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Israel 1974, a former Christian, later Arab, city is now Israeli

This is a story how a place can change overnight, over and over, and yet still be a part of ancient tradition. 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 series of stamps was issued a quarter century after the founding of Israel. The views of Israel presented make it look a lot older than that. The city of Zefat, with it’s stone edifices built a long time ago on a high hillside plays into that theme well.

Todays stamp is issue A193, a 1.3 Israeli Pound stamp issued by Israel on November 5th, 1974. It was part of a 23 stamp issue in various denominations that came out over a five year period showing Israeli landscapes. According to the Scott catalog, the stamp is worth 25 cents whether used or unused.

Zefat, there are many spellings depending on who you are. is a small town in northern Galilee near the Lebanese and Syrian border. Being near the Syrian border is dependent on whether you accept the Israeli annexation of the occupied Golan Heights. Towns in this part of the world make you accept a lot of quick changes. The town first came to prominence at the time of the Crusades when the hill sprouted a Christian castle and a town grew up around it. The town was majority Christian but contained an Arab quarter. At the time there were no Jews in the area. The town fell to the Arab forces under King Saladin in 1188 after a year long siege. Most Christians in the area relocated to Tyre in modern Lebanon. Unlike most crusader castles, the one at Zefat was not destroyed. The crusaders were soon back in Zefat and refortified the castle. This didn’t last and in 1260 the town again fell to Arab forces under Sultan Baybars. He was more vengeful on Christians, and that was the end of their presence.

The area passed to the Ottomans who administered it as part of the vilayet of Sidon in modern day Lebanon. The city  became attractive to Jews who were relocating from Spain. Specifically to Jews who practiced the mysticism of Kabala. Kabala Jews believe that the Jewish Savior will arrive on a hilltop in Galilee. Zefat is on top of the highest hill in Galilee. By the standards of the area, the Ottomans were most welcoming and a Jewish Quarter of the town took shape.

The time of the British mandate of Palestine paints a confusing picture depending on whose story you are following. Both sides seem to agree the British stood back as either Jews encroached on Arab land or the Jewish quarter of Zefat was mercilessly attacked in an attempt to starve them out. The Arab view should be given more credence as within a week after the end of the British mandate in 1948, there was a military offensive by the Palmach Jewish forces. At the time the town had 12,000 Arabs and 1700 Jews. The entire Arab population was forced out. Among them was the family of Mahmoud Abbas, the leader of the West Bank Palestinian Authority.

Today Zefat has a population of 32,000 and is over 99% Jewish. Tomorrow? The Hebrew language has been modernized since this stamp and they currently call the city Safed.

Well my drink is empty and I will switch to Turkish coffee and toast the comparatively welcoming Ottomans. Come again soon for another story  that can be learned from stamp collecting. First published in 2019.

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French Morocco 1947, Managing the turning tide against Protectorate

Mainly American forces landed and faced brief fighting with Vichy French forces. This provided an opening to end the French Protectorate, but under what terms? 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.

Morocco’s status as a Protectorate complicates the French Moroccan stamp issues. They use the tradition of showing exotic views of the empire outpost, but edit out the French overlay. This was perhaps a tacit admission that the French were on their way out.

Todays stamp is issue A37, a 10 Centimes stamp issued by French Morocco in 1947. It was a 15 stamp issue in various denominations. According to the Scott catalog, the stamp is worth 40 cents unused.

The Sultan of Morocco had acquiesced to French Protectorate status. In return he retained his position. Previously there had been a similar arrangement with the Ottomans but they expected a tribute from Morocco instead of the reverse as the Sultan got from France. In the French area, there was a marked increase in economic activity, but that mainly involved colonials and long resident Jews, leaving out the Muslim majority.

In 1937 the French banned a left leaning, Muslim independence movement. The World War II years saw the French administration side with the pro German Vichy French government. The successful American landing of Operation Torch changed that. America communicated openly that at the war’s conclusion the Moroccan people could decide how they wish to be governed. This was not the position of the tiny Free French presence.

