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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,

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Norway 1992, how common can a Royal go before his house is itself common

Norway is a fairly new country that voted to create a new Royal line from heirs to the Danish Throne. That didn’t work so well for Greece but why not throw the dice. Royal duties  are so tiresome and doors open up for them into the jet set lifestyle. Soon how Royal are they really and how much are they costing the country. 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 nice thing about a late middle age Prince taking over for his elderly father was that continuity seems assured. On this stamp, you have to look several times to notice King Herald V is not a stamp from 20 years before featuring his father. The first Norwegian King Herald had been the Herald the Fairhair, well that was a long time ago. Looks can be deceiving, Herald had married a commoner and the generations would get ever more common. So I hope Norway is ready for jet set Royals.

Todays stamp is issue A349, a 3.5 Krona stamp issued by Norway in 1992. It was a 15 stamp issue in various denominations, the lower ones featuring now Queen Consort Sonja. According to the Scott catalog, the stamp is worth 25 cents used.

King Herald was born shortly before the German invasion of 1940 so spend part of his youth in exile in the UK, the USA, and Canada. He avoided neutral Sweden which hosted other Norway Royals because there were politicians there that would have turned Harald over to the Quisling government where he could be declared a boy King.  He developed a love for sailing and represented Norway at the Olympics of 1964, 1968, and 1972. His team won no medals but the Prince carried the flag during opening ceremonies.

During the 1960s, Harald dated a commoner and dressmaker Sonja Heraldson. Herald’s father King Olav thought the potential marriage not suitable. At the time Herald’s sisters were not at all in the line of succession and so one of the sisters had been allowed to marry a divorced commoner. Harald announced that if he was not allowed to marry Sonja, he would not marry anyone else and that would be the end of the Royal line in Norway. After considering and rejecting the idea of declaring the Duke of Schleswig- Holstein as heir apparent he gave in on the marriage. Sonja was given a title and took others. She was named a Rear Admiral in the Norwegian Navy, though she never served. She claims she took a class. At Norway Rear Admiral School? Those concerned with the defense of Norway will be heartened to know Queen Consort Sonja has also been named a Brigadier General in the Army. Yes she took the class. The sailing the Royal family love so has been recast as a Royal Duty of visiting. Sonja has taken a part in charities especially those welcoming refugees. She has also opened the Royal stables to the public so they get to see the Royal Horses.

The job of a Royal first off is to provide heirs and here Herald came through, a girl and a boy. The daughter is now in the line of succession. No one is now marrying Royal. The current Crown Prince even managed to find a commoner that was a single mother. Well at least she was pretty and a close friend of Jeffrey Epstein, so there were all those invitations to sex slave island. Princess Martha who claims to have ESP, married an anarchist writer who went by the made up name of Ari Behn. His artistic friends were part of the “new wine” school. Yes he was a fan of the grape. Even Behn’s relatives called him Prince Fool von and zu Fake. In his last days before his suicide due to mental illness and alcoholism, he was being followed around for a reality tv show called “Ari and the Half Kingdom”

Norway is a very rich country, North Sea oil, so can weather lousy Royals if it choses to. Unless of course they are invaded and have to rely on their Brigadier Generals and Rear Admirals.

Well my drink is empty and so I will put away the bottle. Come again soon for another story that can be learned from stamp collecting. First published in 2020.

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Serbia 1916, With Bosnia occupying Serbia in the service of Germans, it may be time to stamp the Black Hand

Starting in 1878, Bosnia was occupied by Serb rival Austria. Naturally that was annoying and made a larger pan Serbia over all Serbs less possible. Why not form a Black Hand within the Serb government to make sure those wimps don’t make some back room deal with the Austrians and all their offered economic subsidies. Maybe we can even exact a little revenge on the Austrians with a little Balkan style justice. What could go wrong? 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.

I asked above what could go wrong. Well check out this stamp. Austrian Hapsburg Emperor Franz Joseph presiding over the military occupation government of majority Muslim Bosnia. Now that government was occupying Serbia which is spelled the German way. The Hapsburg Monarchy imagined that with some degree of local autonomy, the people of various ethnicities would be happy to be their loyal subjects. It worked for the most part with Hungary and many a new Balkan nation recruited a German Royal house to rule them. It seems implausible that it could have worked, but this stamp got your letter mailed in Belgrade for two years.

