Month: January 2019

I am generally more impressed with stamp issues that promise a better future than remember a great past. With an achievement like the Porsche 356, why not take the time to remember, especially when the remembrance supports a good cause. 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.

With a new stamp from an old car comes the question of how to photograph it. Period photos from advertising? No you are remembering a car, not trying to sell it. A modern photo of a classic car? No, an old car in great condition is probably more about the owner than the car itself. Germany decided to use a series of car drawings of the type a car identification book for children might have, even with some quick stats. This is a great idea as there were more kids dreaming about Porsches than adults driving them.

Todays stamp is issue SP434, a 55 +25 semi postal stamp issued by Germany on October 9th, 2003. This was an 8 stamp issue that remembered important cars from Germany’s past. All cars were post war and a few were even East German. The 25 cent surcharge benefited something called the Federal Working Party on Independent Welfare. According to the Scott Catalog, the stamp is worth $1.90 whether it is mint or used.

The Porsche 356 was a post war development of the pre war Volkswagen Beetle. The car had a smaller, lighter body and had engines that were uprated over their state of tune in Beetles. The car used the independent swing axle suspension of the Beetle but over time upgraded it to cope with more power. Initial thoughts of aluminum bodywork were deleted to keep expenses down. The car was still quite expensive costing a little more than an American Corvette with 3 times the power and 40 percent more weight. The British Austin Healy 3000 split the difference with less power, weight  and expense than the Corvette, but more weight and power than the Porsche.

What all three of these cars did well was demonstrate the 3 countries different approaches to going fast. To Germany, it was important to keep light so only as much power as could be gotten out of the light Beetle engine. In this period of the 356 in the early 60s, that power was as much as 3 times what the Beetle had. The Corvette was bigger with the engine out of big, powerful American cars. The American car was far faster and more stable, but the light Porsche could catch up in the turns where its agility, rear engine traction and independent, if dangerous suspension helping. The Corvette in this period sold better with about 25 percent more volume despite a fewer percentage exported than the 356. The Austin Healy sold less still despite it’s lower price but did achieve many exports. One thing the three cars had in common was souped up sedan engines rather than specially designed engines for sports cars. It kept prices down.

The 356 was made from 1949- 1965. The B model shown on the stamp had larger window and changes in the floorplan to add room. The C model came along in 1963 adding disc brakes. Over time the car gained a few hundred pounds as more equipment was added. The 356 was replaced in 1965 with the Porsche 911 that attacked the problem of higher weight by adding a six cylinder overhead camshaft engine still in the back. Weight was up 30% over the early 356 but power more than doubled. Prices also went up but for a few years a 912 version sold with the 356 engine at only a slightly higher price.

Well my drink is empty and I will pour another to toast the German attitude toward speed. The idea now seems to be that all cars must now be built to a world standard so it matters less where a car comes from. I preferred it when the cars better reflected the attitudes of where they were from. Come again tomorrow for another story that can be learned from stamp collecting.

When a national symbol is shown over and over again on stamps, the challenge becomes how not to be repetitive. So this one is about it’s builder Carl Langhans. 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 Brandenburg Gate was constructed as a symbol of peace. As with the Arc de Triumph in Paris, previous centuries had a different idea of peace. Don’t think peaceniks, but rather the celebration the successful completion of a war. Thus when there is an unsuccessful war outcome it becomes a symbol of taunting. Napoleon marched under the Brandenburg Gate when he conquered Prussia. He even removed the Quadriga statue relocating it to Paris. Prussia later occupied Paris and took it back. The Soviet Union flew it’s flag from the gate for 12 years after the war until finally yielding to the East German flag. When American President Kennedy taunted the Soviets for walling off Berlin and closing the gate, he was greeted by a giant Red Banner covering it. The opening of the wall in 1989 was centered at opening the Brandenburg Gate with lots of flag waving.

Todays stamp is issue A1259, a 55 Euro cent stamp issued by Germany on December 27th, 2007. It was a single stamp issue. According to the Scott catalog, the stamp is worth 80 cents used. Being so modern there is also a self adhesive version, that inexplicably does not effect the value.

The site of the Brandenburg gate was already a gate as part of an earlier customs wall. Prussian King Frederick William II commissioned the Gate in the late 1770s. Carl Gotthard Langhans the Royal Court superintendent of buildings, was in charge. He had started his career in Silesia. Langhans was ethnically German but most of his life and buildings are today found in Poland, a reflection that war isn’t always victorious and reflective of the German peoples shift westward. Like the English architect Inigo Jones, the subject of the first stamp we covered at The Philatelist, seehttps://the-philatelist.com/2017/10/02/remembering-inigo-jones/ Langhans was the recipient of much Royal largesse that allowed him to study the architecture of ancient Greece and Rome. This inspiration allowed him to construct buildings in the neoclassic style. This was much desired by the Royals of the day. The Peace Gate, as it was then called was in the style of the Propylaea, the ancient gateway to the Acropolis in Athens. The Quadriga statue on the German gate was Victoria, the Roman God of Victory on her 4 horse chariot. At first, only Royals were allowed to pass through the center columns but this was a special honor granted the family of Ernst von Pfuel, who had seen to the Quadriga statue’s return from Paris.

Despite the devastation of the bombing and the Battle of Berlin in 1945, the Brandenburg Gate survived mostly intact. The devastation around it and the division of Berlin limited the amount of Allied victory parades around it then. The Gate was closed in 1962 upon the construction of the Berlin wall and lay in East Berlin. The East German government saw to it’s refurbishment, perhaps surprisingly still in the Imperial style. It was a fixture on many East German stamps. The opening of the gate was symbolic in 1989 when the West and East German Chancellors were the first to cross and shake hands. Today you will see much new construction around it as it is a favored view of important embassies relocated to Berlin. Unfortunately the new construction is somewhat less than neoclassic architecture. At least the area is now a pedestrian street.

Well my drink is empty and so I will pour another to toast Carl Langhans. If  peace had been as long lived as was then hoped, the Royal Building superintendent would have seen the buildings around his gate were still neo classical and perhaps even Prussia and Silesia not now be Poland. Come again tomorrow for another story that can be learned from stamp collecting.