Month: March 2022

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Spain 1984, The Nanny State wants workers to be careful around electricity

Here is a fun style of modern stamp. The watch out for the Boogeyman stamp, where a country uses the post to warn it’s citizens of a danger. In this case it is the danger of an industrial worker getting electrocuted when mishandling electric wires. So you know, watch out! Also slip on your smoking jacket, fill your pipe, trying not to set your self on fire, take your first sip of your adult beverage, but only the first sip because accidents happen to the tipsy, and sit back in your most comfortable chair. Welcome to todays offering from The Philatelist.

This stamp was part of a three stamp safety series. So what hazards did Spain choose to warn. The funniest one is the one where a cartoon style construction worker is falling from great height. Luckily he seems to be falling into a net but what makes it especially funny is his hard hat falling off. We must mandate  chinstraps. The other hazard is fire.

Todays stamp is issue A647, a 16 Peseta stamp issued by Spain on January 25th 1984. According to the Scott catalog, the stamp is worth 25 cents whether mint or used or which denomination in the issue, The low value shows there are not enough topical collectors of nanny state issues.

Deaths from man made electricity first happened in 1879. Arc lighting had an early application in the lighting of a theatrical stage and the first death happened when a stage carpenter touched a 250 volt wire. Soon the high voltage arc lighting was becoming common for night lighting of streets and deaths from touching the wires mounted. Interestingly it was noted that the deaths were near instant and left no marks on the body.

A more modern xenon arc light. Tread lightly.

This quickly lead to the idea of an electric chair as a humane form of execution for criminals. The first use of the electric chair was in the 1890s in New York. The first use was kind of a fiasco. William Kemmler had been sentenced to death for killing his common law wife Tillie with a hatchet. He was shocked with 1000 volts for 17 seconds and declared dead by a doctor. Then witnesses noticed that he was still breathing and the prison warden had the chair restarted at 2000 volts and Kemmler’s body caught fire and the room was permeated with the smell of burning flesh.

Man in electric chair awaiting execution. Nice he wore his Sunday best.

In regard to how common accidental electrocution is in the workplace, the answer is not very. There was a study of five years of electrocution deaths in the Egyptian Journal of Forensic Sciences. Who could have imagined there was such a thing? The methodology was the autopsies on 4000 unnatural deaths. 15 percent of the deaths were by burning and 15 percent of those were caused by electrocution. Every case was accidental. They found about half of the deaths were at home and only 22 percent in the workplace. Doing the math we get that about .5 of one percent of the unnatural deaths in Egypt are caused by accidental workplace execution. Usually the culprit in the death was handling small appliances. Maybe it is time for Egypt to do a stamp on this.

One interesting detail coming from the Egyptian study was that almost 90% percent of the electrocution deaths were of males, most commonly between 18 and 40 years of age. For once it wasn’t women and minorities hardest hit. You can read the study here, https://ejfs.springeropen.com/articles/10.1186/s41935-018-0103-5

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

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Romania 1970, The Problem of Statues

Here we have a statue honoring Romanians and Soviets that fought against fascist forces in World War II Romania twenty five years later. In 1990, it was repurposed to honor World War I fallen. So going from some of sacrificed in the second war to all those sacrificed in the first war. Confusing isn’t it, but creating statues is dangerous stuff in the modern. 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 artist Aida Costantinescu had a challenge. The monument honored communist partisans of two countries, Romania and the Soviet Union. However the stamp might mean more to people if it was more inclusive to include all the fallen. Perhaps that is why the Romanian flag is obvious, but the Russian flag is faded and seems just like a red background. Perhaps if similar care had been taken, the monument might not have been disturbed upon the next revolution.

Todays stamp is issue A658, a 55 Bani stamp issued by Romania on the 25th anniversary of VE Day. It was a single stamp issue. According to the Scott catalog, the stamp is worth 25 cents cancelled to order.

Statuary is a temporary thing. As the Red Army approached in 1944, the Romanian King Michael had Prime Minister Antonescu arrested and appointed a new communist Prime Minister. Antonescu was killed by firing squad after a show trial. The bending with the wind did not save King Michael he was forced to abdicate when the Prime Minister pulled a gun on him. Rough place, but the regime like that is going to be very particular about who it wanted honored.

