Month: May 2023

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Mongolia 1990, We few Mongols should not make each others noses bleed

What do you do when a country’s leadership no longer has their heart in it. Perhaps the correct path is to quietly resign and spend the rest of your life tending your garden. That is what was happened in Mongolia. 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 topical farm out stamp shows a Siberian musk deer. The genus name is used on the stamp to down play the Siberian. They do exist in Mongolia but the species is on the decline as it is heavily poached both for meat and for it’s musk glands. The world population is down to an estimated 230,000, about 40,000 in Mongolia.

Todays stamp is issue A419a, a 60 Mung stamp issued by the still barely People’s Republic of Mongolia on September 26th, 1990. It was a four stamp issue displaying different views of the Siberian musk deer. According to the Scott Catalog, the stamp is worth 35 cents cancelled to order.

I while back I did a stamp on the Sukibator, the axe hero of Mongolia, see https://the-philatelist.com/2019/01/11/mongolia-1932-remembering-sukhe-bator-the-axe-hero-of-mongolia/   . You don’t have the wildness af axe heroes unless the pro Soviet communists in charge are passionate about what they are doing.  That passion continued under the long rule of Yumjaagiin Tsedenbal who sided decisively with the Soviets at the time of the split with China in 1960. A big Stalin guy who even had a Russian wife. His time had perhaps past when he was in Moscow lobbying the Soviets to take a harder line in the cold war. Instead the Soviets decided to keep Y. T. in Moscow and pass Mongolian leadership to technocrat Jambyn Batmonkh.

General Secretary Jambyn Batmonkh

Batmonkh would tell you he accomplished much in his six years regarding power grids and coal mines and railways. He would be correct but he could also read the writing on the wall. The Soviets had pulled their troops out of Mongolia voluntarily and the anti communist protests that swept the world in 1989 hit Mongolia at the end of the year. Batmonck instructed that no force be used against the protestors. The demands of the protestors were however ignored and they began a large hunger strike.

The Politburo became concerned at Batmonkh’s inaction and wrote a decree for him to sign to crack down hard on the protestors. They called him in after hours to sign it and he flatly refused. Batmonkh stated that we few Mongols should not make each others noses bleed and he resigned on the spot and encouraged the Politburo to do the same. The technocrat had finally inspired and the Politburo indeed did resign. An election to chose a new government happened a few months later.

Batmonkh was done with politics and spent the rest of his life tending his garden. Him and the former first lady could often be spotted at the farmers market selling their produce. If asked, and only if asked, he would tell you that he thought he did a better job that those that came later. He definitely could have done worse.

Well my drink is empty and I will be happy to pour another to toast Jambyn Batmonkh. After all it is not just Mongols who desire their noses not to bleed. Come again soon for another story that can be learned from stamp collecting. First published in 2020.

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Costa Rica 1950, Memo to Waterlow and Sons, Our politicos are nothings, can you give us a more dignified look?

I love to write about an industry in some far off place that I knew nothing about. So today we get the story of the Costa Rica cow. So slip on your leather 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.

Putting the regal portrait of the cow on the stamp did not happen the way I implied in the title of this piece. The stamps celebrated an Agricultural exhibition and our friend the cow had to share the issue with tuna fisherman, coffee pickers, pineapples, and of course bananas.

Todays stamp is issue AP 51, a 1 centimo airmail stamp issued by Costa Rica on July 27th, 1950. It was a 14 stamp issue in various denominations. According to the Scott catalog, the stamp is worth 60 cents unused. The denomination of 1 centimo seemed low to me for an airmail stamp and boy howdy was it. A centimo is today worth .000018 of a US dollar.

Cattle Ranching in Costa Rica was introduced in Spanish times. It is not an ideal place for ranching as the grasses they graze leave the beef tough and the cows have a low fertility. The place still took off as a center of cattle ranching  thanks to America and more precisely the Peace Corps. In the 1960s the director of American aid work pitched to Montana cattle ranchers the benefits of operations in Costa Rica. The land cost of a large ranch in Costa Rica was less than half that of Montana. The real kicker was the annual cost of servicing a cow in the herd was $25 US versus $95 in Montana. The beef would then be deboned and frozen in Costa Rica for export to the USA getting the same price as Montana beef. The beef, almost all from bulls, would be ground into hamburger meat. The problem with low fertility was cured by shooting the cows up with “vitamins”.

