Month: March 2025

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Belgium 1955, should this textile alegory be updated to reflect 30 Euro a month workers in Bangladesh?

The industrial revolution began in Britain and spread throughout Europe. Textile were a big part, first clothes and later carpets. A key skill in big European cities is hosting conventions. Thus the big exhibition in textiles was this year in Barcelona, not Dacca or Abbes Ababa where the employment has gone. 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 1950s were a great time for industry. Unions were seeing to it that workers were getting ahead and societies wealth was rising fast enough that costs could be passed on to the consumer and thus the industrialist were also prospering. In 1951, it was Paris’s turn to get the ball rolling on large post war international textile exhibition and four years later it was the turn of Brussels. The majesty of this stamp shows how serious the country took the exhibition. The facilities of the Free University of Brussels were used and 12 academic papers on field advancements from around the West were presented.

Todays stamp is issue A117, a 2 Franc stamp issued by Belgium on May 11th, 1955. It was a single stamp issue celebrating the International Textile Exhibition to be held in June that year. According to the Scott catalog, the stamp is worth 25 cents used.

In the USA, 95 percent of textile mills closed in the 1980s and 1990s. Belgium has faired a little better. The country still employs 42,000 people in the industry, this number drops 1-2000 a year. Update, now down to 17,000. This is a little less than one percent of the countries workforce. In the 1970s, developed nations noticed the movement of production to the third world. A multi fiber arrangement was worked out between them that temporarily put quotas on the amount of third world imports. Europe however made a special allowance for very poor countries to help them. Under this Bangladesh was allowed to export to Europe with no tariff or quota. Given that a Bangladeshi textile worker makes 30 Euros a month, no amount of industrial efficiency can match that. In the late 1980s the multi fiber arrangement broke down and the export rules were put under the jurisdiction of the World Trade Organization. China is the primary beneficiary of that and today is the worlds largest textile exporter. Somehow China has managed this while paying their workers a whopping 175 Euros a month.

China and Bangladesh should keep an eye out behind them. Recently Calvin Klein and H&M have moved some factories to Ethiopia. There a textile worker makes just 26 Euros a month. It has not been an easy go in Ethiopia. There has been much labor strife and turnover as it is not possible to support a family on 26 Euros a month, even in Ethiopia. Ethiopia was the last country on earth to officially ban slavery in 1942. Or did they?

Luckily for Europe, nobody is interested in having conventions in Dacca or Abbes Ababa. This year the Exposition was held in Barcelona and in 2023 there will be another one in Milan. There is no doubt that Europe knows how to put on a show, but it is too bad the act of making the textiles we use has been taken away.

Well my drink is empty and I am left wondering what the Brussels exposition was like. Were they still musing about technological and design advancements, or was there already a sense of doom over what was about to happen? Come again soon for another story that can be learned from stamp collecting. First published in 2019.

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El Salvador 1970, sitting out the Football War on a British Yacht

El Salvador in the 70s-80s was a warlike place. How does a patriotic young Salvadoran do his bit without getting himself killed in all the foolishness. Hm….. check your mailbox. 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.

Stamps that honor a countries military service also have the unsaid second job of military recruiting. This stamp is perhaps the most effective example of that I have ever seen. This ship makes no pretense whatever of being a warship. It is a patrol craft whose most important job is to show the flag. It’s summertime and the living is easy. Beats fighting your neighbor over footballs and land reform or gearing up for an endless left-right civil war. Join the Navy!

Todays stamp is issue A210, a 50 Centavo airmail stamp issued by El Salvador on May 7th, 1970. It was part of a 5 stamp issue in various denominations that honored the armed services. There is an overprinted version of this stamp from 1971 that celebrates the 20th anniversary of the El Salvadoran Navy.

El Salvador and Honduras were and still are desperately poor countries as can be seen by the recent mass migration north out of both countries. What more graphic indictment could there be of a failed state. In 1970 Salvador had a much higher population while Honduras had a much greater land mass. The 1960s saw a migration with Salvadorans squatting on Honduran land becoming over 20 percent of Honduras’s population. In 1962, Honduras passed a land reform plan  that intended to evict the Salvadorans and return the land to the large banana growers. This greatly angered El Salvador.

