Month: January 2022

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Great Britain 1935, The Silver Jubilee of King George V

The 25th anniversary of a King’s reign is often a mixed event depending on the remaining health and vigor of the aging royal and assessments of the Reign. King George V was confident enough to go all out for his with a public holiday and much pomp and circumstance. Something went right because here we are still talking about it 87 years later. 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 part of the Jubilee that did no play out well is the stamp value of this stamp. One can imagine the young collector, having enjoyed the holiday and parades soaking this stamp off an envelope that came to his parent’s house in the mail thinking the value would skyrocket at the end of George V’s Reign. Well fast forward 87 years, and if the young collector was blessed enough to still be with us, he will find the value below face value once you adjust for all the inflation. Blame the hobby not the King.

Todays stamp is issue A98, a 1 and a half Pence stamp issued by Great Britain on May 7th, 1935. It was a four stamp issue and the last new stamp of George V’s Reign. According to the Scott Catalog, the stamp is worth 25 cents used.

A Silver Jubilee celebrates 25 years on the Throne. This was the first time Britain had celebrated it. There were Royal Processions and a service of Thanksgiving at Saint Paul’s Cathedral and the Royal Family waved from the balcony of Buckingham Palace. The appearances were so popular that the King took several more open cairrage rides through London for the rest of the month. On one of them, young Princesses Elizabeth and Margaret were along. The waving from the balcony in full regalia happened daily at the same time for a week.

“The Heart of the Empire”. A painting by Frank Salisbury, showing the Jubilee thanksgiving service at Saint Paul’s Cathedral.

Congratulations and thanks came back to the King from some unexpected places. A new Jubilee chicken dish flavored with curry powder and mayonnaise was popular. Funnily, the dish was updated for Queen Elizabeth II’s Golden Jubilee in 2002. The curry, no more India, was replaced by crème, parsley, and lime juice.

In far off Malaya, a businessman who had emigrated from China named Lin Lean Teng who had struck it rich, thanked George V by having a clock tower built in celebration of the Jubilee. It still stands.

The Jubilee Clocktower in Sungai, Patani modern day Malaysia, courtesy of Chinaman Lim Lean Teng

In any big party, there will be a few party poopers. Some on the left pointed out that the government paid a great deal for the celebration at a time when there was much unemployment. Well at least the counter souvenir below had a lite touch to it.

Hah

Well my drink is empty. Here’s hoping Queen Elizabeth makes it for he Diamond Jubilee this year. If the celebration goes on as long as the 1935 one that Elizabeth herself must remember, I will have to buy a new toasting bottle. Perhaps a toasting case. Come again next Monday for another story that can be learned from stamp collecting.

 

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Hungary 2001, Who knew there were 45 Hungarian furniture makers worthy of stamps?

As we consider 21st century stamps, I wonder if we have defined down too far who was deserving of a stamp issue. As we get into pretty obscure figures, there is more chance of learning new stories. The guy today even died under mysterious circumstances in a brothel. I hope I have not just given Hungary an idea who to put on their next 45 stamp issue. 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.

I was drawn to this stamp by the dull colors that defined Hungarian stamps after the cold war regime and the bright colored kid oriented farm out issues of that period to before the modern era where the look and feel of those issues has been recreated. Looking up the stamp however shows it part of a 45 stamp issue that came out over twelve years. Was Hungary that important in furniture? It isn’t now though nearby Germany and Poland are big exporters of furniture. China is far and away the largest producer.

Todays stamp is issue A1091, a 200 Florint stamp issued by Hungary in 2001. 7 stamps of the ultimate 45 came out that year. According to the Scott catalog, the stamp is worth 25 cents used.

This stamp features a settee made by furniture maker Sebestyen Vogel in 1810. Mr. Vogel’s family came from Saxony in Germany but his father died when he was 6 and the next year his widowed mother remarried a guild belonging furniture wood joiner in Budapest. After working in his stepfather’s shop he got a valuable apprenticeship in Vienna. Remember this was the period of Hapsburg rule of both places. Returning to Budapest, Vogel had great ambitions that would see his furniture widely exported to places like Russia and Transylvania. He thought that the volume of Hungarian wood needed would expand new avenues of trade. With this as a premise, he petitioned the Kaiser to be allowed the use of duty free Royal warehouse located in many cities throughout the empire. After several years, Vogel was granted what he sought and his workshop employed over 130 furniture builders and was tied for the biggest furniture operation in the Empire, and the largest in Budapest.

The furniture style being made was not original. More ornate/gaudy versions of French styles called Egyptized. It was the time of Napoleon. The concern was also able to do copies of the German Biedermeier style and the British Hepplewhite style.

By the 1820s, the style of the furniture changed but not due to developing something unique. Rather the commissions coming in were for standardized simple designs appropriate for government and big business offices.

I can find no work of what became of Vogel’s workshop after his death in the Theresianstadt brothel in 1837 at age 58. Not much of the furniture survives although the Museum of Applied Arts in Budapest has a few pieces including the settee on the stamp.

From Vogel’s more ornate period, a fold out Biedermeier style writing desk.

 

Well my drink is empty. Come again next Monday for another story that can be learned from stamp collecting.