Todays stamp is issue A24, a 60 Heller stamp issued by the Austrian occupation government of Serbia in 1916. The Serbian overstamp of the Austrian military occupation of Bosnia stamp existed in 21 denominations. According to the Scott catalog, the stamp is worth 80 cents unused. It is worth more used, I can see why Austria obviously printed extras for the stamp trade, there is a lot going on with this stamp for the stamp collector to ferret out.

The occupation of Bosnia by the Austrians put more of them on more sides of Slavic Serbia. Serbia was a landlocked country and most of it’s imports and exports passed through Austria with Austrians taking a big cut. Serbian alarm at this can be seen in the coup of 1903 that brought to power the less pro Austrian of the two Serbian Royal houses, see https://the-philatelist.com/2018/06/21/serbia-unlike-so-many-places-had-its-own-royal-line-or-more-problimatically-two/  . The new regime then tried to get tough on the Austrians by increasing customs duties on goods from Austria. Austria then closed the borders to all trade for landlocked Serbia. They then sent out feelers to the Serb government offering trade concessions in return for better relations and acceptance of the status quo.

Many Serbs harbored the dream of Serbs controlling more of nearby lands with a relationship with big power Russia. A yugoSlavia if you will with Serbs dominating. Members of the government and Army were very worried Serb Prime Minister Nikola Pasic would wimp out and accept an Austrian deal. They formed a secret society called the Black Hand that would dispense rough justice to wimps and sell outs. Their leader was a Serbian Army Major code named Apis. Since their views coalesced, Black Hand was in alliance with Muslim Albanians who also resented Austria. Black Hand was very worried, with some justification that the upcoming visit of the Hapsburg heir to the area and so there was arraigned a successful assassination of him in Sarajevo that lead to the starting of World War I.

Code name Apis (on right) hatches another scheme with two fellow Black Hands. Or perhaps they are just considering the latest offer from The Hairclub for Men

In the early days of the war with Austria, Apis was promoted to Coronel, although allegedly not for his planning of the assassination. By 1916, however Serbia had been conquered with the remnants of the Army marching into Albania. The Serb government in exile reconvened on the Greek island of Corfu. With complete victory it seemed the way back was to purge themselves of the Black Hand in order that they might be allowed to return to Belgrade by the Austrians. Code Name Apis was tried for his part in the assassination and executed. The government was later allowed back to Belgrade and given power to rule a wider Yugoslavia not by Austria but rather by the victorious Allied side.

In 1953, Tito’s later version of Yugoslavia had their high court withdraw the conviction of Apis. They didn’t quite say that the assassination in Sarajevo was a good thing, but they said that there was inadequate evidence to convict. This was allowed to happen, Austria was now the land locked ethnic rumpstate and was no longer mounting much of a defense of the Hapsburgs.

Well my drink is empty and I will not again today reach for the bottle, I don’t want to be accused of having a black hand. Come again soon for another story that can be learned from stamp collecting. First published in 2020.

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Sarawak, 1955, Picking favorites among the tribes

Sarawak is a region of north Borneo that was awarded to a British adventurer by the Sultan of Brunei. That lead to the region passing to the British government and then on to modern Malaysia. One can imagine the fun of people far from home interacting with the local tribes, picking favorites, and trying to avoid nightmares. When you imagine such a thing the modern people of Sarawak would like to remind you of the moral distinction between headhunters and cannibals. The maneaters in Sarawak are the alligators. 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.

For this near the end of colonial times stamp issue, the colony decided to feature the culture of two of the smaller tribes in the area. In this case we have the ceremonial carving of the smaller Kenyah tribe that exist both in Sarawak as well as over the border in Indonesia.  It is understandable why the colony featured the Kenyah tribe. They are a peaceful, untatooed people who were early converts to Protestant Christianity and active in agriculture. Modern Malaysia has not stopped featuring the Kenyah people. Miss World Malaysia 2020, Francisca James, is from the Kenyah tribe in Sarawak.