Beef is still a big export of Costa Rica and employs 12 percent of the workforce. The cows are however 30% of the countries’ emissions. You thought I was the gasbag. There are also concerns about deforestation in Cost Rica caused by the cattle ranches. Here the government offers a solution. There is a scheme that encourages the ranchers to plant more hedges and if they do the government will sell them a certification of climate neutral beef. The scheme is called the Costa Rica Livestock NAMMA Concept. What a concept that is.

Well my drink is empty but I am left with more respect for the noble cow. He sure has to go through a lot to bring wealth to absentee American landowners in his country. Come again soon for another story that can be learned from stamp collecting. First published in 2020.

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Great Britain 1982, Sea Lord Jacky Fisher’s Dreadnaught gives the other fellows something to dread

Given stamp lead times, the stamp designers could not have imagined how much Britain would be thinking about their fleet that spring. It proved a great time to remind of the tradition that was being built on. 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 lead times meant that this set of stamps lacked the current Sea Lord and his innovative through deck cruiser the HMS Invincible that was proving itself in the South Atlantic. Well not really, it broke down making the older bigger HMS Hermes more key. Kind of like HMS Dreadnaught in WW1 actually. That is the real failing of this issue, it is a little too much in the past.

Todays stamp is issue A314, a 26 Penny stamp  issued by Great Britain on June 16th, 1982. It was a 5 stamp issue in various denominations. According to the Scott catalog, the stamp is worth 50 cents used.

Lord Jacky Fisher became First Sea Lord in 1906. His first act was to retire a number of older ships to free up resources for innovative new ships that naval rivals couldn’t match. An Italian naval architect had proposed to their navy a new class of battleship that  would have all big guns so unprecedented firepower. When his own country didn’t bite he authored an article in Jane’s Fighting Ships that everyone read. Fisher went two better than the Italians. His HMS Dreadnaught would have all big guns but also have 10 knots more speed thanks to the new geared steam turbine propulsion invented by Parsons. British construction prowess would see that it was built in only 1 year. Current Flagships take 10 years or more to build. Thus it was Britain that was first with the most powerful ship. Both Japan and the USA had started construction of innovative battleships before HMS Dreadnaught but theirs only came on line years later, and in Japan’s case short of guns. The innovation of the ship meant that the new battleship from anywhere was known as a small d dreadnaught but earlier ships were now predreadnaughts. A dreadnaught is an old term for a heavy raincoat.

The ship became famous with a different crowd for attracting a notorious hoax. A group of Bloomsberry literary bohemians, some female, dressed up in blackface and Arab male gettup presenting themselves as a Royal Delegation from Abyssinia (modern Eritrea) in Africa. The lead Hoaxer was Irishman Horace de Vere Cole. He had previously presented himself in a similar getup to Cambridge where he was a student as the uncle of the Sultan of Zanzibar. The Captain of HMS Dreadnaught was fooled and gave them a personal tour of the ship.

HMS Dreadnaught hoaxers

When war came the dreadnaughts proved to be not so valuable. No fleet just sent them out to go head to head as they were just so expensive. HMS Dreadnaught did manage to sink a German U boat  by ramming it using that extra speed. This was the only sinking of a submarine by a battleship. During the war the all big gun proved wrong and many small antiaircraft guns were added. The ship was quickly retired and scrapped after the war. By then Lord Fisher had moved on to incorporating turbine power to create super cruisers, the battlecruiser.

Well my drink is empty and i am wondering if it would be wrong to toast both the sailor and the hoaxer. Perhaps if I pour two more, a capital (ship) idea. Come again soon for another story that can be learned from stamp collecting. First published in 2020.

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Bahamas 1979, UNESCO warns of child abductions, I mean celebrates the year of the child

When the UN makes a silly proclamation like this, poor countries line up to be a part of it. They hope that there will be help forthcoming. There won’t be of course, none of this is about them. 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.

As far as the appearance of this stamp, my initial take is that they wouldn’t present it like this 40 years on. On further reflection, of course they would. The children of the poor country appear friendly and the place name on the stamp tells all you need to know of their need. The international symbol of whatever tells you the help expected must come from outside.

Todays stamp is issue A64, a 5 cent stamp issued by the Bahamas on May 15th, 1979. It was a four stamp issue in various denominations. According to the Scott Catalog, the stamp is worth 25 cents whether it is mint or used.

UNESCO declared 1979 the “Year of the Child” in a declaration signed by then UN General Secretary Kurt Waldheim. The UN made the standard noises about childhood malnutrition and lack of access to education. What it really was about though was a pop concert held in New York City. Several prominent artists agreed to give the royalties from their then current single to the UN and signed a parchment scroll that they believed in UNESCO’s mission.

