan Santamaria was born to a poor unwed Costa Rican mother. During the Costa Rican mobilization for the Filibuster War he joined the army and served as a drummer. The battle of Rivas was not going well as the Walker forces were emplaced in a hostel with good firing lines. The commander had the idea to sent up a single soldier with a torch to burn them out. Santamaria agreed to volunteer for the assignment if the country agreed to take care of his mother if he was killed. He was indeed mortally wounded on his approach but managed to get the hostel burning before he died. His mother later petitioned the government and was granted a special pension.

Well my drink is empty and so I will open up the conversation in the below comment section. Imagine how different the world would be today if the Filibuster War had gone the other way. Come again tomorrow for another story that can be learned from stamp collecting.

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Egypt 1965, Arabs unite to comemorate the burning of a soon to be Arab library in Algiers

France was rapidly tiring of Algeria in the early sixties. So the actions of the OAS were not going to change anything except give Arabist opponents something to talk about. 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. Welcome to todays offering from The Philatelist.

This stamp is dramatic visually, showing the burning of the library. The stamp was issued with few differences by many of the other Arab countries of the Middle East. It is dramatic and the burning was done by a Pied-Noir  resistance/terrorist organization called the OAS. What the stamps don’t make clear is that the library and the University were not founded by Arabs, but rather by the French then in their last days in Algeria.

Todays stamp is issue A262, a 10 Milliemimes stamp issued by the United Arab Republic(Egypt) on June 7th, 1965. It was a single stamp issue that commemorated the burning of the University of Algiers library three years before. According to the Scott catalog, the stamp is worth 25 cents used.

The pied-noir(black foot) were mainly French Europeans born in Algeria during the time of French rule from 1830-1962. In the last French census of 1960, there were over a million of them and just over 10 percent of the population of Algeria. The cities in Algeria of the time had European quarters where most lived. Many had little experience in France. Post World War II the Arab majority of Algeria rebelled against the French and sought to determine their own future. The French tired quickly of the fighting and President de Galle sought to get France out of Algeria. A cease fire was arraigned and elections were scheduled to let Algerians decide on the future of the relationship with France.

This all seems well and good but forgets the plight of the pied-noir. They did not think it would be possible to live under Algerians. Few were Muslim and many were Jewish. The pied-noir thought it was the duty of France to protect their comfortable way of life. In this they had the sympathy of many of the French soldiers garrisoning Algeria. They formed the OAS, the organization army secret, with the help of several retired French Generals including Raoul Salan, who had fought the losing battle to retain French Empire in Algeria and French Indo China. They sought to create an atrocity that would force the French army to come to the defense of the pied noir. The burning of the pied noir founded University of Algiers library was one such act. The campaign was unsuccessful and there was a mass exodus of pied-noir to a very unwelcoming France in the days leading up to independence. The lack of welcome in France was due to the perception among the French left that the pied-noir were right wing colonial exploiters.

The pied-noir fears of life in Algeria post independence proved justified. Three days after independence an Algerian mob burst into the European quarter of Oran, looting and killing in the street over a thousand Europeans. Nearby French Army units were ordered to stand down and did nothing to help them. The Algerians had agreed to honor the rights of Europeans that remained but soiled themselves by not honoring their promise. Almost all of the 250,000 that attempted to stay in Algeria were gone by the end of the 1960s. The Oran massacre does not seem to come up in Arab grievance stamps. Perhaps they are too busy trying to claim a French cultural institution as their own. French General Salan  of the OAS was arrested and sentenced to life in prison. In 1968 he was amnestied and his military rank was restored in 1982, two years before his death. The most famous pied-noir was philosopher Albert Camus who even studied at the University of Algiers.

Well, my drink is empty and I will pour a few more in  memory of those massacred in Oran. Given what happened there, the Arabs of the time had nerve squawking about a library that didn’t even belong to them. Come again tomorrow for another story that can be learned from stamp collecting.

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Hungary builds on Soviet friendship to power itself

Often old Soviet and new Russia have similar ideas to help and thereby control old satellites. Nothing sinister really but it is a lot easier to build on what you have than completely start anew. 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. Welcome to todays offering from The Philatelist.

