Collections build off each other. A collection of armor and weapons grew to include thousands of clocks and sundials. Luckily when a royal house is the collector, it is not just hoarding but the makings of a national treasure. 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 Philatelists.
You may wonder why the East Germans were showing off some of the old treasures of the Dresden Mathematics and Physics Salon. They had earned the right to. In February 1945, the Zwinger palace complex was mostly destroyed in the Allied fire bombing of the city. The collection mostly survived as it previously been moved for safe keeping mostly into rural castles. The city fell to the Soviet Army soon after and one might have expected that to be the end of it, as lets face it, putting back together palace complexes and Royal collections is not their wheel house. Sometimes people outperform and the complex reopened in 1953. One thing that did go away was the observatory that had offered an exact official time for Saxony for the previous 150+ years.
Todays stamp is issue A710, a 20 Pfennig stamp issued by East Germany on June 7th, 1983, the 30th anniversary of the Salon’s reopening. It was a six stamp issue in various denominations. This stamp shows a horizotal sundial created by Christopher Trechsler in 1611 on the commission for the Salon. According to the Scott catalog, the stamp is worth 25 cents used.
The first known sundials have been found in Egypt and date from 1500 BC. Depending on how good the model is for the suns movement in relation to the season and the location, a sundial can give a very accurate time.
In 1570, Italian Astronomer Giovanni Padovani, who operated out of Verona published a widely read work explaining sundials including details of how to make them. He included tables for the different latitudes.
In the 15th Century Albert the Bold was Duke of Saxony and established a chamber in his Dresden residence to house his collection of armor and weapons. It became one of the largest collections in the world. Later Augustus the Strong, Elector of Saxony and King of Poland expanded the chamber and the collection expanded to include time pieces. Augustus was building in Dresden an elaborate complex called the Zwinger. The added space allowed the collection to be broken up and thus came about the Salon of Physics and mathematics.
There was a further reconstruction of the Zwinger that reopened in 2013. The current collection contains over 3000 clocks and scientific instruments and still includes Christopher Trechsler’s sundial from 1613.
Well my drink is empty. Come again tomorrow when there will be another story that can be learned from stamp collecting and don’t forget to vote.