Month: June 2020

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Cayman islands 1985, The Kirk Pride never had any dead to hold but kept her Volkswagen

These small islands are hopefully done with their pirates but that doesn’t mean they still don’t host a shipwreck occasionally. 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 of The Philatelist.

These were visually well done stamps but they lack the key detail of what ship you are looking at. That is what you have The Philatelist for. Well perhaps they were worried about treasure hunters. One of the two cargo holds of the Kirk Pride held bags of cement mix. They wouldn’t have done it this way now. Scuba diving tours of their shipwrecks are now big business on Cayman. Not so much for the Kirk Pride, the wreck shifted into ever deeper water over 800 feet. Sorry but it gets pretty dark and scary that deep.

Todays stamp is issue A85, a 35 cent stamp issued by the still British Overseas Territory Cayman Islands on May 22nd, 1985. The sun may never set on the Empire but don’t call them colonies. Cayman itself must be thrilled to no longer have it’s former status as a Dependency of Jamaica, see https://the-philatelist.com/2018/12/14/cayman-islands-1935-one-group-of-caribbean-islands-avoids-poverty-by-breaking-away-and-staying-a-colony/ , they can’t be depended upon. This was a 4 stamp issue of shipwrecks around the island in various denominations. According to the Scott catalog, the stamp is worth $4.25 unused.

The Kirk Pride was an 170 foot long cargo ship that displaced 498 tons. It was built in 1947 and spent it’s life working around the Caymans. In January 1976, it made an unscheduled stop in Georgetown with engine trouble.  The two cargo holds contained bags of cement and the other a Volkswagen. A nor’easter was approaching and it was worried that the ship would damage the pier when the wind and waves began to pound. The ships engine started and it was able to move away from the dock in reverse. To go forward the engine had to be switched off to shift. It would not restart and so was helpless to control where the storm would take it. It was driven into a reef that left it with a gash and water coming in. It was hoped that the sump pump would pump the water out fast enough to keep it above water until the storm was over and the leak could repaired. Unfortunately the winds shifted and with it the position on the reef. Now the gash was bigger and the ship was in 3000 feet deep water. The ship was abandoned with no loss of life. There was no effort made to salvage the wreck because of the belief  of the depth.

In 1985 a small research submarine spotted the wreck in only 800 feet of water. The bow and the stern  were wedged onto two small underwater hills. This was shallow enough for deep sea divers to be able to go have a look and the BBC did an episode about it on their travel show “Wild Caribbean”.

The Kirk Pride in it’s 1990s position

Sometime in the early 2000s the wreck shifted again and went deeper. Nobody ever came for the Volkwagen, I wonder how much is left 44 years later.

Well my drink is empty and the website’s publishing machine tells me that this is my 700th offering. I may pour myself another. I hope you are enjoying these as much as I am. Come again Monday for another story that can be learned from stamp collecting.

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East Germany 1982, talking up ships we no longer have

You can tell that a country is running out of gas when they just want to talk of old achievements that are not current. This is especially true when the stamp doesn’t tell you that what your looking at isn’t current. 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 has happened to me  before where what is happening on the stamp was no longer current. A Guatemala stamp where a dictator built his actress mistress an opera house. Sounds fun see https://the-philatelist.com/2017/11/06/guatemala-columbus-theatre-still-impressive-on-the-stamp-but-really-in-ruins/   . but the opera house had since been leveled by an earthquake and not rebuilt, all before the stamp. Here we have a stamp issue of an important class of East German cargo ships, that had served and been scrapped when they got old and expensive to operate. Was there anything new coming out of the Rostock shipyard in 1982?

Todays stamp is issue A685, a 5 Pfennig stamp issued by East Germany on June 22nd, 1982. It was a 6 stamp issue of the Type 4 cargo ships built in Rostock shipyard in the late 1950s, in this case the class leader M S Frieden(peace). According to the Scott catalog, the stamp is worth 25 cents.

The Type 4 Frieden class of large cargo ships were 9000 ton (empty). They were diesel powered and capable of long journeys. They were the first large ships to come out of the Rostock shipyard after the war. The Frieden was built in 1957-58 so that was quite a gap. The shipyard was founded in 1850 and still exists employing 500 people.  They mainly now make river cruise ships. The ships were operated by the East German VEB line, which went through a few reorganizations before fizzling out in 1992.