You could really show industry on older stamps. This stamp manages to show an oil pipeline, a high voltage electrical transmission line and a vision of the Soviet nuclear plants that Hungary had just signed up for. Did no one call the Greens. I guess not but it is a good stamp because it showed what the Soviets had done, was doing, and what they planned to do to improve things in Hungary. This was all a reality but that doesn’t mean the efforts don’t need selling. That the approach to selling it looks so dated only improves the stamp in my eyes. The other stamp in the set displayed a Sputnik tracking station. Interesting but much more dated. The Paks nuclear power station and the Friendship oil pipeline are still doing their thing and both are even being expanded. COMECON still at work for you Hungary!

Todays stamp is issue A534, a 3 Forint stamp issued by the Peoples Republic of Hungary on September 5th, 1974. The stamp recognized the 25th anniversary of Soviet economic cooperation and technical assistance to Hungary. According to the Scott catalog, the stamp is worth 25 cents used, An imperferate version exists that is worth $5,

At the 1958 COMECON summit in Prague, it was agreed upon to build a more than 5000 kilometer pipeline to take crude oil from Tatarstan in central Russia to Eastern Europe. The nations would all contribute to contruction with Hungary handling the electronic control systems. The fact that oil was flowing through the pipeline by 1963 shows  how efficient even communist construction was back then. The Friendship pipeline was and is the longest pipeline in the world. The oil was sold to Eastern Europe at bargain prices and as such is too important a relationship to let end despite the end of the cold war and Hungary entering the European Union. In fact, the Hungarians have recently expanded the pipeline to the Adriatic Sea in Croatia to allow for wider exports.

In 1973, the Hungarians witnessed the Arab oil embargo and decided on a nuclear power plant to supply domestic electricity needs. 4 Soviet designed reactors were in operation at the Paks site by 1982. Not as fast as the pipeline but still very fast by modern standards. The plant was originally to have a thirty year life but has proved to be so important that there as been a 20 year extension of the plant. The plant supplies over half of domestic electricity needs. In fact the plant is being expanded with two additional reactors bought from and financed by Russia. The purchase angered the EU but the need for speed and commonality won the day.

Well my drink is empty but I will pour another to toast COMECON. That Russia is still benefiting from the old Soviet generosity shows the rightness of it. Come again tomorrow for another story that can be learned from stamp collecting.

 

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Belgium hosts an irrevelant world body convention, in other news the sun rose this morning

These sinecures that go to the powerful. Conventions of the connected in swank cities while partying on the dime of others. How does one sign up? Also how did something noble but perhaps futile degenerate into this. 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. Welcome to todays offering from The Philatelist.

In Brussels, it is big business hosting international organizations, today notably NATO and the central staff of the European Union. Think of how great this is for Brussels. A lot of well paid staff with a healthy sized support staff that are hired locally. The big shots will be spending lots of money that comes from the outside. Probably more than their high salaries as most are old money. In addition there will be subsets that will be constantly hosting conventions, where lesser big shots will be coming from far and wide to spend, spend, spend. So Belgium puts out a stamp to celebrate an especially important convention. How nice of them to emphasize the history and noble original purpose of the organization. A stamp issue showing a fancy restaurant, a 5 star hotel, a disco, and a fancy mall would have been a little too real.

Todays stamp is issue A157, a 3 Belgian Franc stamp issued by the Kingdom of Belgium on September 14th 1961. It was a 2 stamp issue celebrating the 50th Conference of the Inter-Parliamentary Union that was held in Brussels that year. According to the Scott Catalog, the stamp is worth 25 cents used.

The Inter-Parliamentary  Union was the brainchild of French parliamentarian Frederic Passy and English Parliamentarian Randal Cremer. Both men were avowed pacifists that hoped an international body could arbitrate disputes before they lead to war. They were part of a large movement of the time that included American William Jennings Bryant and steel baron Andrew Carnegie. The IPU started in Bern, Switzerland in 1892 but soon moved to ironically Brussels. World War I went unprevented and the organization moved to Oslo and then to it’s current home in Geneva. The work and noble intentions of Messers Passy and Cremer saw both men individually awarded Nobel Peace Prizes. Cremer had guided through parliament a bill that all disputes between the USA and the UK be handled by arbitration. Passy had been useful in an international dispute involving the future of Luxembourg in the 1860s.