Into this, pro independence Muslims crafted a Proclamation of the Independence of Morocco. It was the same figures of the left as before but attempted to display a united front by talking up the quite modest participation of Moroccans on the Allied side of the war and claiming they wanted to be ruled by the Sultan as a King. This was in early 1944 when there was still an American military presence in Morocco.

The Sultan at first did not rise to the challenge/opportunity and the Free French were able reestablish their administration. The Sultan finally gave a speech in the then international city of Tangier referring to the Proclamation of three years before and demanding that French Morocco, Spanish Morocco, Tangier, and the Spanish Sahara be returned to him. The people responded with anti French and anti Jewish riots in the major cities. 1947 was a time when security forces were again being lead by French. Senegalese Tirailleurs were then sent in to put down the riots which they did in what Moroccans considered brutal fashion. The Sultan was sent into exile in Madagascar and the French tried to recognize his cousin as Sultan. The independence forces then on Christmas Eve set off a huge bomb in the market of Casablanca.

The Senegalese fighting on behalf of the French

The increase in violence disturbed the French and the Sultan in exile promised he could end it if he was allowed to return to his Throne. The cousin was forced into exile, first in Tangier and then in Nice, France.

One by one, the areas to Morocco have indeed come under the Sultan who rebranded himself King of Morocco. The lefty independence forces immediately passed into opposition to the Monarchy. The biggest change though was to change the place from an international place where different people mix to non Muslims voting with their feet and leaving. Even some Muslim Moroccans voted with their feet. About 1.5 million of them live in France.

Well my drink is empty. Come again soon when there will be another story to be learned from stamp collecting. First published in 2020.

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India 1965, a growing India needs electricity, so how about nuclear power?

When India imagined independence from Great Britain, it hoped to include Pakistan, Bangladesh, Sri lanka and Burma. A superpower, albeit requiring much development. The smaller India that emerged still had great ambitions and big rivals, so why not forsake some needed development to play big power games. Bizarrely, the West was ready to help. Well at least until Buddha smiled. 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 Atomic Research Center in the Trombay section of Bombay. It is from the same set of stamps as the Gnat airplane stamp I covered here, https://the-philatelist.com/2018/07/20/a-gnat-sting-slays-a-sabre-over-bangladesh/      . As with the Gnat, the stamp is long on the Indian achievement aspect, with no mention of the outside help that made it possible. Ah, superpower dreams….

Todays stamp is issue A205, a 10 Rupee stamp issued by India in 1965. It was an 18 stamp issue in various denominations. The 10 Rupee stamp, a high denomination then, was the highest indicating where India ranked the achievement of the nuclear center. According to the Scott catalog, the stamp is worth 50 cents used. Unmailed the stamps value goes up 30 times.

India’s work on nuclear energy began even before independence. The Tata organization, see also https://the-philatelist.com/2019/11/21/india-1958-independant-india-will-be-great-building-on-the-success-of-people-like-j-n-tata/    , was a big believer in Swadeshi, which is India doing for itself. In this case that means sending fellow Parsi Homi Bhabha to Cambridge to study and then fund his nuclear research center once back in India. The Parsi were Persians that British India took in as they were no longer welcome in Islamic Persia due to their Zoroastrian religious beliefs. Interesting that is was from these people the idea of Swadeshi got it’s backing.

Knowledge of how nuclear energy works is not enough, as to use it for peace or war, specialty manufacturing of intricate pieces is needed. The West and the East only developed this after slow expensive development. USA President Eisenhower then proposed the silly stunt of “atoms for Peace’. The American military industrial complex would be encouraged to build nuclear facilities in the third world in return for monitoring how they handle it and the countries’ word that the program would be peaceful. India, Pakistan, Israel, and Iran signed up and solemnly gave their word that the only intention was civilian atomic power. Canada got in on the graft from such a program by providing India another reactor. Over time, and it took a long time, India was able to reverse engineer the reactors they were given and add further reactors built locally. The process was slowed by the death of Homi Bhabha in a mysterious crash of an Air India 707 airplane in Switzerland. Conspiracy theorists blame the CIA, but planes do fly into mountains occasionally. 16 years before another Air India plane flew into the same mountain.

