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The Gold Coast 1954, listening out for the talking drum

There is an old African tradition among the Yoruba People of communicating between villages though the use of hourglass shaped drums that can be adjusted to mimic the sounds of human speech. There was nothing like this anywhere in the world. The Gold Coast got around to displaying it on their last stamp issue before independence. 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.

There is an earlier version of this stamp with King George VI and a later version with an overprint recognizing independence in 1957. Queen Elizabeth is still with us but when Charles or William replace wouldn’t it be great if the Commonwealth did a new version with the new King. Talk about continuity and talking drums are interesting in any time period.

Todays stamp is issue A15, a 2 Pence stamp issued by the Crown Colony of the Gold Coast in 1954. It was a twelve stamp issue in various denominations. According to the Scott Catalog, the stamp is worth 25 cents used. Check out the hand cancelation by pen on mine. The George VI version has the same value but the independence overprint adds 15 cents to the value.

Drumming holds a special significance to the Yoruba people. Those of them that still adhere to their legacy religion believe that the first Yoruba drummer was named Ayangalu. It is believed that upon his mortal death, he was deified and became an Orisha. An Orisha is a spirit sent down from higher deities to communicate with mortals, in Ayangalu’s case all future drummers.

The talking drum is hourglass shaped with drums on both ends and many cords down each side. The cords can adjust the pitch between beats. In this way a very skilled drummer can lyrically mimic human speech. The drums became tools of communication as in the right circumstances the sound can carry as far as five miles.

In the poetic verbal tradition of the griots, African verbal historians and poets, the communication is not simple and short like say Morris code, but rather long and stretched out. Go home might be drummed as go where your feet want to take you. This longer phrase is then repeated several times in the hope that it will be properly interpreted by the listener. You can hear an example here, https://www.bing.com/videos/search?q=talking+drums+ghana&docid=608034306542275132&mid=1C2F896B5CBDEE7CF2611C2F896B5CBDEE7CF261&view=detail&FORM=VIRE   .

The use of the talking drum as of course declined and fewer and fewer have the skill to play it. The talking drum has showed up in western music including Fleetwood Mac and The Grateful Dead including attempts by their drummers to play live at shows. One wonders if they pray for the blessings of Ayangalu before the attempt. The talking drum also appeared on the soundtrack to the recent movie “Black Panther”. The score for that movie was written by Ludwig Goransson.

Well my drink is empty and I will listen for the drumbeats to decide if I get another. Hearing nothing, away goes the bottle. Come again soon for another story that can be learned from stamp collecting. First published in 2020.

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Cyprus 1990, perhaps we should update the refugee picture, no better not

Once you have a program for dealing with refugees, they will keep coming. Greek Cyprus had a huge Greek refugee problem in 1974 after the island was divided along racial lines after the Turk invasion. A set of stamps were issued that year to financially support the fellow countrymen refugees. A nice gesture but the stamps just keep coming because so do the refugees, no longer Greek. 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 very long lasting stamp issue. It was not a new design in 1990, and the same design still comes out today with the issue date adjusting in the bottom right corner. They also include the 1974 date to make the sad Greek girl sitting behind the barbed wire less bogus. In my research I read an article on the refugee crisis in modern day Cyprus. The refugee exemplar was a Syrian man who had been a teacher there and had paid smugglers $10,000 to get him to Cyprus in the hope that being in the EU would allow him to go on to Northern Europe and then perhaps on to Canada. He is stuck in an expensive legal limbo in Cyprus. No doubt a sad life but it is hard to make a charity stamp out of that. Wasn’t his duty as a Syrian to try to make his homeland a better place?

Todays stamp is issue PT3, a postal tax stamp issued by Cyprus shown here in it’s 1990 variation. That year it was a single stamp issue although the design has lasted so long that Cyprus has gone through three currencies with it. According to the Scott catalog, the stamp is worth 60 cents used.

In 1974 Turkey invaded and carved out a portion of southern Cyprus for the Turkish minority that they felt were not getting a fair shake from the Greek dominated government. Cyprus was and is not officially part of Greece. The aftermath was an ethnic cleansing that left 300,000 Greek Cypriots having to find a new home. There were of course also Turks that had to move, but that is a story for a different stamp. It should be remembered that there are fewer than one million Greeks on Cyprus so moving 300,000 really was a massive undertaking.