The organization changed after the passing of the founders and became less about peace and more to do with promoting vague notions of representative government. One party states are still welcome to the parties and the most recent, the 138th was held in the home base in Geneva earlier this year.

It was decided that a woman from the Americas should be the current President of the IPU so after a contest with a lady from Uruguay, Mexican Gabriela Cuevas Barron was given the title in 2017. She is young. still in her thirties and had to change left wing parties in Mexico with the rise in fortune of the National Regeneration Movement at the expense of her former party PAN. Her short resume includes work for NGOs, so I bet she is adept at party planning on an international scale. Nice work if you can get it, but none of her biographies list the wars she prevented. Hopefully then the Nobel committee will hold off on her award.

Current IPU President Gabriela Cuevas

Well my drink is empty and I will pour another to toast Ms Cuevas on her title. Maybe that would get me invited to one of those great living large on someone else’s dime conventions. Come again tomorrow for another story that can be learned from stamp collecting.

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Slovakia 1942 Right wing Priests try to achieve a seperate Slovak state

The Eastern European Nazi collaborators are tarnished by the association. In Slovakia’s case, for good and ill, these leaders were practicing Catholic Priests. 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. Welcome to todays offering from The Philatelist.

Todays stamp was issued by a semi independent Slovakia, under the “protection” of the Third Reich. Yet here you have a Priest, who called Hitler a cultural beast, being honored as a recently passed founding father. It points to the strange situation the nation found itself.

Todays stamp is issue A20, a I.3 Koruna stamp issued by Slovakia on March 20th 1942. The stamp was a single issue that honored Father Andrej Hlinka, a priest and politician who had died in 1938. Father Hlinka has been honored by other stamp issues of modern Slovakia and the 1939-45 entity. According to the Scott catalog, the stamp is worth 25 cents used.

Up until 1918, Slovakia was ruled by the Hungarian part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire under the Hapsburg Emperor. Father Andrej Hlinka was a parish priest who moved in conservative political circles to try to gain more self determination for the Slovak people. In doing so he angered both the Hungarian authorities and his Bishop. He was suspended as a priest and sentenced to jail for his political activism. While in jail a new church finished construction in Cernova that Hlinka had been the force behind. The local parishioners wanted to wait to consecrate the church until Father Hlinka could do it. Instead the bishop sent a Hungarian speaking priest to do it guarded by 15 military police men. The local protest turned to rock throwing and the soldiers then fired on the crowd killing and wounding many. Father Hlinka’s story was now out and a appeal to the Pope got him released from prison and his priestly duties restored. As the post Austro-Hungary breakup Slovak future was being decided in Versailles in 1919, Father Hlinka traveled to Paris to try to get a better deal for the Slovak people. At this point he was in favor of a united Czechoslovakia, but only with rights of autonomy for Slovakia. His presence was not welcome and he was again jailed in Paris for allegedly traveling to France on a fake passport. This again raised his status with the Slovak people. Czechoslovakia became independent but with perhaps too much power in the hands of the Czechs. In 1920, Father Hlinka was again released from jail and elected to parliament as a member of the right wing Slovak People’s Party.

He was a leader of the party and when he died in 1938, leadership passed to another Priest, Father Josef Tiso. The troubles with Germany and Czechoslovakia were then coming to the fore. Hitler suggested to Tiso that Slovakia declare itself independent and that would be recognized by Germany. This was done and Father Tiso was named Prime Minister. The collaboration with Germany lead to the expulsion of many Jews to labor camps that became death camps. This crime was protested by the Vatican and temporarily stopped in 1942. There was also a lot of bribery of lower officials from Jews of the Bratislava Working Group. In late 1944 there was an uprising that was violently put down by the Nazis and now Father Tiso was just a figurehead. The Germans restarted the rounding up of Jews. With the Red Army approaching, Father Tiso fled to a monastery in Bavaria where he was arrested by the Americans and sent back to Bratislava to face a war crime trial at the hands of the new again united Czechoslovakia communist regime. He was found guilty and hung while still in his priests garb.