It will be no surprise that India lied about the peaceful intent of it’s nuclear power program. Plutonium derived from the spent nuclear fuel from the Canadian supplied reactor CIRUS at Trombay was used for India’s first nuclear bomb  tested in 1974. The secret program was called Buddha Smiles. The smiles did not extend to the western powers that had foolishly helped the program along. Pakistan sped up their bomb program that also had received help from atoms for peace, see https://the-philatelist.com/2019/05/16/pakistan-atoms-for-peace-poliferates-until-buddha-smiles/  .

Mr. Bhabha made optimistic projections of how much nuclear energy India could produce. A projection made by him in 1962 gave a number by 1980 that is a full five times what is actually produced in the India of 2020. Less than 3 percent of Indian electricity comes from nuclear power. It was of course, all about the bombs.

Well my drink is empty and I will pour another in case the power goes out. Come again soon for another story that can be learned from  stamp collecting. First published in 2020.

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United Nations(Geneva offices) 2000, Painters for the new century

When you enter a new century, it is a good time to check out what is going on in the arts. The UN is in an especially good place to do that as they have offices and representatives everywhere. What did they find? 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 competition featured artists from around the world and all the entries went on a traveling exhibition from London to Brussels, then Stockholm, then New York City. Six stamps featured art from the exhibition with 2 stamps each issued by UN offices in New York, in Geneva, and Vienna. The artists were 1 American, 1 Japanese, 1 Philippine, 1 Kenyan, 1 Greek, and 1 Lebanese, Rita Adaimy the painter of “The Embrace” on this stamp and the only female.

Todays stamp is issue A319, a .90 Swiss Franc stamp issued by the United Nations on May 30th, 2000. The two Geneva issues had different denominations with this the lower. According to the Scott catalog, the stamp is worth $1.10 used. Though this is a Geneva issue, I got it in a pack of stamps I bought at the UN headquarters gift shop in New York in 2013. After getting home from that trip, I put the pack aside unopened till I found and opened it last week. Ah, Lost treasures…

The millennium art competition show us where the art world was at. Despite attracting entrants from around the world the entries turned in were remarkably uniform. In this case it might lead you to believe that Auguste Rodin might have an outsized influence on the contemporary female artists of Lebanon. Perhaps he does and maybe that is not so bad. Imagine a similar competition from the dawn of the 20th century, you would have had fewer entrants from fewer places but you would have had much more diversity of style. You also would be dealing with art from Rodin himself rather than someone who ripped him off.

Artist self portrait as a cross stitch pattern. Try that Rodin

Ms. Adaimy is still an artist and Pharmacy educator in Lebanon. She recently participated in a multi section mural at the Lebanon Museum of Contemporary Art. The mural is in the graffiti style and sponsored by the European Union in celebration of the 70th anniversary of the UN Human Rights Commission.

Well my drink is empty and I will pour another to toast the UN for showing us the state of the art world in this millennium. That the state is not so good in not their fault. At least they are not yet doing a stamp set on the current state of postage stamp gasbaggery. Come again soon for another story that can be learned from stamp collecting. First published in 2020.

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Iceland 1925, Denmark builds a storehouse of culture, as part of sending Iceland on it’s way

The-Philatelist often writes up stamps of newly independent countries that take credit for infrastructure left behind by the former colonial power. Something like a power station is one thing but what about something that was the place’s central storehouse of knowledge and culture. Isn’t some sort of thanks in order for the generosity? Apparently not, and this is even true where both colony and colonial power were within Scandinavia. 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.