Concert Poster

The concert, hosted by David Frost, was a bust. Elton John didn’t show up, well his autobiographical movie told us what his schedule was like then. The Bee Gees and Abba showed up but just lip synced “Too Much Heaven” and “Chiquita” Well the Bee Gees really singing it might well have been too much heaven. Rod Stewart really sang “Do Ya think I’m sexy”, apparently a question he really wanted answered. The concert raised less that one million dollars. The song royalties didn’t really pan out as they were time limited. The proceeds barely paid for the new statue honoring UNESCO, excuse me “the Family” at the Palace of Justice in Geneva. I did a stamp on the Palace of Justice here, https://the-philatelist.com/2017/11/07/the-league-gets-a-palace-but-so-late-they-just-leave-it-empty/ .

Could the year of the child really have been that shallow? Well not exactly though it took ten more years to happen. The year was part of the build up to the passing of the Convention on the Rights of the Child. This again had nothing to do with poor children in the third world but rather was a template for rewriting laws in the west regarding sentences for juvenile criminals and even parents regarding spanking children. Most countries signed on but swore to ignore what they found intrusive. Over time however standards did change. The USA no longer executes for crimes committed by those under 18 and in Canada you can’t spank. India passed a law against child labour that they don’t yet enforce.

Well my drink is empty and I have time for a few more while waiting for the UN to help the third world child. Come again soon for another story that can be learned from stamp collecting. First published in 2020.

 

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Canada 1979, keeping the Canadian aerospace industry going with the CL-215 Scooper water bombers

There was a lot of Canadian airplane manufacturing through the war. Keeping that ability going afterwards has proved difficult. What has helped was developing planes suited to Canada’s needs, and then allowing them to find a wider market. 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.

Water bombers are very useful in fighting forest fires in remote areas. Canada has a lot of areas like that so it is understandable that they take a special interest in this type of plane. This stamp issue shows the interesting progression of water bombers in Canada. From water bombers imported from the USA, through Canadian assembled and modified versions culminating in the CL-215, a Canadian design sold worldwide. Progress is a wonderful thing to display on a stamp.

Todays stamp is issue A405, a 17 cent stamp issued by Canada on November 15th, 1979. It was a four stamp issue showing water bombers in Canada. According to the Scott catalog, the stamp is worth 25 cents used.

Water bombers are large flying boats that scoop up water from lakes, mix the lake water with fire retardant, bombard a fire with the water and then repeat. Canadair Aircraft grew out of an operation of the British Vickers aircraft operations out of the old airport in Montreal, Quebec. The operation were nationalized by the Canadian national government. In the 1950s the operations were merged with General Dynamics, a coming together of many old American aviation and ship building names. Among the designs under General Dynamics control was the aging Consolidated PBY Catalina flying boat. Canadair began to to make these as the Canso in Montreal.

Canadair realized their might be a market for a more purpose built water bomber. They designed a more modern airframe and had the CL-215 Scooper first flown in 1968. One interesting choice they made was to use the old Pratt and Whitney radial engine from the Catalina. This engine was actually no longer in production, so the new plane came with rebuilt old engines. This made the plane cheaper and shows how much the new relied on the old. By then it was the only new build flying boat anywhere in the west and found a small but steady world market for many years.

To keep Canadair going in the 1970s, the Canadian government bought it from General Dynamics and invested heavily in the Challenger business jet. The more right wing 80s Canadian government  sold off Canadair’s Montreal operations to Toronto based Bombardier. This included the tiny water bomber flying boat business. The flying boats finally gained a turboprop engine in the 1990s and remained in production until 2015 with a total production run of 215 airplanes over 46 years. Bombardier had by then run into trouble making low margin regional jet airliners based on the higher margin executive jets competing with lower cost Embrear of Brazil.

The story does not end there, British Columbia based Viking Air bought the rights from various failing Canadian plane makers to most all the old bush planes like the Beaver the Otter  the Dash 7 and even the Northern Irish Skyvan. Over the years there were many of these planes built but with nothing more modern replacing them they went on. Viking gradually developed the capability to build new, modernized copies of the old planes. Viking has now received a few orders for their CL-515 upgrade of the old CL-215 so the story of Canadian flying boat water bombers goes on. They are now called Super Scoopers.