Well, my drink is empty and I may have a few more while I ponder the Slovaks then plight. First association with Hungary, then Chechia, then Germany, then Chechia again, when the desire was just to stand alone, with God. Come again tomorrow for another story that can be learned from stamp collecting.

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Sudan 1948 50 years of stamps and the temporary end of the closed door South

Another story of the breakup of the Ottoman empire and another British mandate to try to stand between different races. 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. Welcome to todays offering from The Philatelist.

The design of this stamp is one of the longest lived I have come across. As it states on this jubilee edition  the design dates from 1898. What the stamp doesn’t make clear is the design with very few modifications was in use until independence in 1956. There was no 1998 100th  anniversary version but the stamp was not done. It came back virtually unchanged in a 2003 issue, except reflecting the current debased currency. The camel rider is actually a postman.

Todays stamp is issue A9 a two Piaster stamp issued by the Sudan on October 1st 1948. It was a single stamp issue that celebrated the 50th anniversary of the first Sudanese stamp issue in 1898. According to the Scott catalog, the stamp is worth 50 cents.

Sudan in theory was to be jointly administered by Egypt and Great Britain as the Ottoman Empire was fading. The Egyptian royal family was still tied to the Ottomans but the reality was that the British in Sudan were running the show. There is a divide in the country as the north is Arabic and Muslim with traditional ties to Egypt. The south is black and not Muslim. The British addressed this by having a closed door policy to the south, with no outsiders allowed in. This did not sit well with the Arabs to the north. Britain pretty much left the south alone except  for tamping down on tribal warfare and fighting the banned slave trade.

The north saw much more development. The Nile was damned and the increase in arable land was taken by cotton plantations. Railroads and new Port Sudan allowed for exports. Khartoum also grew with more Sudanese taking their place in the administration. Into this Egypt declared it’s independence but left vague its claim on Sudan. The British Governor General of Sudan was then assassinated in Cairo and the British then removed all Egyptians from the Sudanese administration and armed forces. The northern Sudanese were divided as to whether they wanted a union with Egypt and the south was divided as to whether they wanted to stay with Sudan or go with the then British colony of  Kenya, Uganda and Tanganyika. At this point the British were getting ready to leave and so the question was who to turn it over to.

The independence movement was overwhelmingly Northern and Arab but strangely its leader was a southern black named Ali Abd al Latif. He was part of an educated group of blacks that became left wing politicized and agitated for insurrection. This landed Ali in jail and later exiled to Egypt and put in an insane asylum where he died in 1948. His fame grew though and his white flag movement provided a good cover for the Northern Arab minority who wanted independence from both Britain and Egypt to succeed taking over the whole country.

Ali Abd al Latif

The south of Sudan was hardly at all consulted and the division left Sudan divided with a hot and cold civil war that still did not end when South Sudan became independent in 2005. The British did manage to get out of the Sudan in the mid 1950s so probably are the real winners of the story.

Well my drink is empty and I will pour another to toast the camel riding postman on todays stamp. Come again tomorrow for another story that can be learned from stamp collecting.

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Christmas Island 1963, the island passes from Singapore to Australia at her request

An island can get a lot of action depending on who it belongs to. 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. Welcome to todays offering from The Philatelist.

The visuals of the stamp is very British late colonial except for one thing. Where is Queen Elizabeth? The island going to Australia answers the why. Australia took over the administration of the island as it contained a lot of Aussies, no natives and Britain was fading from the area. It was the 60s and Christmas Island was east of Suez in the expression of the day.

Todays stamp is issue A2, a 2 cent(Malaysian)  issued by the phosphate commission of Christmas Island in 1963. The stamp shows a map of the island and was designed and printed in Australia. According to the Scott catalog, the stamp is worth $1 mint.