In the 1990s after the 1989 Revolution, the statue was repurposed but allowed to stand in honor now of less contreversial fallen of World War I. The nearby masuleam that was part of the complex had the remains of the fallen communists replaced by WW 1 remains taken from the main monument of that war.

During the same period after 1989, at least a half dozen statues of firing squad victim Ion Antonescu went up. This time he was revered not just by right wingers but communists who felt left out of the post war government. Apparently he was now a strong leader.

The overkill firing squad for former Prime Minister Antonescu. With that much living in their brain, was post execution rehabilitation inevitable?

This also didn’t last, and like 1945 by decree. Romania wanted to join the European Union. Like the communists of 1945, they had definite ideas on who an EU country could honor, and that did not include Antonescu. The Romanian government was forced to hire a committee led by Ellie Wiesell to put together a case that Antonescu was anti Semetic and responsible for Jewish deaths. Upon receipt of the report, Romania enacted a law against new statues of Antonescu and requiring old ones removed. Of the six statues, one was removed and another was encased in a metal box. With the other statues, private property was claimed.

Other statues went up after the 1989 revolution. Unfortunately, the modern are better at taking down statues instead of creating new ones. A statue meant to illustrate the Romulus and Remis story of the she wolf nursing the Roman leader instead just resembles a naked guy being chased by a stray dog, a common occurrence in Bucharest, but hardly worth a statue. It was later taken down.

Naked man and stray dog statue

Another was the statue commemorating the 1989 revolution. It is meant to convey an idea crystalizing simultaneously among a large crowd. What was built however resembles an obelisk impaling a potato.

Impaled potato statue

Similarly the base of a former statue of Lenin has gone through 17 itinerations since Lenin was removed. Perhaps the eighteenth should just put Lenin back in his place, understanding it was one period in a long history.

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

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North Korea 1978, Before Sanctions, we could admit to, and even Celebrate our Ships

North Korea has always had the ambition to be an exporting nation. To help bring that about, a fleet of maritime cargo vessels was acquired, often from abroad. Now with sanctions on North Korea, as a result of the country’s nuclear program, there can no long be stamps showing off assets, lest they be seized. 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.

North Korea did later have a new stamp issue of Korean ships in 2013. The lead stamp was a ship that did dinner cruises.

Todays stamp is issue A952, a 5 Chon stamp issued by North Korea on May 5th, 1978. It was a five stamp issue showing various cargo ships, freighters, and tankers belonging to North Korea. According to the Scott Catalog, the stamp is worth 25 cents.

The ship on this stamp is the Hyok Sin. It was built in Japan at Mukaishima Shipyard in 1971. The name is a Korean male name but the only prominent Korean with that name I could find was a soccer star born 21 years after the ship was built. The ship served  for 33 years before it was broken up in China in 2004. The Hyok Sin 2 still exists but is not of the same design.

An earlier time when the Hyok Sin was free to roam. It is here seen in Rotterdam in 1980.

The North Korean merchant fleet is managed by a government owned company called Ocean Maritime Management. In 2001 North Korea was named part of the axis of evil by the United States. By 2013 sanctions became universal and United Nations enforced. The sanctions apply directly to Ocean Maritime Management and even the administrators of the company are subject to having their bank accounts seized.

To try to get around the sanctions, North Korean ships now have often changing names. Also shell companies based out of Hong Kong are given theoretical title to the ships. The North Koreans have a sense of humor about it. Among the names chosen for the shell companies are “Trendy Sunshine Limited” and “Advance Superstar”.

It now being almost impossible to acquire new ships from the outside and the fleet aging and indeed shrinking due to ships being seized, North Korea has begun to try to build their own ships. The former ship repair facility at Ryoungnam is now a full shipyard although the output is quite small. The third vessel, the Jang Su San was launched late last year. It was not registered with the International Maritime Organization.

The new to the water Jang Su Sin.