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Australia 1983, Can ANZCER become CANZUK, and should it?

This stamp commemorates an agreement to free up trade and travel restrictions between Australia and New Zealand. Understanding that I have just lost half of this week’s readers, 39 years later it might be fun to examine if ANZCER worked as intended and perhaps even if it should be built upon. 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 this week’s offering from The Philatelist.

The picture below shows the charmingly black and white photo of the charmingly grey second string politicians that signed the agreement in 1983. By the time of the signing the terms of the agreement were already in effect and even this stamp was already issued. So for the stamp we get an 80s stylized emblem of a kiwi bird and I think a wombat no doubt hiding out together from the indigenous predators. You might think this a little dated, but the stamp was reissued in 2013 and what really proved dated was the 27 cent denomination.

New Zealander and British High Commissioner Laurie Francis(left) and then Australian Deputy Prime Minister Lionel Bowen signing the ANZCER agreement on March 28th, 1983

Todays stamp is issue A325, a 27 cent stamp issued by Australia on February 2nd, 1983. It was a single stamp issue. According to the Scott Catalog, the stamp is worth 50 cents (American) unused. The value of the 2013 reissue catapults to 70 cents unused.

Australia and New Zealand started out as separate, self-governing British colonies. The British Queen is still Head of State of both countries. In 1965, Australia and New Zealand signed their own NAFTA agreement cutting tariffs between the two countries 80%. There were fears in Australia about being flooded with cheap New Zealand dairy products, but the decision was made to take integration further by cutting tariffs to zero and allowing the free movement and right to work of people between the two countries. These provisions of the ANZCER agreement took full effect in 1990. Below are two graphs of each country’s exports to the other since the agreement. The graphs show the trend as up, up, and away but you should remember how much inflation there has been in the last 39 years. This 1983 stamp denomination should remind.

Australian exports to New Zealand since the agreement pre COVID
New Zealand exports to Australia since the agreement pre COVID

Being seen as a success, modern politicians of both left and right in both counties have spoken in generic terms of expanding the integration. However in 2015 a new group got started with the acronym CANZUK, that proposes a similar to ANZCER relationship that includes the United Kingdom and Canada. They point out that all the countries share the Queen as Head of State, similar Parliamentary and legal systems, similar standards of living and growth rates. There is sort of lead balloon aspect of no home rule empire reconstituted to CANZUK, but the right-wing party in Canada and only them have endorsed it. As an outsider American, I can see the bigger problem. The group lacks a popular emblem that adds an English bulldog and a Newfoundlander dog to the kiwi bird and the wombat hiding out together from the indigenous predators. Guys you have to learn to sell your ideas!

Well my drink is empty. Come again next Monday for a new story that can be learned from stamp collecting.

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USA 2006, Remembering Actress and Singer Judy Garland

A controversial aspect of modern stamp issues is issuing stamps not just of a country’s statesman, but cultural figures, even low culture. Some collectors avoid this by ending their collection at World War II. Not here at The Philatelist, where with Judy Garland we get to learn about soaring movies like Wizard of Oz, Meet me in Saint Louis, and A Star is Born filled with sad heart strings songs Garland later sang at swank dinner clubs on two continents. Part of the story also though is multiple marriages, affairs, abortions, breakdowns, drug abuse, tax leins, suicide attempts, and an early death. Maybe the traditional stamp collector has a point sticking with Queen Victoria and George Washington. 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.

In her teens, Metro Golden Mayer studios marketed Judy Garland as the girl next door going so far as having her diet and exercise to prevent curves from forming on her under five foot frame. Garland rebelled against that and after the success of The Wizard of Oz she was allowed to glamourize and appear in a successful string of musicals aimed at adults. A portrait from this period is perhaps how Garland would want to be remembered and what the United States Postal Service offered.

Todays stamp is issue A3117, a 39 cent stamp issued by the USA on June 10th, 2006.The date would have been her 84th birthday. It as a single stamp issue. According to the Scott catalog, the stamp is worth 1$ unused.

Judy Garland was born into a vaudeville performing musical family in 1922. Her birth name was Francis Ethel Gumm. Beginning at age two, she performed with her sisters as the Gumm Sisters with her mother accompanying on piano. Their manager thought that Gumm Sisters sounded too much like Glum Sisters, and Judy picked Garland after her manager said she was as pretty as a garland of flowers. The family relocated to southern California when she was thirteen and now Judy Garland was signed to MGM studios after being spotted singing Yiddish songs in a Vaudeville style revue. Her first movies were semi successful and often paired her with boy actor Mickey Rooney.

The Gumm, not glum, Sisters. Francis, er Judy Garland is at the bottom at age 13
Judy Garland early with Mickey Rooney

The biggest success of her life came at age 17 playing Dorothy in the Wizard of Oz. It came at a troubled time in her personal life. Her first chosen affair ended badly after her intended eloped with Lana Turner. On her 18th birthday, she attempted to announce an engagement to her new musician fellow, but he was still married to Ethel Merman. The studio convinced Judy to wait a year until his divorce went through and also to abort his child to not complicate her film schedule. No surprise that marriage didn’t last.

