Month: September 2021

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Andorra 1932, we already have 2 foreign Princes, How about a Russian King?

European microstates attract their fair share of adventurers. But some want to do more than mountain climb. 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.

Todays stamp looks like a stamp from 1930s’ France. as well it should. It was printed there. Andorra maintains a coadministration of France and of a Spanish Catholic Bishop. Both administrations put out stamps. The Spanish issues are much more church centered than Spain’s non Franco era issues.

Todays stamp is issue A50 a 1 Centime stamp issued by the French administration of Andorra in 1932. It was part of 56 stamp issue in various denominations that were the first stamps of the French administration that were not merely overprints of French issues. The stamp features the Church of Our Lady of Meritxell. According to the Scott catalog, the stamp is worth 55 cents mint. The violet 1.75 Franc stamp from this issue is worth $120.

Andorra was formed by Holy Roman Emporer Charlemagne as a border buffer state in the Pyrenees mountains to guard against Moor penetration into France. Through inheritences the adninistation became divided between The Spanish Catholic Bishop of Urgell and the President of France. It is a small landlocked country that was fairly impoverished until recently as improved transportation  allowed for more integration with Europe and tourism.

In 1931, a White, (Czar supporter) Russian from Vilneas named Boris Skossyreff was arrested in London for passing bad checks. After being released he made his way to Andorra and obtained citizenship in 1933. He put forth a plan for political reform and requested to be employed to implement them. When this was refused he showed up in Urgell, Spain and declared himself Boris I King of Andorra and Regent to the King of France. He then declared war on the Bishop of Urgell. Remember in 1934, France had not had a King in many years. The  claimed Bourbon Royal connection must have carried some weight as the government began drafting a new constitution. This wildness only lasted a week with King Boris being arrested by the Spanish Guardia Civil. Interestingly his trial was delayed when as a Royal he refused to be transferred to Madrid on a third class train ticket. The Spanish claimed he was really a Dutch Jew who had been in Spain for quite a while. This does not seem to be the case.  He was deported first to Portugal and was later to show up in the civilian employ of the World War II German army on the Russian front. He died in Germany in 1989.

Boris I sans crown
Boris, during his later German Eastern Front service

 

There seems to be a genre of fan fiction in Russia that has King Boris ruling Andorra for several years until being deposed by the German puppet Vichy French. They have him dying in a Vichy prison camp in 1944.

The church on the stamp burned in 1972. Lost in the fire was the statue of Mary with Child that dated from the 12th century. The legend was that villagers on the way to church kept finding an out of season rose with the statue at its base. They would place the statue in churches only to find it the next day back by the rose. Eventually they took it as a suggestion to build a church in Meritxell where the statue of Our Lady of Meritxell then sat. The church was rebuilt after the fire and replica of the statue was recast. Meritxell is still a common first name for Andorran females.

The pre fire icon of Our Lady of Meritxell

Well my drink is empty and so I will pour another to toaste Andorra. It is a small country though so I think two Princes is enough. Sorry Boris. Come again  for another story that can be learned from stamp collecting. First published in 2018.

 

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British East India Company 1953, Mission Creep at the East India Company

The East processes exotic spices quite valuable in the West and the West processes amazing technology much needed in the East. Sounds like a win-win until the inevitable mission creep sets in. 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.

A nice inspiring portrait of Queen Victoria from the 1850s. Look closely though and you realize it is not British. It is not even a colony nor dominion. The stamp is actually the product of a trading company. I don’t think a modern company of any size would be granted permission to issue what is after all essentially currency in so official a form. The British East India Company was no ordinary company. At it’s height, it controlled over half of the worlds trade. Edit, the pandemic reaction shows that big companies can do anything they want, so I stand corrected.

The stamp today is issue A7, a one half Anna stamp issued by the British East India Company in 1855. It was part of a 10 stamp issue in various denominations featuring a profile portrait of Queen Victoria of Great Britain. According to the Scott catalog, the stamp is worth $4.50 used. The green 4 Anna stamp is worth $1750 mint. There is also a version of the 8 Anna stamp  cut in half to be used on post covers for 4 Annas that is worth $60,000 used.

The British East India company received a charter from Queen Elizabeth I, and raised money to set up trading with the East. By then, the Portuguese, the Dutch and the French had there own trading companies doing the same thing. The values of spices being such that if a journey was survived a return of 1000% could be realized. A relationship was developed with the Mughal Empire in India that allowed virtually unlimited trading. The riches poured in to the investors of the Company.

