One nice thing in common between the Socialist. I believe they now prefer Progressive, and National Socialist, I believe they now prefer Christion Nationalist, governments is they often portray the simple worker in a positive, even heroic light. Here we have a rancher from the then Province of Ribatego. So slip on your smoking jacket, fill your pipe, take your first sip of your adult beverage after you are done riding fences on the lower 40 acres. Welcome to todays offering from The Philatelist.
When we romanticize hard work such as done by this Portuguese rancher, we airbrush out the toll that it takes on him physically. However what we should not do is forget what such productivity does for his soul. Perhaps hard work followed by a younger retirement age is the answer.
Todays stamp is issue A134, a 1.75 Escudo stamp issued by Portugal on April 4th, 1941, It was part of a 10 stamp issues featuring different regions and tradespeople. According to the Scott catalog, the stamp is worth $4.00 used. The value of this high denomination bulk postage issue rises to $40 unused, as bulk stamps were for actual mail.
The region presented was the then Province of Ribatego. Ribatego literally means up the Tagus River relative to Lisbon at the river’s mouth. The large area, with no border to the ocean or Spain is not densely populated region. The large river crossing it makes it uniquely suited to agriculture especially cattle ranching.
I mentioned that this stamp came from a time of a national socialist government in Portugal. In the early seventies, there was a revolution that changed that. The new center left government meant change was coming to Ribatego Province. At the demand of the European Union regional lines were redrawn with most of Ribatego finding itself in the newly created Santarem. The Santarem region is named for the largest city in the area.
If one senses a shift in this from productive rural living to the cities, I believe that would be correct. Now Portugal has to spend two and a half percent of gross national product to import enough food.
A search today of ranching in Portugal gets two main results, one hopeful and one sad. The sad one was ranches being sold for high prices to be vacation homes and Air B+Bs for people from somewhere else.
The more hopeful one was from a regional state park offering jobs helping look after their herd for younger would be ranchers. This probably won’t last with the excuse of climate change offered, but I for one am excited at the idea of the young experiencing ranching.
Well my drink is empty and there are many chores to get to. Come again soon for another story to be learned from stamp collecting.