You can see from the printing style, how influential Denmark was on Iceland’s stamps. The fact that they were printed in Denmark often meant stamp shortages in Iceland at the time of this stamp. In 1928 a proposal to solve the problem lead to more trouble. A Vienna group of stamp dealers calling themselves the ‘Friends of Iceland” proposed printing a large batch of commemorative stamps. Against the advise of the Postmaster, Iceland agreed to the printing of 813,000 Kronars of stamps, 600,000 of which would go to Iceland for postal use and the other 213,000 would compensate the Austrian Friends of Iceland. Fraud was then perpetuated and Iceland did not not catch that the print order that they signed off on had at some point had a 1 inserted before the 8. A police investigation was initiated but still had made no progress when the war broke out more than a few years later. No jurisdiction in Vienna perhaps even among “Friends of Iceland”. If the Iceland police had renewed their efforts after the Anschluss, the might have had more cooperation. The stamp issue with so many extras seems to have better values than this issue today, so perhaps a crooked Austria beats a niggardly printing Denmark.

Todays stamp is issue A12, a 20 Aurar stamp issued by Iceland on September 12th, 1925. It was a 5 stamp issue in various denominations. According to the Scott catalog, the stamp is worth 85 cents used. The value of the stamp unused rises to $45, showing how few went to collectors when new. The 20 Aurar stamp from the Vienna issue is worth $90 used, twice what it was worth unused. That one got to collectors.

In 1906, Denmark started construction in Reykjavik of a new building that could properly house a National Library and national archive. The large stone building in traditional Scandinavian style was the work of architect Johannes Magdahl Nielson. This was his only building commission outside of Denmark. At home he was more known for his many churches. The year the library was finished, Nielson was awarded the Eckersberg Medal. Later in 1925, he was Knighted.

In modern times as Culture House

The building, now known unofficially as the Culture house, held the National Library and also took in the collections of the national university library and a noted collection of traditional Icelandic furniture. The building held the National Library until 1994 and came under the auspices of the National Museum in 2013 to continue the furniture display. The building is on the national registry of historic places but the history as laid out now mainly goes over the work of Icelandic stone masons and leaves out entirely that the whole thing being a gift of Denmark.

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

 

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China 1947, the KMT’s third and final mainland phase

Chiang Kai-shek had attempted to rule China as a one party state. After the Japanese withdrawal in defeat in 1945-6, it was time to reimagine what post war China would look like. A new constitution was written, that granted the Chinese people new rights and political freedom, but was only in effect for five months. Even afterward in Taiwan it was superseded by emergency provisions for over 40 years. 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.

Today’s stamp shows the Constitution of 1946 during the brief time it was in effect along with the Great Hall in the then capital of Nanking. The Great Hall had been built in 1936 to house the National Assembly. Interestingly when built it was not expected that the National Assembly would be meeting very often so the building was also to be the host of plays put on by the National Institute of Drama. Nanking experienced some drama itself in late 1937 when Nanking fell to the Japanese. There is some hyperbole about how rough the Japanese occupation was, no there was not a contest between Japanese officers on who could kill a 100 Chinese by sword in the shortest time. It was a much rougher occupation though than say the American occupation of Tokyo. Imagine instead Tokyo being occupied in 1946 by Chinese, Mao or Chiang. Anyway the building still stood to host the National Assembly in 1946 and still stands today.

Todays stamp is issue A89, a $3000 Yuan stamp issued by the KMT government on mainland China on Christmas Day 1947. It was a three stamp issue in high inflation battered denomination. There was an earlier version of the stamp with the same image of the Nanking Great Hall but no constitution. According to the Scott catalog, the stamp is worth 50 cents unused.

The constitution granted a great deal of rights to the people of China. It was the KMT’s long promised third stage of Chinese development. There was to be no discrimination based on sex, religion, ethnicity or political party. If arrested, the accused had a right to see the charges against  him in writing and to have a trial within 24 hours of arrest. Julian Assange would have appreciated that provision. The National Assembly was to work a little differently, it elected the President to a six year term. It set out three principles for the people, nationalism, democracy, and livelihood.