With Cyprus being set up as an ethnic state for Greeks, there are legacy refugee rules that have lasted into being in the EU. There is no legal provision for a non Greek refugee to be granted permanent residency. There is only a system for temporary deportation holds until the situation in the native country improves. Even this status only comes after a lengthy legal procedure and there is no provision for further travel to say Canada or Sweden. At some point the Cyprus government could declare the indeed slowly improving situation in Syria good enough and send them back.

You might think that perhaps harsh rules might discourage the flow of refugees. That has not been the case. Over 5 percent of the population are now non Greek refugees and that of course is a massive burden on Cyprus and one that will inevitably change the country.

This modern image wouldn’t do for a sympathetic refugee stamp. With the refugees too lazy to even mow the grass.

Well my drink is empty and so I will have to wait till soon when there will be another story that can be learned from stamp collecting. First published in 2020.

 

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Southern Rhodesia 1940, Remembering the British South Africa Company

Administering a large area requires much money. So much so that despite all the mineral wealth brought on stream, the company was not able to pay a dividend until after administration of Southern Rhodesia was turned over. Well speculative companies usually don’t pay. We know that the company succeeded in finding the minerals, but did it lead to great wealth? and whatever happened to it. 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 shows the coat of arms of the British South Africa Company that had administered Rhodesia for 33 of the 50 years. Notice however the two native warriors, one from 1890 and one from 1940. Notice how different they look and think how much work was involved in getting between the two. No wonder the company only made money after offloading administrative tasks. Cecil Rhodes and his backers had a vision that would have required more minerals than even he could find.

Todays stamp is issue A9, a half penny stamp issued by the British Crown Colony of Southern Rhodesia on June 3rd, 1940. It was an 8 stamp issue in various denominations celebrating the 50th anniversary of the founding of Southern Rhodesia under the auspices of Cecil Rhodes and his British South Africa Company. According to the Scott catalog, the stamp is worth 25 cents unused. The stamp is worth more used unlike the rest of the set. Even 80 years ago 1/2 cent wouldn’t take your letter far.

The British South African Company received a Royal Charter in 1889. Cecil Rhodes was backed by several prominent Jewish financiers and was tasked with discovering  new mineral wealth, negotiating mineral rights from African tribes and bringing it to market. A tall order, but the kind of stock issue that can fluctuate wildly on good or not so good news. It was more than money though to Rhodes. He had visions of a British railroad from Cairo to Cape Town that would have all along it communities of English settlers. He thought the Africans belonged on reservations until civilized.

The gold rush had indeed attracted English settlers especially to Southern Rhodesia and the company financed a train through Northern Rhodesia but stopping short of Lake Victoria, the original goal, where it could connect to the northern African part. It was very expensive to build a railroad, secure and maintain it. Rhodes also had vision that added lands would allow for large families of settlers that didn’t pan out. Since mineral output was below what was hoped and lower margin copper and lead rather than gold the train did not make money. The company continued to administer the railroad until the late 1940s.

A Punch magazine cartoon of Cecil Rhodes when he imagined a telegraph line to go with the railroad from Cape Town to Cairo

After Rhodes death, the area became a British Colony. This was not Rhodes intention, he thought the settlers where still Englishmen who deserved representation in British Parliament. In taking over the colony, the settlers paid half and Britain paid the company half for mineral rights in Rhodesia and the accumulated deficit from the former administration. Finally the company was able to make a profit and pay a dividend. The profits got a lot better in the 30s and 40s as the company brought on stream new copper resources in Northern Rhodesia. Under threat of nationalization, the British South Africa Company sold mineral rights in Northern Rhodesia  to Zambia for 4 million pounds in 1964, again half paid by Britain and half by Zambia. In 1965 the remaining operations were merged into a British engineering company called Charter Consolidated. One third of the shares were still owned by Anglo American, the misleadingly named operation of Cecil Rhodes’ Jewish financial backers. In the 1980s Charter sold off the remaining mining operations, This was then sold in 2012 to Colfax, an American spinoff of the American engineering firm Daneher. When you think of these timelines what comes out is the machinations of finance taking over from Rhodes’ drive to find and build things. One wonders if Rhodes needed better backers or just there were more limits on what could be found than what could be hollowed out.