Christmas island was first spotted by a British vessel the Royal Mary on Christmas day 1643. The island was uninhabited and the ship was in the employ of the British East India company. The company was also involved in the founding of Singapore and  once settlement of the island occurred in the 19th century, it was administered by the British Straits Settlements Colony, that also had roots in the British East India Company. Lucrative phosphate mines were set up in the late 19th century and Australians arrived to administer and Malayans, many of Chinese decent were brought in as indentured servants to work the mines.

During World War II the threat to Christmas was real and a token British force of  1 officer, 1 cannon, 4 British sergeants, and 27 Indian soldiers was sent to garrison. After a ship was sunk in the harbor and there was naval bombardment by the Japanese, the white flag was raised but the Japanese still sailed away. After they were gone the British flag went back up. The next night the Indians mutinied killing all 5 British and a few days later the Japanese landed to no opposition. The people had fled into the bush but were rounded back up to get the mines back into operation. The mutineers were tracked down post war and 5 were sentenced to death. At the request of newly independent India, their sentences were reduced to life in prison.

After the war the Australians took more of an interest as they had come to understand that the British couldn’t be relied on in this part of the world. Money was paid to Singapore in exchange for the dropping of a Singapore claim to the island. Perhaps a mistake given subsequent events.

Australia closed the phosphate mine in 1987 although a much smaller operation was restarted privately by former miners later. There was an attempt at a casino but that also failed. What as happened recently, is that as Australian territory, it has become a draw for asylum seekers mainly from the middle east and brought by Indonesian smugglers. The Australian Supreme Court ruled that asylum seekers that make it to Christmas have a right to have their claims adjudicated. The detention facilities that hold them during their cases hold now more people then the  entirety of the local population. If the islands had stayed with Singapore, this would not have happened since they don’t allow asylum seekers and therefore haven’t been overwhelmed by them, despite Singapore’s wealth.

One of 5 immigration detention centers on the island

Australia Post formally took over the issuance of Christmas Island stamps in the 90s. Either Australian of Christmas Island stamps are valid for postage in either place. Christmas previously switched to the Australian Dollar in 1968

Well my drink is empty and so I will open the conversation in the below comment section. Come again tomorrow for another story that can be learned from stamp collecting.

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Berlin 1966, a new divided and more corporate Berlin

Berlin once rivaled Paris in it’s progressive café society. The Nazis of course put an end to that but after the destruction a much different more corporate replacement was constructed. Businessmen the new masters? How perceptive. 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. Welcome to todays offering from The Philatelist.

This issue of stamps were made to celebrate the new Berlin. Berlin’s post war division had recently become more permanent by the wall and at least in the western section there was much rebuilding and new construction. So a brand new glass tower shopping mall, the Europa Center was included. The stamp designer carefully disquised the most controversial part of the design to me. The large Mercedes emblem on the roof is there but shown at an angle so it is not clear what it is.

The stamp today is issue A53, a 60 Pfennigs  stamp issued by West Berlin Germany in 1966. It was part if a twelve stamp issue in various denominations that displayed new or restored architecture of West Berlin. According to the Scott Catalog, the stamp is worth 35 cents used.

The site of the Europa Center was once the Romanisches Haus. It was one of the premier sites of Weimar era café society. The customers were all left wing and included such notables as Bertoit Brecht, Otto Dix, Erich Kastner, and Erich Maria Remarque. Naturally a group like this would be perceived as a threat to the Nazis. Upon Nazi taking the reigns of government, many of the Romanisches Haus patrons went into exile and at one point the Nazis staged a riot that damaged the declining place. The building was later destroyed  in an Allied air raid in 1943. The Café building was topped by a German style Golden Eagle.

In the early 1960s the site was acquired by shopping center developer and electronics retailer Karl-Heinz Pepper. He was concerned about Berlins divided situation and wanted to assert Berlin’s world prominence not in terms of café society but rather in terms of shopping venues. In this he claimed to be inspired by American shopping malls, but what he built was a glass tower more resembling something built in the Asia of today. American malls being suburban and horizontal with large parking lots. The center contained shopping, resturants, office space, a hotel, a movie theatre, an ice rink and a large parking deck. To top it all off instead of the German Eagle is a star. A rotating three pointed metal star that is the symbol of Mercedes Benz automobiles. At night the Mercedes emblem is lit by over 600 light bulbs. It is the biggest Mercedes star of it’s type, as though there is now a bigger one in Hong Kong, it doesn’t rotate.