Well my drink is empty and one can imagine it requires a great deal of government subsidies to keep a production line existing on such tiny volume. Bet they vote left. Come again soon. for another story that can be learned from stamp collecting.

Corona Virus update. This is something I never thought I would write. Since I wrote this article a few weeks ago, the Scooper has been in the headlines. Examples in the service of Spain have been used to spray disinfectant over Spanish cities to fight the virus. I hope it helps as Spain has been very hard hit. Be safe out there. First published in 2020.

 

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East Germany 1970, How much is the Vietnam war costing us? Surely more than 5 Pfennig

1970 was a strange time in both Germanys. They were both being ruled by those who had spent much time in exile. For East Germany that meant making large donations to the North’s war effort in Vietnam. This fit the former exiles view of Germany’s need to support internationalists movements that the exiles were a part of. It must have seemed strange to the average East German seeing Ho Chi Minh memorialized and have to pay extra for privilege. 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.

Notice the presentation of Ho Chi Minh as a simple peasant leader. This was wrong. He was a world traveler who had received free to him training in France, the USA, China, and the Soviet Union. So the reality was he bore more of a strong resemblance to Germany’s long exile leaders than the peasants in the rice field.

Todays stamp is issue SP23, a semi postal 25 +5 Pfennig stamp issued by East Germany on September 2nd, 1970. It was a single stamp issue in memorial for Ho Chi Mihn, the Vietnamese leader. The 5 Pfennig extra was a donation to North Vietnam’s war effort. According to the Scott catalog, the stamp is worth 25 cents whether used or unused.

East Germany had been helping the communist North as early as the 1950s. At first it was mostly scholarships for Vietnamese to study in East German Universities. When the war in South East Asia heated up  so did East German aid. Germany did not sent combat troops but between 1966-1972 there were usually about 200 members of the East German military in North Vietnam acting as trainers. Where their presence was most felt was allowing the Stasi to organize the North Vietnamese secret police. This force still exists as North Vietnam won the war and the communists never lost power in Vietnam.

Oddly, the East German aid for the secret police sort of backfired. Communists in North Vietnam were divided among those who followed the Soviet Union and those that followed China. Ho Chi Minh was the leader of the pro Soviet faction. The secret police were more a tool of the pro Chinese side in the days after the death of Ho Chi Minh in the purging of the pro Soviets.

East Germany was not done helping out Vietnam. In the 1980s there were as many as 59,000 guest workers in East Germany. They were paid 400 Marks a month, of which 50 Marks was paid to the government of Vietnam. After reunification, united Germany tried to get the Vietnamese guest workers to leave. They offered free travel and 3,000 Marks to go home. Most stayed however and their numbers actually rose from Vietnamese guest workers coming in from other eastern European countries.

There was another German involvement in Vietnam wars though it was earlier and on the other side. Many veterans of Germany’s World War II war effort served in the French Foreign Legion post war. Some were from German areas of France that would not be welcome at home post war and some just wanted to continue the struggle against the communists. 37,000 Germans fought with the French Foreign Legion in French Indo China up to the time of the French defeat there in 1954. No stamps for them of course, they were now in exile.

Well my drink is empty and I will pour another to toast an American General named Ridgeway. He tried to warn on the futility of getting involved in an Asian land war, but was not listened to. Come again soon for another story that can be learned from stamp collecting. First published in 2020.

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Philippine Commonwealth 1939, the Place of the Fisherman becomes the Palace of the Bigshots

It is very hot in the Philippines. In the days before air conditioning it was common for men of means to have a summer place on the water. When one of those passed to the Spanish Colonial Government, the sweating profusely Spaniards saw the wisdom of moving their residence to Malacanang,(place of the fisherman in tagalog). 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 stamp is from a strange period of the Palace. On one hand, the Palace is still described with the Americanized version of the name, without the g on the end and that still is an American flag flying over it. On the other hand, for the first time in the already long history of the place, a Filipino Bigshot, President Quezon was in residence.

Todays stamp is issue A73, a 6 Centavo stamp issued by the Commonwealth of the Philippines on November 15th,1939. The Commonwealth was the period from 1936-1946, rudely interrupted by the Japanese Second Republic, when the area was transitioning from being an American colony. It was a three stamp issue in various denominations. According to the Scott catalog the stamp is worth 25 cents. In 1944, a batch of this stamp was overstamped by hand “Victory”, that raises the value to $350.