Well my drink is empty. Rhodes died at only 47 without heirs. If he had lived another say 25 years, would he have had the ability to find enough resources to make his vision for Africa a reality? Not likely, but also unlikely was the manifest destiny of the few English settlements in the then Indian/First Nation territory of North America. Come again soon for another story that can be learned from stamp collecting. First published in 2020.

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Japan 1980, remembering a red dragon fly at sunset, lost big sisters, and simple life in the village

So many of the stamps I write about display how a far off place is changing. Japan like so many places saw movement of people to big cities and delay of mairage to allow the female to establish a career. A song for children came out of that, perhaps to remind how things once were. 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 long issue of Japanese issues celebrating classic Japanese music, one song at a time. What a great idea for a series of stamps, recognizing the culture as a national treasure. This song is called Akatombo, written in 1927, based on a poem from 1921. You can hear the song here, https://www.bing.com/videos/search?q=japanese+song+red+dragonfly&docid=608042600148697588&mid=7F1C6AA85CEADCDA3BD57F1C6AA85CEADCDA3BD5&view=detail&FORM=VIRE   .

Todays stamp is issue A982, a 50 Yen stamp issued by Japan on September 18th, 1980. Two stamps from this long series were issued on that day. According to the Scott catalog, the stamp is worth 25 cents used.

The song imagines from the point of view of a young adult looking back. The fantasy/memory of a toddler boy being carried on the shoulders of his big sister back home in a small Japanese village and spotting a red dragon fly siting at the end of a bamboo pole during the colors of sunset. Adding melancholy to the memory is that the big sister at 15 was about to go off and marry never to be heard from again and the toddler was to grow up into a man who gives up his village himself. The song was part of the 1920-1930s Doyo movement in Japanese children’s music. The Doyo movement sought to address the overemphasis on patriotism and westernization in what was coming in the new public schools’ music curriculum.

The song started as a poem by Rofu Miki. His story was close to the story except it was mama that left the home never to be heard from again when his parents divorced at age 5. After the divorce Miki’s mother became a large force in the Japanese women’s movement. When she was laid to rest in 1962, her tombstone read, “Here lies the mother of the dragon fly”.

The song is still very popular in Japan and not just for children. It is often played on I guess not quite church bells at 5:00 o’clock PM signaling the end of the workday. The home village of Miki also has a monument to the song.

Well my drink is empty and I will pour another to toast the village dragonfly. Who of us cannot relate.  Come again soon for another story to be learned from stamp collecting. First published in 2020.

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Buriatia 1990s, off to Siberia for another fake stamp

A while back I did a 1920s stamp from a place called Tannu Tuva in Asian Siberia, see https://the-philatelist.com/2018/07/24/tannu-tuva-1934-the-russian-commissars-extraordinary-have-arrived-and-brought-stamps/   . The idea for the stamps was marketed to the Soviets by a Hungarian stamp dealer. Well the 1990s saw a new round of autonomy seeking, and there were still stamp dealers out to make a quick buck on it. 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.

Comparing this stamp to the Tannu Tuva stamp leaves me preferring the old. Though poorly printed, the stamps showed exotic writing in several languages and alphabets and views of the natives of Tannu Tuva that might expect you to run into Genghis Kahn himself on the next stamp. Whoever is doing Buriatia just shows you topical stamps that could be from anywhere.

This fake stamp is not listed in any catalog but I found the six stamp souvenir sheet of the horses for sale online for $1.99. Even in Buriatia, you cannot use any of the stamps for postage.

In 1923, the Soviets formed the Buryat-Mongol Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic in the same area of Asian Siberia. Most of the people then were Mongol Buddhists. The ethnic makeup allowed for Soviet era studies into the the traits of the three races in the area. Soviets, Mongol Buryats, and those of mixed parentage were studied on guidelines as to how they performed as state workers. The official results were that there was no particular advantage to any of the three ethnicities.