Over the years there have been some renovations, the ice rink is gone so Tiffany’s could expand and the theatre is also now gone. The shopping center hosts more than 25,000 shoppers a day. The café past is not totally ignored as there is an Irish Pub with big greasy portions, multiple Asian restaurants, and a Kentucky Fried Chicken. No doubt they attract all the intelegencia, or perhaps make them want to go back into exile.

Well my drink is empty and I will wonder the food court looking for a happy hour cocktail special. Ah, the life of an intellectual. Come again tomorrow for another story that can be learned from stamp collecting.

 

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A Honduran leftist fails to unite Central America

A generic portrait on an old Latin American stamp. Why not try to figure out who he was. 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. Welcome to todays offering from The Philatelist.

The stamp todays was printed almost 40 years after the liberal claudillo on the stamp lost his last battle, and the war to unite independent Central America as a progressive single country. While it is not Honduras’s first stamp, it is it’s first professional issue printed in the USA. Was it the country pining for what might have been?

Todays stamp is issue A4, a 1 Centavo (new currency that year so not yet debased) stamp issued by the Republic of Honduras in July of 1878. It was a 7 stamp issue in various denominations displaying Francisco Morazán, who at various times served as President of  his native Honduras, El Salvador, and the then Central American Federation. According to the Scott catalog, the stamp is worth 50 cents mint. There was a reprint of the stamp in 1889 by a different New York printer that used softer paper and a yellower gum. This version is worth $10 mint.

Francisco Morazán  was born in Honduras in what was then the Spanish Captaincy General of Guatemala, New Spain in 1798. He was of moderately well off Creole merchant background with a father from Corsica. He showed to be fairly intelligent and his parents found then rare educational opportunities for him with the Catholic church. Through the libraries of friendly friars, he became literate in the law and the ideals of the French revolution. In the last days of colonial rule he acted as a public defender in the Spanish courts. He married a rich widow and fathered a daughter by her and an illegitimate son via the daughter of a Nicaraguan politician. The money and the contacts placed him well when independence came.

In the early years of independence there was much debate over how to proceed. Most favored a single Central American country but conservatives and liberals differed. Conservatives favored by the Church, the landowning class and many Indian tribes featured centralized power under  a strong leader using the institutions of the old colonial administration. The Liberals wanted a Federal system  that delegated more power to the states modeled on the USA.

The Liberal system was agreed to but things quickly broke down when the first President tried to dissolve the legislature and start a new one more agreeable to him. Honduras was central to the rebellion against this and Morazán fought with the uprisers. He proved to be accomplished militarily in the skirmishes that followed and was made President of Honduras. He quickly left that job to fight on in El Salvador and then further success brought him into power over the entire Federation in Guatemala.

In power he enacted harsh treatment of the Church, taking away from them educational assets, making marriage civil and ended government support for collecting tithes. He also opened the door wide to new immigrants who were much whiter then the people who were mainly Indian. He lost out on a second term election but then his conservative rival died before he could take office so Morazán ended up getting a second term anyway.

There was much dissatisfaction among the majority Indians. Morazán started jury trials that featured white juries judging mainly Indian defendants. There was then a cholera epidemic that killed many Indians. The Indians came to believe that Morazán was poisoning the water so he could get rid of them and sell their land to companies sponsoring immigration. Conservative forces and Indians united to overthrow Morazán and he fled to El Salvador. There he was made President and lead an unsuccessful invasion of Guatemala to try to reclaim wider power. This time he went into exile and a few years tried to make another comeback. This time he was defeated, captured, and executed. At his request his remains were buried in El Salvador rather than Honduras.

Well my drink is empty and I have come around that a federal system was probably not right for a united Central America. When an area is almost devoid of institutions, it is probably a mistake to expend energy attacking the few institutions existing. Come again tomorrow for another story that can be learned from stamp collecting.