Her success earned her more adult roles and she married Vincent Minnelli, her frequent movie director. By this point she was taking heavily barbiturates and morphine. When the first of her films failed at the box office, MGM let Garland go not willing to put up with the expensive delays that happened when you hired her. She had a mental breakdown and cut her neck and wrists in a suicide attempt. This story got out and Garland was highly embarrassed thinking that everyone was looking for her scars.

She did find a new success away in London performing musically live both her movie songs and her earlier vaudeville material at the London Palladium. This was quite lucrative but her now third manager husband was not making sure her taxes were being paid and her big payday was seized by the IRS. The success however lead to her last big movie musical, a remake of A Star is Born. The production of the movie was as troubled however as her late MGM work.

Just 10 years later, a publicity picture from her time at the London Palladium

After a brief American variety TV show that had Garland singing with Frank Sinatra and Robert Goullet was cancelled, to was shown opposite Bonanza, Garland was back to London trying to recreate her live success from years before. Her performances were hit or miss. She by now was on her 6th husband and her health was failing. She died at age 47 of a barbiturate overdose complicated by scerosis of the liver. The death was ruled accidental because though she had 10 barbiturate capsules in her system, her jar was still half full and she had another unopened jar with 100 capsules.

Judy Garlands 6th marriage, three months before her death in 1969. Thats not Tom Jones.

Well my drink is empty. Learning about this type of person with super high highs and deep lows takes it out of you. Come again next Monday for another new story that can be learned from stamp collecting.

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East Germany 1961, Walter Ulbricht, the other WWI German corporal turned leader with funny facial hair

The old pre Hitler communists returned by air from their exile at the Luxe Hotel in Moscow on April 30th, 1945. Their motto was, everything must look democratic, but we must control everything. Was this the formula for success? 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 is a common bulk postage stamp that exists in most all collections. So why am I writing it up? Well, despite owning this stamp for over 40 years, I had no idea who this guy was. Let us extrapolate that I am not the only one and expand our storehouse of knowledge.

Today stamp is issue A189, a 10 pfennig stamp issued by East Germany starting in 1961. There were 17 issues in different denominations coming out as late as 1971. According to the Scott catalog, the stamp is worth 25 cents whether mint or used. As bulk postage, an intact 8 stamp booklet pane is rarer, and pushes the value to $10.50.

Walter Ulbricht was born in Leipzig in 1893, the son of a tailor. He studied as a carpenter and though very opposed to the wat, was drafted into the World War I German Army. In 1918 he deserted while serving in the Balkans and was jailed. After the war Ulbricht was radicalized and rose quickly in the ranks of the Communist party. He was a street brawler who often fought with his contemporary Nazi and Monarchist street brawlers. There was an interesting night in 1931 when Ulbricht debated the also then out of power local Nazi head Josef Goebbels. The debate got so heated that the two men came to blows and a riot ensued.

When the Nazis came to power, Ulbricht went into exile first in Paris then in Spain. In Spain his job was to rout out and assassinate Germans fighting on the Republican side of the Spanish civil war who were not adequately loyal to Stalin. He then moved to Moscow at the famous Luxe Hotel with other international communists. This was during Stalin’s purges and he was very suspicious of residents of that luxury hotel as a den of spies. Many were removed in the middle of the night. Of the 1400 German communists that went into exile, 222 were killed by the Nazis and 178 were killed by Stalin. No word on how many the monarchists got.

Moscow’s Hotel Luxe, the dangerous home away from home for German communists

Back in Germany in 1945, Ulbricht proved very effective at routing out rivals who could not be relied upon. He was appointed head of state in 1963 under the new title Chairman, his predecessor had been President. He tried to lessen influence of the west and stem the flow of German goodies eastward. Fellow Warsaw Pact countries would have to pay for more advanced East German technology and goods. No more reparations.

Ulbrecht was very concerned about western youth culture seeping into East Germany. He gave a famous “Yea, yea, yea” speech asking his comrades if it was correct to import every piece of western dirt just to have the young mindlessly chant yea, yea, yea referring to the lyrics of the Beatles song “She loves you”.

Ulbricht’s concerns culminated in requesting permission from the Soviets for building the Berlin wall that forever tainted his legacy. In his last years he was not popular in the east either as he never forgot to remind that East Germany was the wealthiest communist nation. He died in 1973.

Ulbricht married twice and also had an out of wedlock child between. His last wife Lotte was his secretary during his years at the Luxe Hotel in Moscow. Being younger, she stayed on in Berlin till 2002 in a house on Majakowskiring, the street of mansions that had been set aside for East Germany’s rulers. After German reunification, she attributed the failure of East Germany on Ulbrecht’s successors.

Walter and Lotte Ulbricht at the 1964 Leipzig Trade Fair.

Well my drink is empty and this fellow seems a little rough around the edges to toast, so instead I will toast nice beards. Very few can pull it off. Come again next Monday for another story that can be learned from stamp collecting.

Writers Note. This is the first all new article I have written since spring. Google adsense demonetized me and so I could not continue to crank out five articles a week. I did miss it though, so I will start again writing one new article a week that will publish on Mondays.