When the ships were current, they went far and wide. The most famous journey was to North Vietnam in 1972 when MS Frieden and a sister ship were caught in the American bombing of Haiphong harbor. Neither were sunk. The MS Frieden was retired in 1978 and sold to China for scrapping. A club for former sailors of the ship still meets every other year.

The Type 4 ship can still be experienced in Rostock. In 1970 sister ship M S Dresden had engine trouble that was deemed too expensive to repair. As the hull was still in good shape the shipyard decided to maintain it as a museum ship. For a while the ship even hosted a youth hostel. There is talk of moving the ship from the shipyard to a mooring in the old town waterfront where it might attract more visitors. The museum is one of the best collections of the maritime history of the East German era.

Well my drink is empty and I may have another while longing for the time when we can visit museums again. Come again tomorrow for another story that can be learned from stamp collecting.

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Maldives 1909, With Seashells and coconut rope on the decline, does anybody need an airport?

Imagine seashells that appear on the beaches of your small atolls being accepted far and wide as currency up there with gold and silver. Goes pretty far to creating a tropical paradise, except when it doesn’t. 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 stamp shows the spire of the Old Friday Mosque dating from 1658 in the Maldives. Well it was a Sultanate. Before the Europeans came the passing traders were Arab, Indian and Persian and they rose up and tossed out the Portuguese with their ideas of Christianity. Since then Europeans made deals but left them alone. Until they were just left alone.

Todays stamp is issue A1 a five cent stamp issued by the Sultanate of Maldives in 1909. Even though this was the first issue it is unfortunately too late to be denominated in sea shells. Tristan de Chuna’s first stamp was denominated in potatoes so it could have been. Instead  we are left with boring Rupees. How are the good followers of the Sultan supposed to get ahead using the other guy’s money. This was a 13 stamp issue in various denominations. According to the Scott catalog, the stamp is worth 50 cents unused.

The Maldives are a group of 1194 islands south of Sri lanka in the Indian ocean. It was populated by first Buddhists from India but came under the sway of Muslim traders from Basra in modern Iraq. They had two products to trade in addition to the replenishing ship stores common to such islands on trade routes. One product they had were super strong ropes spun from fibers of the coconut. Traders would also accept cowrie seashells in return for the rice they were selling. The shells were traded as currency as far away as Africa and China. This sounds perhaps a little too idealist as a way to make it sound as if everything was perfect before those pesky Europeans showed up but who knows maybe it was true.

Maldives’ Cowrie Seashell money

The Portuguese came from Goa in India bringing with them missionaries, see https://the-philatelist.com/2017/11/10/remember-the-divine-duty-of-empire/  . Big mistake, the Sultan organized riots that removed them way back in 1573. The day of the riot is still a holiday. Later Dutch and still later British traders operated out of the Maldives but interfered less in local affairs and paid tribute to the Sultan. They weren’t as interested in the sea shells and rope spinning is a lot of work. A dispute between Arab traders brought the British more involved as they asked for British protections as Indian British subjects. The area was becoming ever more dependent on Ceylon as ships visited less.

After World War II the area moved toward independence. An airport had been built on an atoll well south of the capital and when the Royal Air Force lost their last air base in Pakistan, RAF Mauripur, they offered to rent the old Gan airport to support the long flights to British bases in the Far East. The Maldives accepted but then one year later the Sultan decided to try to raise the rent. The atolls near the base worried that the British would instead just leave and they would lose the jobs provided by the base. A short lived break away United Suvadive Republic formed to honor terms of the original British lease. The Sultan had a change of heart and reclaimed the atolls of Suvadive and honor the original British lease. Speaking of changes of heart, the British abandoned the base in 1976 as they weren’t doing much in the Far East anymore and planes could fly farther. The Gan base was offered to the Soviets but at a price they wouldn’t accept.

Coat of Arms of United Suvadive Republic

Well my drink is empty. The Sultan now calls himself President but can he make the place open enough to tourists to bring prosperity. Perhaps if they handed out a cowrie shell to arrivals? Come again tomorrow for another story that can be learned from stamp collecting.