This could not last. The rivalries with the other countries over trading posts had come to wars and the company expanded it security force into a full private army with British officers trained to British Army standards in Britain and enlisted men from India that were also trained to British standards. The army grew to more than twice the size of the British army and was the most capable force in Asia.

The Redcoats are coming, well they look like Redcoats but it is a fake, private army.

English pirates raided a Mughal naval vessel returning from the Haj in Mecca. Large amounts of gold and silver were looted and although the East India Company disclaimed responsibility, war broke out with the Mughal empire that resulted in a defeat for the Mughals. Just as spice revenues were falling, administration cost rose. There was a failed attempt to raise tea prices in the American colonies, remember the Boston Tea Party. The smuggling of opium to China increased. Stories in Britain of the frequent plagues and famines in India lead to calls to do more about it. All this lead to a rampant increase in administrative cost that ate up all the profits.

In retrospect the institutions set up to administer India were set up modeled on the British System. The whole education system basically still in use today was set up by a British administrator named Thomas Macaulay. The system  taught English and passed on Western ideals. It did nothing to promote local culture or history and therefore Macaulayism  is a controversial subject in India today. Two areas that were not interfered with by the company were imposing Christianity and there was British respect for the Indian caste system.

With the profits having turned to losses, the rebellion in the East India Company Army in 1857 was the last straw. The Company was nationalized by Britain, liquidated and the institutions established by the company were taken over by Britain. India would now be a Crown Colony, the beginning of the British Raj. The name and logos of the British East India company were recently acquired in Britain for a chain of clothing stores.

The headquarters of the British East India Company in London.

Well my drink is empty and I think I will have a few more while I consider the pros and cons. A point to start was what was the true condition and in what numbers were the the Indian people pre company under the Mughals, who remember were themselves Persian outsiders. At liquidation in 1858, the British bankruptcy judge stated that nothing like this company will ever happen again. Not sure I believe that. Come again for another story that can be learned from stamp collecting. First published in 2018.

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Natal, Boers to the left, Zulus to the right and stuck in the middle with the Indians

An adventurer faces many challenges. In todays case, a large and growing colony was established, but only after he paid with his life. 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.

Natal was really surrounded. Three quarters of the people were Zulus and their off shoot, the Matebilli. They had killed the founder of the British Colony. There were about ten percent Boers, whites of Dutch decent, that had eventually lost a bloody war with the English. Another 10 percent were Indians brought in as indentured servants. That left the British the smallest minority. The British must have liked to see the portrait of Edward VII on todays stamp as a sign they had some support when trouble came. It is probably for this reason that every postage stamp issued by the colony was a portrait of the British monarch.

Todays stamp is issue A23, a half penny stamp issued by the British Crown Colony of Natal in 1902. It was part of a 16 stamp issue of various denominations showing the portrait of British King Edward VII. According to the Scott catalog, the stamp is worth 55 cents used. The 20 pound revenue stamp from this issue is worth $27,500 mint. Not many people would buy an expensive revenue stamp and then not use it to pay their taxes apparently.

Francis Farewell was a Captain in the British Merchant Marine. He married the daughter of a Cape Town merchant and scouted out a place to set up a trade post. His idea was to get into the ivory trade. Finding Port Natal, he returned with thirty settlers, 10 British and 20 Boers. He made a deal with the Zulu leader Shaka  for the land. after several petitions and further migration from Britain, Natal was accepted as a British Colony.

Zulu King Shaka. This image is European from 1824 of the actual man. Many modern statues of him are modeled after later actor portrayals.

It was found that sugar cane production was most suited to the local climate. This is very labour intensive, and the Zulus were unwilling to do the work. Indians were then brought in as indentured servants but many stayed and formed a local community that was at one point the largest Indian community outside of India. Gandhi even visited in 1898 to raise money for the struggle at home and helped found an association to prevent discrimination.

A modern museum diorama of Gandhi’s Natal visit. It is strange to see Gandhi with hair and dressed western instead of how he is remembered today. Wonder which image was the real him?

Farewell did not do so well. He travelled to the Zulu capital to trade beads. He was killed by Zulu warriors while asleep in his tent. Shaka had been deposed by his brother Dingane and things were no longer friendly. A war between the British and the Zulus was fought with the British winning and adding much Zulu territory to Natal. The Boer war later added much Boer territory to Natal. In 1910 Natal was merged to form the Union of South Africa.

