Generally I prefer stamps that look to a bright future to the more common stamp that reminisces. This is a really weird one that celebrates what is gone. Perhaps in the belief remembering will stir hope. 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 Bulgarian issue of stamps was designed and printed in 1915 to celebrate the taking of the territory of Macedonia from Serbia while Bulgaria was an ally of Austria and Ottoman Turkey. The victory did not hold and Bulgaria ended up surrendering Macedonia and more and Austrian born Czar Ferdinand was forced to abdicate. This was all in the past when these stamps finally got into postal use in 1920.
Todays stamp is issue A54, a 10 Stotinki stamp issued by the Kingdom of Bulgaria in 1920. It was a five stamp issue all in the same denomination. According to the Scott catalog, the stamp is worth 25 cents whether mint or used. You would think a stamp displaying such interesting twists of history would have gained more value by the time the stamp was 100 years old but it must be remembered how much the stamp printing presses work overtime when a country is broke and defeated in order to raise a little money from the stamp collector.
First modern Czar Ferdinand ruled at a time when Bulgaria was transitioning from a Principality under the Ottomans to a Kingdom with autonomy. There were shifting alliances and frequent wars and Bulgaria not only gained territory in Macedonia but a land outlet to the Aegean at the expense of Greece and territory from Romania. That sounds like a lot of glory but the Czar was a flamboyant bisexual figure prone to dressing in drag. As such, both allies and enemies despised him. Here is how a British historian from the period described him.
“In this war, where the ranks of the enemy present to us so many formidable, sinister, and shocking figures, there is one, and perhaps but one, which is purely ridiculous. If we had the heart to relieve our strained feelings by laughter, it would be at the gross Coburg traitor, with his bodyguard of assassins and his hidden coat-of-mail, his shaking hands and his painted face. The world has never seen a meaner scoundrel, and we may almost bring ourselves to pity the Kaiser, whom circumstances have forced to accept on equal terms a potentate so verminous.”
The Balkan nations often picked their Kings/Czars from out of work Germans from former German city states in hope of competence and being taken seriously in European corridors of power. Even having done so, the Bulgars were still facing chauvinism like the above. On the other hand, I wish I could write like that.
When the tide turned Bulgaria lost the territory and Ferdinand was forced to abdicate and return to Germany. His son now named Boris and raised Orthadox was on the Throne with dreams of bringing Bulgaria back to it’s recent glories. Probably why this issue of stamps exists.
Well my drink is empty and should I pour another to toast the cross dresser on the wrong side that ultimately lost big time. Of course, why not, it is a hundred years later. Come again tomorrow for another story that can be learned from stamp collecting.