Miss World Malaysia 2020 Francisca James, from the Kenyah tribe of Sarawak

Todays stamp is issue A24, a 10 cent stamp issued by the Crown Colony of Sarawak in 1955. It was a 15 stamp issue in various denominations. According to the Scott catalog, the stamp is worth 25 cents used.

The area of Sarawak was awarded to British adventurer Sir James Brooke as a reward for assisting the then Sultan of Brunei. The rule of a different race was awkward but mostly peaceful and the economic future of the area was secured by the discovery of oil. The Brooke’s were dislodged by a Japanese occupation during World War II and the British government took over directly post war as better able to handle post war reconstruction.

The interaction of ruling or just resident whites made for some trouble in their depiction of some inland tribes as head hunters. It was true that some among the Iban tribe were headhunters. Naturally this is pretty exciting stuff back in the home country. In her last years back in Britain, Silvia, the last Brooke era Queen wrote a popular autobiography “Sylvia, Queen of the Headhunters”. Like most primitive tribes, practices like head hunting became less common over time.

You might have expected such controversies to pass into history as the area became under Malaysian rule. Instead it has intensified as there is a new popular video game called Borneo, Jungle Nightmare. In it your character can fight pirates and Brooke style white rajahs. You also face jungle attacks by iban tribe head hunters that can go beyond head hunting into the consumption of human flesh. The towns are displayed as more modern. The critics would have preferred the game to be less place and people specific. The makers of the game state that it is just a game and is made more intriguing by including real places and realistic characters. They also point to documented cases of cannibalism in the area during post colonial insurrections.

Multiplayer online game ” Borneo, Jungle Nightmare”

Well my drink is empty. It will be up to the many gamers of the modern Sarawak to decide if they want to start the game and live out a local nightmare. I expect they will line up to do so. Come again soon for another story that can be learned from stamp collecting. First published in 2021.

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Australia 1968, William Dampier, Bridging the Explorer as Pirate to Explorer as Naturalist, while purveying Tex Mex

With William Dampier we have the real life counterpart to  Swift’s Gulliver’s Travels. He gets a stamp for charting the east coast of Australia when it was still New Holland. He should be remembered by children in the sense of what a wide word of possibilities are open to them in life. Instead his type are taught in the sense of bad people spreading evil wherever they go. An arguement for another day, anyway whats the deal with Tex Mex? Read 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.

This stamp visually is let down a little by it’s nature of being a small stamp meant for bulk postage. We do get a portrait of him and his then ship HMS Roebuck. Dampier at his most boring. A serving Royal Navy Captain whose mission it was to draw maps. This man was a pirate. This man taught his fellow Britons how to make guacamole. Perhaps thus stamp is most let down by being Australian as Australia’s only brush with Dampier is what is shown on this stamp. Dampier calls out for a new set of big colourfull stamps from his native UK showing his many inspiring sides. And one of Dampier at his end, convicted and penniless, to teach the kiddies and kiddies at heart that crime doesn’t pay.

Todays stamp is issue A145, a 50 cent stamp issued by Australia starting in 1968. It was part of a 26 stamp issue released for bulk postage after the decimalization and Americanization of the Australian currency. According to the Scott catalog, the stamp is worth 25 cents used. As a high denomination bulk stamp, if my copy were mint, the value would skyrocket to $15.

William Dampier was born in 1651 in England. Two merchant shipping expeditions one to Java and another to Newfoundland inspired him to join the Royal Navy. Soon however a sickness ended his service. He tried his hand at plantation management in Jamaica and logging on the mosquito coast but soon he was back to sea as a sometime pirate and sometime privateer. Unusually for a pirate, back in England after his adventures his good memory ample notes allowed him to write books about his exploits that contained both daring do and thorough academic level cataloging of what he had seen as the only man on earth to have circumnavigated the planet three times. Among what he brought back to England were guacamole, avocadoes, mango chutney and the cooking technique of barbeque.

A Dampier map of the then Mosquito Coast, now Central America, from one of his adventure books.