Into this anger came football (soccer). In a three game qualifier, Honduras faced  El Salvador. Honduras won the first match in Tegucigalpa. There was much violence in the stands and it shocked the country how many locals were not for the home team. There was then a second match in San Salvador won by El Salvador and again marker by anti Honduran violence. El Salvador broke diplomatic relations with Honduras after Salvadoran peasants began to be forcibly evicted from Honduras by citizens without the government lifting a finger to stop it, land reform being the law of the land. El Salvador won the third match in Mexico City and attacked Honduras. The armies fought on the ground but the interesting fighting was in the air where ancient American F4 Corsairs piston fighters handed out freely and stupidly by America to both air forces fought each other. America through the Pan American Union, see https://the-philatelist.com/2019/01/08/el-savador-1940-celebrating-the-pan-american-union-a-league-of-nations-that-actually-worked/ .quickly put a halt to the war after 100 hours and finally started an arms embargo. This was the last war where piston engine fighters fought each other. Both countries amazingly enough found some money in their pockets and bought out of date French jets from Israel, Oragons for Salvador and Super Mysteres for Honduras. Advantage Honduras.

Honduran Air Force F4 Corsair fighter showing Fernando Soto’s 3 Salvadoran kills. Notice also the old US Navy color. USA didn’t think to include paint in their aid

The patrol boat on the stamp was given second hand by the British. In the 80s they were replaced by American made patrol boats that previously served as service craft for offshore oil platforms. That sounds a little less yacht like=fail. The Navy also uses an ex USA coast guard cutter given in 2002. It was built in 1942! The Navy  has 870 personnel and has ordered bigger, new build!, Chilean patrol boats. We will see if they can actually pay for them at delivery time.

Well my drink is empty and I will pour another to toast the sailors of both El Salvador and Honduras. Just remember if you see a boat in the drug trade, sail the other way, that way the living will always be easy. Wait, you already knew that. Come again soon for another story that can be learned from stamp collecting. First published in 2019,

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Croatia 1941, Crossing out Peter II is something we all can agree on

Peter II, already on the stamps as a child King after his fathers assassination, was not really in charge. His Uncle Paul was regent and making some iffy decisions. So when real trouble came, the kid King flies away and gets crossed out. 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 situation had changed so an overstamp of the prewar Yugoslav stamp was called for. The big black circle over the guys face is downright rude. A few weeks before the German invasion, a coup supported by the young King was seen as against special arrangements made with Croats. So apparently the Croats were especially anxious to cross him out. The German puppet Serb government just wrote Serbia over the same stamp, so the extra hostility was not from the Serbs or even the Germans.

Todays stamp is issue A16, a one Dinar stamp issued by Croatia on May 16th, 1941, only a few weeks after the German invasion. It was a two stamp issue. According to the Scott catalog, the stamp is worth 40 cents whether mint or used.

Peter II became King in 1934 upon the assassination of his father. See https://the-philatelist.com/2018/02/08/it-is-dangerous-to-rule-the-kingdom-of-serbs-croats-and-slovenes/   . He was 11 years old. His uncle Paul became regent and claimed to be trying to continue the policies of Peter’s father until he reached his majority in 1941. Instead he gave a great deal of autonomy to a greater Croatia that included much of Bosnia. This angered the Serbs. They were further angered in early 1941 when the regent signed an alliance with Germany. There was a British supported coup. Pro coup army forces approached the royal compound that was guarded by troops loyal to the regent. At this point, 17 year old King Peter slipped out of the Palace by climbing down a drainage pipe and greeted warmly the coup forces. Quickly there was a coronation and Peter was ruling. Regent Paul went into exile and house arrest in Kenya.

10 days later, the Germans invaded. The Yugoslav plan if attacked was not to resist but instead withdraw intact to the south. So instead of defending against the Germans, the Yugoslav army invaded Italian occupied Albania hoping to link up with Greece. Peter flew to Greece. This plan did not succeed and despite the Yugoslavs and the Greeks far outnumbering the Germans, the campaign was over in a few weeks and Greek and Yugoslav royals were off to London where Peter married a Greek Princess. Almost none of his army got out with him and the active resistance to the Germans were mostly Communists and/or Serb nationalist, who owed nothing to the King.