Natal Colony founder Francis Farewell

Interestingly, in 1980 the apartheid South African government set up a separate state of KwaZulu as a homeland for the Zulus. It was under the former royal family of Zululand. KwaZulu was not recognized by any other country and was reintegrated by now majority ruled South Africa in 1994. The province is now called KwaZulu-Natal. Francis Farewell still has a  square named after him in Durban.

Well my drink is empty. Come again for another story that can be learned from stamp collecting. First published in 2018.

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Laos 1959, the last Royal succession

An ancient royal house lasted 800 years even through the colonial period only to die of “malaria” in a communist reeducation camp. 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.

Post war Laotian stamps from the Royal period are really quite well executed artistically. The first years of communism in the late seventies show typical scenes of Soviet style soldiers and by the 80s the stamp issues were farm outs. The late forties through the early 70s were the golden age for Laotian philatelists.

The stamp today is issue A19, a 12 and a half Kip stamp issued by Laos on November 2nd 1959. It shows the gilded Stupa of Wat Chom on the summit of Phou Si in the then Royal capital of Luang Prabang. It was part of a 6 stamp issue in various denominations. According to the Scott Catalog, the stamp is worth 80 cents used.

The French were able to come back in 1946 and put back on the throne Sisavang Vong. He had been briefly deposed when the Japanese invaded Laos in February 1945. This time his realm was not just Luang Prabang but the entirety of Laos. The French withdrew again in 1954. The North Vietnamese invaded Eastern Laos in order to build the Ho Chi Min trail to supply the Vietcong in the south of Vietnam.

Sisavang Vong was a bit of a playboy King. He fathered 50 children and had 15 wives. Two of his wives were his half sisters and one was his niece. And you thought European royal family trees did not have enough branches.

King of Laos Sisavang Vong . Question.
Your Majesty, can you spare a wife?
Answer. Stay away from my sister!

Sisavang Vong died in 1959 and was succeeded by King Sisavang Vatthana. He only had one wife and five children. He decided against a formal coronation as the country was in a state of war with North Vietnam and their allies, the Pathet Lao. The King tried to stay neutral in the conflict but the Vietnamese refused to abandon the occupation. The Ho Chi Min trail was subjected to heavy American bombing. A peace treaty was signed in 1973 creating a coalition government with the Communists but again the Vietnamese did not leave. In late 1975 the Pathet Lao moved into the administrative capital Vientiane and forced the King to abdicate.

More modern one wife King. Dear Western friends, we have enough of your bombs, please send bug spray.

Although 10 % of the country left for Thailand the King thought it his duty to stay, His personal situation gradually deteriorated. At first he remained in the palace but then volunteered to leave it so the new government could make it a museum. Soon he was under house arrest. Then the government feared he might escape house arrest and try to lead a resistance movement. His family was arrested and moved to a reeducation camp that was for high officials of the former regime. In 1978 the government announced that the King, his Queen and the Crown Prince had died of malaria at the camp. The youngest son escaped when the regime fell to Thailand and on to Paris. There he worked for the carmaker Renault and lobbied for Laos to return to a constitutional monarchy. He died in 2018.

The winds of change. Bet they came directly from the camp with all the malaria and lead poisoning.

Well my drink is empty. Come again for another story that can be learned from stamp collecting. First published in 2018.

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South Africa 1977, Then a time to remember but now a time to forget Totius in South Africa

A learned and pious man makes it his life’s work to translate the bible into his native tongue. The place he is from honors him with a statue sculpted by a local. Now that statue is vandalized and taken down, more than once. Why, because of the color of his skin, in the name of “justice”. 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.

The stamp today is an issue of the apartheid regime of South Africa. As such, it is understandable to dig deeper at what the South African regime was honoring. A man who translated the bible, wrote poetry, and was the chancellor of a religious university. Sounds like uncontroversial  good work. Well not in todays world.

The stamp today is issue A189, a four cent stamp issued by the Republic of South Africa on February 21, 1977. It was a single stamp issue that honored the 100th anniversary of the birth of  Jacob de Toit, who wrote under the pen name Totius. According to the Scott catalog, the stamp is worth 25 cents used.