Dampier also brought back with him a slave boy from what is now the Philippines named Joly. Joly had become despondent over the death of his mother and Dampier was chronically broke so even though they had been close, Joly was auctioned off. He was acquired by an inn that put Joly on display as captured Prince Giola of Mindanao. Joly soon died of small pox.

An etching of slave boy Joly after he was repackaged as Prince Giolo of the savages of the east.

The Admiralty had seen Dampier’s books and commissioned him as a ship Captain of HMS Roebuck and told to sail to Australia, then still New Holland, and make charts of and an exploration of the east coast. This did not go well. Dampier discovered a species of giant clams near New Guinea and anchored the ship to do a thorough investigation of them and how best to eat them. At anchor in rough seas, HMS Roebuck’s condition deteriorated. Dampier decided to abandon the job at hand and try to make it back to England. He got as far as Accession Island but the the amount of water the ship was taking on  was too much and Dampier was shipwrecked there until him and the crew were able to catch a ride on a merchant ship in the India trade.

Back in England Dampier was arrested. Not for losing his ship, not for cruelty to indigenous people he had come across, not for all the stomach issues his new spicy foods had caused at home. He was convicted of cruelty. Early in the journey he had a conflict with a young but connected and of a higher class Lieutenant. He solved his problem by dropping him off in Brazil where the young officer was arrested. He still beat Dampier back to England and filed charges against Dampier.

Dampier was back to being a pirate when he attempted a fourth circumnavigation of the Earth. By this time he was old with failing health and the mission was abandoned. He died deeply in debt back in England.

Well my drink is empty. This stamp opened up a story more complex than I could have imagined. What a stamp is for! Come again soon for another story that can be learned from stamp collecting.

 

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Hungary 1977, when Czech CSA airlines flew far and wide and so did the Ilyushin Il-62

A Czech CSA Il-62 airliner flying over Africa. Exciting isn’t it. If you go back 46 years it seems more so. The Il-62 replaced ex Cubana Bristol Britannia turboprops on CSA’s long haul services. Now I have a fondness for the Britannia as my father was a mechanic on them in 1950s England and later Canada, but the Il-62 flew 20% more passengers 40% longer distances at a speed 40% faster. Changing how we travel, not just bogged down in the economics of getting there cheaper as the modern planes offer. 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 little bit of a strange stamp issue. Various model airliners, in their national airline livery are flying over maps where you then might have spotted them. Local airline Malev flying a Soviet Tu-154 over central Europe is only one from Hungary and the lowest denomination. Well it was the time when so many of Hungary stamp issues were prepared outside the country for the world stamp market.

Todays stamp is issue C379, a 2 Forint airmail stamp issued by Hungary on October 26th, 1977. It was an eight stamp issue in various denominations. According to the Scott catalog, the stamp is worth 25 cents used. This stamp also exists as an imperforate, that would raise the value to $4.35.

Work began on the Ilyushin Il-62 in 1960. It is a close contemporary of the British VC-10 airliner but is larger and more economical. The two airliners share the otherwise unique trait of four engines mounted on the tail two on each side. This improves the aerodynamics of the wings and makes the cabin quieter. It can also cause trouble if one engine is overheating both engines on that side of the airplane have to be shut down adding much instability. The engines in the back also make the plane tail heavy so when parked a jack folds out of the back to prevent the plane from tipping backwards off it’s tricycle undercarriage. The Il-62 was a great success with production of 292 over 30 years. The last plane was built in 1997 to serve VIP duties for Sudan. One does not think enough about Sudanese VIPs. Others are still in service with the Russian Air Force, Rado airlines in Belarus and Air Koryo in North Korea. At the height of it’s career, it even served Air France and KLM on their services to the eastern bloc. Interestingly given the Hungarian stamp, the Il-62 was never bought by Hungary although at one point in the 1960s they were listed as having them on order. Apparently Tupelov offered Hungary a better deal on their airliners and Hungary cancelled the Ilyushin order. Communism or is it capitalism in action.

The Il-62 in the classic CSA “Ok Jet” cold war livery. Don’t overpromise!