Over time there were ever more Soviets in the area and in 1958 the Soviets reflected that by dropping the Mongol from the title of the region. By 1990 the area was 70 percent Soviet. The Soviet Republic was refashioned into the Buryatia Republic in 1992 that remained within the then organizing Russian Federation. The leader of the republic was for the first 25 years a locally born Soviet. In 2017 President Putin appointed a new leader that was of mixed Buriatia/Russian heritage. Both mens’ career prior to politics were with the railroad, perhaps indicative of how important the Trans Siberian Railroad is to the area. The area has at best a stagnant population.

Here are some of the old Mongol states of the area prior to the Russians. Obviously peoples in desperate need of fake stamps

Well my drink is empty and if I may, I encourage the purveyor of modern fake stamps to do a better job. 99% of the people will have no idea about where your made up place is. What an opportunity to show off the truly exotic. Come again soon for another story that can be learned from stamp collecting. First published in 2020.

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British Empire Exhibition 1924, One People, One Destiny

The Empire needed a boost after the War. By getting involved in a European land war, great losses had been sustained and the distraction had lead to the loss of Ireland and agreeing to the principle of leaving India in 1917. There was a movement to display what was being achieved and what united the people of the Empire in the hope of reenergizing the endeavor. Only time would tell if energy would be created or just a last gasp from dead enders. So slip on your smoking jacket, fill your pipe, take your first sip of your Earl Grey, and sit back in your most comfortable chair. Welcome to todays offering from The Philatelist.

It may seem strange to modern collectors who come across British commemorative stamps on subjects like not British movies and tv shows, but this stamp was the first British commemorative stamp issue. It came a full 84 years after the first stamp. The British Empire Exhibition was designed to show the Empire in a good light. Stamps are a way for a country to display it’s best self. A new road was being traveled. The stamps design by H Nelson was no great success, the lion seems inadequately evocative and George V’s portrait too large. Where was Manchin when you needed him?

Todays stamp is issue A92, a one and one half D stamp issued by Great Britain on April 23rd, 1924. It was a two stamp issue. According to the Scott Catalog, the stamp is worth $8.00 used. Out of curiosity I checked my Stanley Gibbons “Collect British Stamps” They state the value up much higher at 15 Pounds used.

The idea of an exhibition in the style of a World’s Fair was proposed by the British Empire League as far back as 1902. The League was a bunch of aristocrats, among them Earl Grey, the man not the tea. Wars kept getting in the way. The site chosen was Wembley which was pretty far out of London but the subway was extended to get there. A large Stadium was built and large palaces were built of quick pour concrete that showed off India as a Hindu Temple, British West Africa as a Arab Fort, British Southern Africa as a Dutch styled Palace, and further Palaces to show off Industry and Art. For the young at heart there was an amusement park with bumper cars and a soon famous soap shop called Pear’s Palace of Beauty. In it attractive models posed in glass tubes dressed as great beauties of history. Two of the girls “Bubbles” and “The Spirit of Purity” reminded you to buy some soap. Every night the RAF put on an airshow called “Defending London” where Sopwith biplanes engaged in mock dogfights with blank ammunition and pyrotechnics. There were only 3 empire no shows, the Gambia, Gibraltar, and yes the Irish Free State.

To promote the Exhibition, a world tour of British celebrities was organized. The leader was a somewhat buffoonish would be politician named Ernest Belcher. He would tell wild stories and ended up enraging the celebrities on the tour. In retrospect, Agatha Christie for one thought the tour great fun.

The Exhibition managed to attract 1.7 million paying attendees but that did not prevent a huge financial loss. The Exhibition was extended into 1925 but then only lost more money. Most of the Palaces were torn down quickly after the closing but Wembley stadium lasted into the 21st century. It did little however to preserve the Empire and convince the people of it’s motto “One People, One Destiny”. Even the British Empire League folded up shop in 1955.

Well I suppose this was a failure but heck sometimes why not just throw a party and see who comes. Please come again soon for another story that can be learned from stamp collecting. First published in 2020.

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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.