Totius was born in South Africa of Afrikaner decent. He was trained at home and in Holland and earned a Doctor of Theology in the Dutch Reform church. He was a army chaplain for the Boers in the second Boer War. He continued his fathers work in translating the Bible into Afrikaner. He also wrote poetry including lyrics based on the Psalms in Afrikaner. He was a conservative man who lost his young son to an infection and his daughter to a lightning strike, she fell dead into his arms as she ran to him. His poem on this, “Oh the pain thoughts” is one of his most famous works. He finished his translation of the Bible in 1932 and died in 1954.

South Africa did a lot to remember Totius in 1977 upon the 100th anniversary of his birth. In addition to the postage stamp, there was a bronze statue by Jo Roos to him commissioned. The statue as not faired well since the change in government. After being repeatedly vandalized it was removed from the park in his home town. The University where he was Chancellor then took it in 2010 and had it restored by Jo Roos and his sons. It lasted just 5 years at the university until it was removed again in a vandalized state in 2015. The church may still have it, hopefully they keep it hidden perhaps for some future time when all people’s history is respected in South Africa.

Well my drink is empty so I will pour another to toast Totius. South Africa was a rough place in the 19th century and apparently still is. Work to bring the Word of God and a little culture should be respected and one day it might be, not just forgotten. Come again for another story that can be learned from stamp collecting. First published in 2018.

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China Famine stamps in the 1920s, signal your virtue by decorating your letters

If there was a benefit to China opening up to western countries, it was when there was a crisis, help would come from far away. Probably too late and with a lot of hucksters involved. 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.

Todays stamp is not useful for postage. The idea was that people would buy the stamp, mostly in the USA, to decorate their letters. The proceeds would go to famine relief in China. It was not to be used for postage either in the USA nor China.

Since todays stamp is not an official issue of a government, it is not in any catalog. I did find one identical to mine on Ebay for $5.00. This stamp was issued after the famine by the China International Famine Relief Commission.

The famine of 1920 centered in Northern China in the area south of Beijing. The previous year had been very dry and so the harvest was small. The area had been heavily denuded of trees and it is thought that that contributed to the drought as tree roots tend to hold moisture longer. The area had been hit by a much deadlier famine in 1879. The famine in 1920 was believed to have killed 500,000 people.

China was in it’s warlord period. That does not mean the government did not do things to help. The tax on shipping grain between provinces was dispensed with in order that grain could pass more easily and cheaply from less affected areas. The distilling of grains into alcohol was also banned in Beijing to lessen this demand for grain. 1921 was a wetter year and so the harvest was better and that ended the famine.

During the famine, a different aid agency sold a 3 cent stamp raising over 4 million dollars. The three cents was supposed to equate to feeding one Chinese person for one day. This group wrapped up  with the 1921 harvest that was the end of the famine.

This bunch of sad sacks reports to be victims of the 1920 drought in Shaanxi

Todays stamp was the issue of a later group, the China International Famine Relief Organization. It issued relief stamps in several denominations from 1923-1929, both in the USA and China. They usually sold in the period of Christmas through to Chinese New Year. These were much less successful in raising money. The famine being over the overage was spent on making the area less drought prone. Most years however the stamp sales did not cover expenses.

Here is a much later fake stamp from yet another fake? relief committee. By then perhaps we should of stopped sending money and just sent mirrors

Well my drink is empty and I will pour another to toast those who bought these stamps in order to help people they didn’t know so far away.  Come again for another story that can be learned from stamp collecting. First published in 2018.

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Spain’s Franco turns ruins back into a Monastery

Memories can be long in politics. 100 years before a liberal secular regime in Spain had confiscated Church lands and thereby closed Poblet Monastery. Generalissimo Franco did not approve of this and sought to put things back together. 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.

Under Franco’s long reign in Spain, much was done to restore physically what was done to the many historic and Holy places that had once belonged to the Catholic church. The result of this was a long series of stamps from Spain that showed the beauty and majesty of these sites. While by the end of Franco’s rule in the mid 70s this style of stamp was looking somewhat out of style, I can understand why Franco felt the restoration of the sites was an achievement that should be remembered.

Todays stamp is issue A285, a 3 Peseta stamp issued by Spain on February 25th, 1963. It was part of a four stamp issue in various denominations that honored the restoration of the Poblet Monastery. According to the Scott catalog, the stamp is worth 25 cents used.

Poblet Monastery was founded by Cistercian monks from France on land in Catalonia retook from the Moors. The Cistercians believed in a simpler form of monastic life that involved austerity and physical labor as part of the journey to God. In the 14th century and later it became the burial site of the Kings of Aragon.

