Romania only came out from under Ottoman domination in the second half of the 19th century. After that things happened pretty fast with locals offering ways to better utilize what God had given Romania. One thing God had given was oil and Romanians proved to have the ability to find it and develop it without the foreign domination of for example the Middle East. 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.
One of the things that Romania did well with it’s stamps was present Romanians of high achievement to the wider world through their stamps. This was true or the early Royal and later communist government and on into the 1990s. Most years there was an issue of famous Romanians. This unfortunately has dropped away with famous Romanians being replaced by famous people stamps. I can learn something new about previously unknown to me Romanians. Elvis or Lady Di, not so much.
Todays stamp is issue A519, a 55 Bani stamp issued by Romania on July 20th, 1962. The famous people issue that year covered 9 people, none of which I had ever heard of. Proving that over time, The Philatelist has much still to learn and pass on to my dear readers. According to the Scott catalog, the stamp is worth 25 cents whether used or unused.
Grigore Cobilcescu was born in Lasi in what was then the Principality of Moldavia in 1831. Moldavia had been the first to exploit petrolium in the area not by drilling for it by gathering it from ditches where it would sometimes appear. The main use was fuel in lamps as it was before use in transportation. G. C. (this simple philatelist can’t spell long names and I found several different spellings anyway in my research), Studied geology locally and then won a state scholarship to further his studies in Paris. He then returned to become a geology professor at the University of Lasi.
In 1883 he did the work that contributed the most. G. C. correctly theorized the types of geological formations that might indicate where there were oil deposits. As Romania came together, this geology knowledge became very important. By 1900, Romania was fourth largest oil producer in the world and the largest in Europe. In recognition the Lasi University awarded to G.C. a seat in the Romanian Senate reserved for them. He used that platform to lobby for Romania to be very careful about letting foreign interests to take over what could be Romania’s route to wealth. He went so far as to resign his Senate seat in 1885 in protest to a trade deal the Senate had ratified with Austria Hungary. G.C. was right to worry about that, over the years Germans and Soviets have during different periods plundered the oil revenue stream given by Romania.
Despite digging ever deeper wells, water injection and even off shore Black Sea oil wells, Romanian oil production peaked in 1976. The drop off after that was pretty steep as the old fields went dry. By 1980, Romania was a net importer of oil. Thus they mostly missed out on the oil booms of the 1970s and 1980s. The earlier facilities had attracted so much unwanted attention from Germany and even Allied bombing followed so closely by Soviet seizing of the output. One wonders if Romania would have been better off without G. C.’s knowledge and leaving the exploitation for a time when the fuel was more valuable and Romania might have been more able to retain control of it. That worked for Norway.
Well my drink is empty and I will pour another to toast G. C. both for the new knowledge he discovered and for realizing how important it could be for his new country. Come again tomorrow for another story that can be learned from stamp collecting.