Post war Peter lived in first the USA and then France. Tito had frozen his bank accounts so Peter had to live of the generosity of Serbs abroad. He drank a lot and became famous for writing bad checks. He probably thought they were just Royal mementoes not to be cashed. He dreamed of leading an army of expats back to Yugoslavia and liking up with Serb nationalists he imagined were still fighting Tito in the mountains. He died after a failed liver transplant in 1970 and became the first European Royal buried in the USA.

Oddly in the 1980s there was revival of Royal nostalgia in Yugoslavia. The American soap opera Dynasty featuring glamorous young Catherine Oxenberg was shown on TV there. She is the granddaughter of Prince Paul, Peter II’s old regent who caused so much trouble 45 years before.  Time had healed and neither Serb nor Croat, communist nor capitalist, wanted to ex her out.

Catherine Oxenberg as Amanda Carrington on Dynasty.

Well my drink is empty and if I am lucky a Yugoslav Royal will write the check for another round. I will understand not to cash it. Come again soon for another story that can be learned from stamp collecting. First published in 2019.

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UAE 1986, Arabs prove they are not all against chess, but Russia still wins

Olympics often get mired in politics. Even a Chess Olympiad. When the Olympiad was held in Israel in 1976, annoyed Arabs set up a rival “Against Chess Olympiad” in Tripoli Libya. Instead of laughing at them, the against tournament was won by not exactly chess giant El Salvador, The Olympiad leadership cucked. Hence we have an official Chess Olympiad in Dubai. 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.

When you think of Emirates stamps, you think of the fake dune stamps of Finbar Kenny. See https://the-philatelist.com/2019/04/10/sharjah-lets-you-enjoy-modern-art-thanks-to-finbar-kenny/  . These later official issues are more serious stamps. There is still a little of Kenny’s old whimsy in the depiction of the Arab players. This was a cold war chess tournament, so the actual competitive players were Russians and more Russians. Even on the American team. The USA chess melting pot was serving up Russians, if you can’t beat them….

Todays stamp issue is A53, a 2 Dirham stamp issued by the United Arab Emirates on November 14th, 1986. It was a three stamp issue in various denominations in honor of the 27th Chess Olympiad played that year in Dubai. According to the Scott catalog, the stamp is worth $4.50 used.

Chess Olympiads are held every two years. I covered the French stamp honoring the 1974 Nice Olympiad here, https://the-philatelist.com/2018/11/15/france-1974-the-chess-olympiad-mostly-comes-to-nice/  , where I covered the history. Money was hindering those games as Bobby Fischer wouldn’t play without a big paycheck. Darn those people who manage to be the greediest capitalist while thinking themselves communist. Anyway soon after politics became more important. To get the not competitive Arab teams back after the Against Chess Olympiad.  this tournament was scheduled in Dubai. Using the excuse of the official but unacted upon state of war with Israel, they were not invited. Several European teams of Russians then sat out in sympathy with Israeli Russian chess players. Not to worry, lots of third worlders sent uncompetitive teams and the Olympiad hosted a then record  107 nations.

You can guess that the Soviet Union team won. This was the period that Gary Kasparov was starting to dominate teammate and 70s champion Anatoly Karpov. There were separate ladies teams where the Russians also came in first. Their scores were 30% lower. Great Britain made a good show in their former protectorate, their team of homegrown British came in second.

Dubai came to host this tournament as part of the opening up to the world that was going on there. In 1979, the Jebel Ali Free Zone in Dubai opened up there where anyone could set up shop in a duty and tax free zone utilizing facilities built by the government. The area employs 144,000 people and provides 21% of Dubai’s GNP.

Well my drink is empty and I will pour another to toast the Russians. It was quite the act of inclusion to open up their Chess tournaments not just to their diaspora but all comers. Come again soon for another story that can be learned from stamp collecting. First published in 2019.