CSA Czech Airlines began operations in 1923 with a flight between Prague and Bratislava. Then an internal flight. After a gap during the German occupation, the airline came back after the war but with shorter flights. In 1950, the airline faced the first mass hijacking when 3 DC-3s were hijacked at the same time to the American airbase at Erdin near Munich. 2/3rds of the passengers were not in on the “freedom” flight and returned home treated as heroes. CSA got back into long haul routes with a flight to Havana using Bristol Britannias leased from Cubana in 1962. CSA ordered VC10s to replace them but then canceled them in favor of the Il-62. They became the first foreign Il-62 user in 1969. They eventually operated 21 of them and kept them in service until 1997.

CSA has faced many struggles since the end of the cold war. Most of the long haul services are gone and the airline has lost 75% of it’s employees. After an equity stake by Korean Air was not successful, in 2018 the rump of the airline was sold to low cost carrier Smartwings. Most of their A319 are leased out and their single long haul A330 is a lease from Korean Air. They have recently ordered the small A220 jet to replace their small ATR turboprops.

Well my drink is empty and so I will signal the stewardess to bring another. Come again soon for another story that can be learned from stamp collecting. First published in 2020.

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Occupied Poland 1940, Germany needs living space but Poland doesn’t require a Queen

The borders of Poland were not set in stone. Therefore the Polish people were mixing with many others. German conquest meant that only one of those peoples, the Germans were to be provided for. Yet a Nazi henchman and wife with delusions of Royalty actually thwarted the German plan as it would have lessened their authority. 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 shows the courthouse in Krakow that no longer stands. Showing the architecture of the occupied area leaves out anything in Warsaw. Cities like Krakow and Lublin were considered more traditionally German while Warsaw was to be completely redeveloped as a German city after population replacement. Crazy stuff.

Todays stamp is issue OS1, a 50 Groszy stamp issued by the German General Government of occupied Poland in 1940. It was a 17 stamp issue in various denominations. According to the Scott catalog, the stamp is worth 25 cents.

When Germany conquered the western two thirds of Poland in 1939, it was intended that the occupation government would be short lived. Polish peasants were to be made employees of their conquerors while Poles of more achievement were to be forcefully suggested to go east. Some of this happened. A farm on my mothers German side of the family was assigned Polish peasants to work the farm after the German ones were off serving the country. I asked my mother how that could work out well. She said they were peasants in Poland and then they were peasants in Germany, why should they care? Well….. it was a different world then. The highlight of the German plan for Poland was a leveling of Warsaw and a redevelopment as a much smaller model German city with a small Polish quarter in the other side of the river. It was called the Papst Plan.

Papst Plan for a smaller German Warsaw

Probably luckily for Poland the General Government was put under a Nazi henchman named Hans Frank who had been with Hitler since the Beerhall Putsch. He was not interested in reducing his power by letting the territory be reorganized into new German goas. So this part of the plan went very slowly. The territory of the General Government was instead expanded when Russian occupied areas of Poland and the Polish areas of the Ukraine were transferred to it.

Hans Frank and his wife Brigitte instead were acting as the new Royals of Poland. Brigitte was opening referring to herself as Queen of the Poles. This became an embarrassment to Germany as remember there was not to be a Poland. In 1942, Frank sought to divorce his wife but she refused as she would rather according to her be his widow.

Brigitte and Hans Frank

She got her wish after Frank was executed post war at Nuremburg with his crimes made specific against the Jews. In his last days, Frank put out a story that Hitler was being blackmailed by people who knew that Hitler had a Jewish grandfather that his grandmother had worked as a maid for. The story did not check out.

I mentioned that the General Government never got around to leveling Warsaw. This them happened during the Warsaw uprising just before the Red Army arrived in 1944 as various groups tried to establish themselves to next rule Poland. The Polish friends of the Red Army rebuilt Warsaw post war, not of course using the Pabst Plan.

Well my drink is empty and I will not be toasting the Pabst Plan. Germans might however point out that they themselves were much more efficiently cleansed from east of the Oder post war by Poles. Perhaps they should have considered beforehand that turnaround is fair play. Come again soon for another story that can be learned from stamp collecting. First published in 2020.