Well my drink is empty. I wonder if Russia is about to receive the same treatment as North Korea. By the time the cancelers are done, perhaps every nation will have been given the same treatment. Come again next Monday for another story that can be learned from stamp collecting.

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Laos 1993, Remembering the origins of the New York City Subway

Laos did something interesting. They gave you a window into the origins of the subway system  of several important world cities. This allows you to contrast the different timeframes, ideas for technology, and methods of management. 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 farm out issue from a country that has no subways in country. Thus perhaps such an issue better belongs with the United Nations Post Office.

Todays stamp is issue A262, a 15 Kip stamp issued by Laos on January 9th, 1993, the 130th anniversary of the worlds first subway. The issue contained five stamps plus a souvenir sheet that contained a sixth, otherwise unissued stamp. The metros of  New York City, Berlin, Paris, London, and Moscow were featured. According to the Scott catalog, the stamp is worth 25 cents whether mint or used.

This stamp shows off New York’s system, so that is what we will cover. The subway got previewed in two ways. In 1869,  Alfred Ely Beach invested $350,000 dollars to construct a 300 foot long, one station pneumatic subway as a demonstration of what could be done. 400,000 people paid to ride it. It took four years to gain approvals from the city to expand it. However in 1873, there was a stock market crash, and Beach was unable to raise the capital needed and he closed the demonstration.

The Beach Pneumatic transit demonstrator. He did manage to build it in 58 days. try that now.

Around the same time the terminus in Queens at the site of the ferry to Manhattan of the Long Island railroad went underground after it was required to not locate the steam train at street level. At first it was just a cut but was later roofed over. Walt Whitman waxed poetic about how going underground gave a wonderful feeling of entering a big city. The use of this tunnel ended when the borough put a large tax on locomotives and the tunnel was sealed up. Later the knowledge of the tunnel underneath became fascinating to the police. During World War I, they dug into it expecting to find a bomb making operation by German spies. In the 1920s, it was again dug into and searched hoping to find a large scale distillery during alcohol prohibition. Nothing was found either time, That was for the best, imagine how bad that water to make the whiskey would have been.

By the 1890s it was realized that it would have to be the government to build a large subway system serving all the boroughs. It was going to be an electric railroad and the timing meant there was an interesting technology choice. At the time there was a current war between the companies of Thomas Edison and of George Westinghouse over how electric current should be delivered. Edison promoted a direct current DC. Westinghouse’s alternating current AC eventually won out but to this day the New York City subway still uses Edison’s DC direct current.

The subway  built out rapidly and peaked out in 1946 at over 2 million annual riders. There was a lot of inflation  in the post war period and reorganizations to cut cost did not succeed. The 5 cent fare went to 15 cents in a six year period and ridership dropped a third. This put on unending hold  on any expansion plans. The citizens could see the system deteriorating and twice passed bond initiatives to modernize and expand the system, however the money raised was syphoned off for other projects.

Starting in 1954, there was a new New York city planner named Robert Moses. He emphasized parks and highways for suburb commuters to easily get into the city by car. Since poor people  of the period did not have cars and were also housed in more large subsidized housing projects that were assessable by the subway but had little car parking, this was hoped to keep crime only in certain neighborhoods. This strategy was later vilified by liberals as racist and when Moses was opposed to a plan to redirect bridge tolls into the city to fund subway shortfalls, he was fired by liberal Republican mayor John Lindsey. The vilification of Moses went so far that a liberal biographer claimed that Moses had tricked his mother into excluding his brother from her estate. It turned out that Moses’s brother was a drug addled bum and his mother had made the decision herself. After Moses budgets then went up but so did crime and ridership continued to drop.

Robert Moses with a model of a commuter bridge that never got built.

Well my drink is empty. With modern standards and small construction crews, it gets ever more difficult to build a new subway. Elon Musk through his operation, “The boring company” is trying to invent new technology for underground emission free travel. Obviously boring has a double meaning to Musk, but I don’t think it’s boring and I hope he is able to pull it off. Come again next Monday for another story that can be learned from stamp collecting.