Often countries, especially smaller ones, look to sports as a place to excel. In Norway’s case, it is more than being the fan of a few great athletes. There is instead very broad participation, and it is thought that the sports are a great contributor to the athletes physical and even spiritual health. 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 is kind of a mess and displays the kind of faults that are so often present on modern stamp offerings. Modern printing techniques allow for elaborate printing on a small scale. For those of us who remember studying tiny variations on some 19th century stamp that should be exciting. Instead a lot is going on with this stamp and you have to be a stamp collector to take the time to take in all that is going on. Another problem is that is a modern self adhesive stamp. As such, the condition used after getting it off the envelope is suspect.
Todays stamp is issue A618, a 14 Krone stamp issued by the Kingdom of Norway on January 3rd, 2011. It was a single stamp issue that celebrated the 150th anniversary of the Norwegian Sports Confederation. According to the Scott catalog, the stamp is worth $3.00 used.
The Sports Confederation got it’s start in 1861. That means it predates an independent Norway. At the time there was a political union with Sweden. Norway had previously been a subject of Denmark and when independence from Sweden was achieved in 1906, a Danish Prince was recruited and elected as the first King or Norway.
During World War II Norway was occupied by Germany but the sports confederation went on. The Germans hired Charles Hoff to lead the confederation. Hoff was an Olympian at the 1924 Paris Olympics and set several world records in the pole vault. As some of you may remember from reading this article https://the-philatelist.com/2019/02/07/1924-paris-olympics-the-last-of-the-modern-olympics-that-paid-homage-to-the-ancient-greeks/ , on the 1924 games it was a time when athletes were troubled by amateur status. Hoff was banned from further amateur competitions in 1926 after being paid for a series of exhibitions and performances in the USA. A 1931 pole vault world record was not recognized because of Hoff’s professional status. Hoff began to develop ideas on how to improve amateur athletics in Norway and the change in government was the opportunity he was waiting for.
Hoff proposed that instead of a few stars there should be opportunities instead for large teams of Norwegians. He proposed a national sports university and much increased funding that could be raised by a national lottery. He thought wider participation would increase the countries health and spiritual growth. Initially the German occupation was enthusiastic about Hoff’s ideas but as their fortunes in the war dimmed, they reneged on the promised funding. Hoff resigned in disgust in 1944.
Post war, Hoff’s ideas were quickly implemented. The lottery came in 1948 and the national sports university was founded in 1968. The Sports Confederation has currently over 2 million participants with 12,000 sports clubs spread out in 54 regions. The progress happened without Mr. Hoff. Post war he was sentenced to 9 years of hard labor for the crime of collaborating with the Nazis. Recently the sports confederation started having to share the lottery funding 50/50 with cultural investments.
Well my drink is empty and given the sedentary nature of stamp collecting it may be wrong to pour another to toast sports participation. Well maybe we should anyway as long as after a good sporting workout, everyone comes back tomorrow for another story that can be learned from stamp collecting.