February 2020 – Page 2 – The-Philatelist

Leaders fall in and out of fashion. After Italy united as a Monarchy in the 1860s. Revolutionary leader Giuseppe Mazzini fell out of favor as the Italy he imagined was a Republic. He was too liberal for those in power but simultaneously too reactionary and religious for the new left. Fast forward 100 years though and he is exactly the type of anti Communist and also anti Monarchist and pro united Europe fellow to provide an historical basis for the current government. 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.

Mazzini has had more than a few Italian stamps. Most of them are like this one and don’t make him look very good. The best was the first one from 1921 that showed him as an old man. Less than 50 years after his death, he was perhaps still remembered as a man instead of a figure of history.

Todays stamp is issue A571, a 25 Lira stamp issued by Italy on March 10th, 1972. It was a three stamp issue in various denominations recognizing the death century of Giuseppe Mazzini, the Italian unification activist. According to the Scott catalog the stamp is worth 25 cents used. I am not alone in preferring the 1921 issue to the 1972 or the 2005 issue. The 1921 issue is worth $40, despite a 1/100th denomination.

Mazzini was born in Genoa in 1805 when it was part of the French Empire. He was from a well off family and studied the law. From an early age he was a believer in the unification of Italy. He formed a political movement called Young Italy. Cells of the movement were frequently rising up against various city states. As a result, Mazzini was often in exile and twice was even sentenced to death in absentia. In Switzerland he met fellow exiled nationalist from Germany, Poland, and Switzerland. He formed an international Young Europe group that then had subsidiaries of Young Italy, Young Germany. etc. He imagined republics based on Nationality that would then afterwards combine into a United States of Europe.

In the continent wide troubles of 1848-49, Mazzini had his chance. The Pope was forced to flee Rome and a Republic was declared. In charge was a triumpharate with Mazzini the senior figure. The Pope still had friends though not Mazzini who was religious but anti clerical. The French Army arrived three months into the Republic and Mazzini was again off to Switzerland and then on to London.

Though Mazzini was close to military independence leader Garbaldi, he was not in favor of the new united Italian Kingdom under the House of Savoy. He even attempted to start a new uprising against it in Sicily in 1870 and was briefly jailed. After dying he was celebrated by most. Independence leaders of all stripes had been reading his works for many years before the bitterness of his last years. The kind of government he wanted was finally put in place after the war in 1945. Since then Italy and Europe have made much progress, but I sense that Mazzini would have hoped the result would be more of a utopia.

Well my drink is empty and to me figures like Mazzini come up short, Like Sun Yat-sen in China he got famous traveling around complaining about the status quo, but when he was given the chance to rule, he was unable to produce any positive results. Come again tomorrow for another story that can be learned from stamp collecting.

As might be expected after a long Dutch colonial period, not all Indonesians were Muslims. Some were Dutch Protestants and so perhaps understandably were nervous about independence from Holland. Being in the majority in a few islands in the South Moluccas, and feeling the Indonesians had reneged on the promise of a federal state with some autonomy, rebellious veterans of the Dutch colonial army declared the Republic of Maluku Selatan. Declaration does not make reality but soon enough an enterprising stamp dealer came calling. 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.

No post office, no legitimate stamp is an understandable philately rule. The first stamps of Maluku Selatan have the best arguments for legitimacy. They were just overprints of Dutch colonial issues from the brief period that the islands were not in Indonesian control. Being overprints proved the rebels were in the old Dutch colonial post offices. Were they still delivering mail?

There is not value or issue date for this stamp. Stamp dealer Henry Stolow had printed in Vienna circa 150 stamp issues under the name Maluku Selatan between 1955 and 1971.

There had been some Christian missionary work in the Dutch Indies. Many Christians were from the island of Ambon which was where the Dutch first landed in 1605. A good percentage of the males went on to serve in the Dutch colonial army. Being dark skinned, they were not held as POWs as ethnic Dutch were during the World War II Japanese occupation. The Indonesian independence movement received much of their organization during the Japanese occupation. Post war, the Maluku soldiers did not desire disbanding or transfer to the new Indonesian Army. Claiming truthfully that the post independence Indonesian government was more centralized than what they had agreed to, several south Malluccan islands declared independence under President Christiian Soumokil. The capital was Ambon. 5 months after the declaration in 1950 the Indonesian army landed in Ambon. Guerilla resistance on the islands lasted till 1963. After fighting started the Dutch changed their tune and started offering transport to Holland for Christian Mallucans. A government of Maluku Selatan in exile set up in Holland that still exists. Christiian Sourmokil had remained behind to lead the guerilla fighters. He was eventually captured by Indonesia and executed in 1966.

From 1950, the government in exile issued a few new design postage stamps that were not recognized. In 1955 stamp dealer Henrey Stolow contracted with Vienna printers for printing stamps in the name of the Republic of Maluku Selatan. He was also working with several newly independent African nations and his authority was not questioned. Stolow was a Jew born in Riga, Latvia who started as a stamp dealer in Berlin in 1919. The Nazi regime of 1933 saw him move on to Brussels and then on to New York. In New York he bought the collections of several prominent philatelists for well publicized auctions. Among the prominent collections were Franklin Roosevelt, Cardinal Spellman, and deposed Kings Carol II of Romania and Farouk of Egypt. Normally the dealing in fake stamps is considered not reputable but it did not seem to effect Stolow’s career. He later returned to Germany and his operation continues still using his name 49 years after his death. It is currently based in Munich. A nephew of Stolow is still active in New York.

Well my drink is empty and I will salute the Christian Missionary. When one sees the trouble caused for the small percentage of converts, one can understand why modern Christian organizations seem to concentrate solely on charity. Come again tomorrow for another story that can be learned from stamp collecting. I will have a legitimate stamp for you.