In the 19th century, Spain was under the reign of Isabella II. She was at first represented by a regency and there was much back and forth between liberals and moderates in her administration. Into this situation came Juan Alvarez Mendizebal. He was quite liberal and a banker of Jewish background. He was first Finance Minister and the Prime Minister, albeit for only nine months. He enacted a program for the confiscation of Church lands. This was  put forward as a benefit to the poor but worked to transfer much land to already wealthy landowners. This was done with no payment to the church and indeed most of the properties seized were ransacked and burned, including Poblet Monastery. The Royal tombs were desecrated but a parish priest from a nearby town was able to save most of the remains. Mendizebal was eventually sent into exile in London and Queen Isabella II was eventually forced to abdicate and go into exile in Paris.

Architect of the looting of Church lands such as Poblet Monastery, Finance Minister Juan Alvarez Mendizabal
Queen Isaballa II during her Paris exile. Will the current disrespect and pillaging of traditional sites again end in escapes to London, Paris, or Tel Aviv, time will tell?

Franco was on the winning side of the Spanish Civil War in the 1930s. He promised peace through law and order and respect for the Church and the Spanish heritage of colonization or as he put it nation building. In the particular of the Poblet Monastery, in 1940 a new group of Italian Cistercian monks were brought in to repair the monastery and get it going again. The royal remains were returned and the tombs restored. To the credit of all, the monastery was allowed to keep going after the end of Franco’s regime and still exists today as an active monastery. It currently has about 30 monks and is on its 105th Abbot.

Well my drink is empty and yes I am going to pour another and toast Generalissimo Franco. At least on this one thing, he was on the side of the angels. Come again for another story that can be learned from stamp collecting. First published in 2018.

 

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Philippines 1951, The Huks, the foriegn aid scam, and the quiet American

A rare American decolonization struggle. 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.

The stamp today is oversized and from the early 50s. That is a good sign that the aim is the foreign collector, mainly in the USA. At the time the Philippines was the recipient of a great deal of foreign aid, mainly from the USA. It was also asking for more to deal with a communist insurgency, the Hukbalahap, (the Huks). The picture of the harvest paints a picture of aid being used wisely to improve the lot of the rural peasant and thereby lessen the appeal of the communists. A new aid package was given in 1951 so the stamp was successful. Philippines earns double points for implying that the government was paying for the program.

Todays stamp is issue A102, a 5 centavo stamp issued by the Republic of the Philippines on March 1, 1951. It was part of a three  stamp issue in various denominations celebrating the governments peace fund. According to the Scott catalog, the stamp is worth 25 cents.

The USA granted independence to the Philippines on July 4th 1946. Interestingly Philippines celebrates independence in June relating back to the break from Spain in 1898. The government was elected but corrupt with a string of ineffectual presidents. A small communist rebellion started after the government refused to hear the grievances of the peasants. The Huk rebels were lead by veterans of the struggle against the Japanese. The Philippines had yet to enact a land reform to free the peasants from large plantations with absentee landlords.

The Hukbalahap take a break from all the mayhem to read the newspaper. Notice only the leader reads.

The aid pouring in from the USA was both civilian and military. The military aid was directed by a former OSS operative then an Air Force Captain named Edward Lansdale. He became close with Ramon Magsaysay first when he was Defense Minister and later as President of the Philippines. Some sources say they were friends and others say that Lansdale physically beat Magsaysay to get him to do the USA’s bidding. Speak softly and carrying a big stick has always been a USA ideal after all. Either way the Huk rebellion subsided but never fully went away.

Captain Lansdale with President Magsaysay. Now listen Mr. President, do what I say and me and my angry friend leaning against the tree won’t have to get rough with you.

President Magsaysay later died in a plane crash and Lansdale went on to work out of the USA embassy in Saigon, South Vietnam. His work there was rumored to be the basis for the Graham Greene’s novel “The Quiet American.” He is also rumored to be the basis for the character of Col. Hilindale in the book “The Ugly American”. Oliver Stone also has a Lansdale like character dressed like a tramp on JFK’s route in Dallas circa 1963. He apparently got around.

My drink is empty. I have been somewhat sarcastic about Col. Lansdale and he certainly seems to be at the center of a few conspiracy theories. Remember though that the USA was handing out large checks to these countries that certainly did not have to take the money. Isn’t it better that someone was there fighting that the USA got some value for all it’s generosity? Come again  for another story that can be learned from stamp collecting. First published in 2018.