The now large complex was built as a summer residence for a private citizen Spanish Don in 1750 on the Pasig river. It was built in the bahay na bato style that takes influences of Spanish colonial, Chinese traders, and takes into account the flooding and earthquakes that it will be subject to. The interior was paneled in fine narra and molave wood. The house passed to the Spanish Colonial government in 1825. The Palace has been expanded many times as have the grounds especially during the American period. President Marcos even added an attic discotech. Well it was the 1970s and unfortunately the noise pollution coming from the attic was joined by a bad smell from the Pasig river that was becoming quite polluted. The Palace became home to 18 Spanish Governors General, 14 American Governors including future American President Taft and Douglas Macarthur’s father. Many, but not all Philippine Presidents took up residence. The clan nature of politics there saw Gloria Aroyo live there as a child when her father was President before her own term.

The period between the Spanish and the American colonial period around the turn of the 20th century was known as the First Filipino Republic under President Aquinaldo. He did not live in the Palace but after surrendering was held prisoner there. There was an incident when then young aid but future President Quezon surrendered to the Americans in order to confirm Aquinaldo was being held. He was taken to the Palace and presented to future Filipino Campaign hero Douglas Macarthur’s father. The General than showed Quezon in to Aquinaldo and Quezon whispered in tagalog. “Good evening Mr. President”.

1940 view

Things got a little wild again in 1986 at the end of Marcos’ long rule. There was a contested election and both Corazon Aquino and Marcos declared victory. On the same day there were even rival inaugurations with Marcos’s reup happening in the Palace. What Cory Aquino’s People Power/Yellow Revolution (Aquino was of Chinese heritage), could not match was the last hurrah of First Lady Imelda. She went on the front balcony and sang to well wishers.

Because of you, I became Happy

Loving I shall offer you

If it is true, I shall be enslaved by you

All of this because of You

The broadcast of this spectacle kept interrupting as tv stations fell to the other side. Marcos ordered the jets flying over not to bomb the protesters and soon enough he was being flown out from the Palace grounds on an American search and rescue helicopter. When you give in to people power often they invade your house. Stealing Imelda’s many shoes is now pretty famous but the mobs have gotten in 3 more times since, in 1999 and twice in 2001.

current view

Well my drink is empty and I will pour another to toast fine palaces and suggest strong gates. Come again soon for another story that can be learned from stamp collecting. First published in 2020.

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Rwanda 1967, Belgium turns on the lights in the capital before it turns out the lights on the colony

I do like victory lap stamps like the type the British often do just before when they send a colony off on it’s own. They show achievements left for the country. Belgium didn’t do such stamps for Rwanda. Getting out of Africa would not have seemed like a victory. But there were small ones, like leaving the capital Kigali with sustainable, non polluting hydroelectric electricity. Luckily Rwanda itself showed off what was done. 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 big well printed stamp for 1967. Why not a modern hydroelectric plant is not what  you would expect to find in 1960s Africa where there was nothing resembling a power grid as such. Remember all of same era machinations in Egypt to get someone else to pay for the Aswan Dam they desired on the Nile.

Todays stamp is issue A33 a 20 Centimes stamp issued by Rwanda on March 6th, 1967. It was a 6 stamp issue showing off the Ntaruka power plant coexisting  with area fauna. According to the Scott catalog, the stamp is worth 25 cents whether used or unused.

There was very little electricity in Rwanda during colonial times. Belgium had intended to make a profit on their African colonies so no investment was made without a quick rate of return. That changed a little toward the end. Two hydroelectric plants were built on the Mukungua and the Rusizi Rivers in the late 1950s to supply electricity at least to the capital.

Power generation has not been a strength of Rwanda. Even in 2019 only 51 percent of Rwandans have access to electricity. 90% of the energy for cooking in the country comes from burning firewood. There were no new power plants built in Rwanda between 1959 and 1982. The troubles of the mid 1990s lead to output falling to below the level of colonial days. This is even worse than it sounds as the population was growing very fast having tripled since independence.

The situation has begun to improve in this century. Three new hydroelectric power plants have come on line since 2010 and there are projects for four more. There are also new thermal power plants coming along that seek to extract natural gas dissolved in Lake Kivu. A domestically sourced coal fired electric station has also recently come on line. There is some solar but this is mainly solar panels on roofs of buildings that have no other power to access. The Government hopes to be able to offer electricity to 100% of the people by 2024. Most of the new power plants are owned by the Rwandan government and built and financed by China.

Well my drink is empty. Come again soon for another story that can be learned from stamp collecting. First published in 2020,