Writing the Constitution was mainly the work of John Wu. He was a Chinese born Catholic that was educated at the University of Michigan Law School. For many years he kept up a friendly correspondence with then American Chief Justice of the Supreme Court Oliver Wendel Holmes. At first the Communists participated in the drafting, they proposed dividing the Assembly on a fixed ratio of 33% communist, 33% KMT, and 33% everyone else. When this was not done, they withdrew support and announced that the constitution would not be enforced in areas held by them. After the Revolution John Wu taught law at Setan Hall University in the USA and wrote novels. He eventually retired to Taiwan.

John Wu

5 months after the constitution theoretically went into effect in KMT held areas in China, it was superseded by the National Assembly. The country was in civil war and martial law and emergency powers were the order of the day. These emergency provisions traveled with the 1946 constitution to Taiwan. I guess if if you want to get the third stage of development right, it shouldn’t be rushed. The National Assembly, now in Taiwan in 1954 decided officials elected on the mainland under this constitution in 1947  would remain in office until there could be new elections on the mainland. Thus Taiwan put off those pesky elections until the 1990s.

Well my drink is empty and I will pour another to toast John Wu. It is amazing to think how much influence these Christian, American educated folks had in China. I wonder to what extent people worried about them being foreign agents. Come gain soon when there will be another story that can be learned from stamp collecting. First published in 2020.

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Afghanistan 1984, Antonov An-2, the ultimate bush plane

A sign that an aircraft model is not replaceable is a long production run. Turboprop versions of the An-2 are still in limited production in Ukraine and China having first entered production in 1947. The continued existence of the two factories allows many more older airframes to be refurbished and modernized. What has proved more challenging is designing a replacement. 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 from Afghanistan points to the usefulness of bush aircraft in so many places around the world. Due to where industrial capabilities lie, most bush airplane designs came from Russia and Canada. Most operators though have small fleets and so there is not a clear economic case for a replacement model. Luckily there still is the ability to refurbish, but it will be interesting to watch how long the old airframes can go on.

Todays stamp is issue A441, a one Rupee stamp issued by the Soviet puppet government of Afghanistan on June 29th, 1984. It was a seven stamp issue in various denominations celebrating 40 years of aviation in the country. According to the Scott catalog, the stamp is worth 25 cents unused or cancelled to order.

In the early days after World War II, the Soviet Union drew up plans for a a 12 seat utility airplane to be built by Antonov in the Ukraine. It would use a license made Wright Cyclone piston engine. The plane was a biplane to give strong lift and allow for takeoff and landing runs under 700 feet. The An-2, Russian nickname Annie, NATO code name Colt had a very low 30 mph stall speed. It thus in a 35 mile an hour headwind, not uncommon at altitude,  the plane could fly backwards relative to the ground. The plane was useful for supplying distant outposts, crop spraying and skydiving.

In 1960 production of the AN-2 moved to Poland and got going in China. Over 18,000 airplanes have been built. Poland stopped making the An-2 in 1991 and for a while some production moved to Russia. During the Vietnam War, North Vietnamese AN 2s attacked an American spy base in Laos and were chased off by Huey helicopters where the fighting was guys shooting out of open doors with automatic rifles. In the Yugoslav Civil War of the early 1990s, Croatian crop duster AN-2s were dropping improvised barrel bombs out of the open door at Serbian/Yugoslav targets. In todays war between Armenia and Azerbaijan, Azeri unmanned An-2s are being used as drones for surveillance and bombing. Armenia claims to have so far shot down seven of them.

There was a fairly notorious 1976 crash of a An-2 in Novosibisk, Siberia. A recently divorced pilot attempted murder suicide by trying to crash the plane into the apartment of his exes in-laws where his ex wife and toddler son were staying. He instead hit the buildings stairwell and the plane’s 200 gallons of fuel started a large fire. Despite quick work by the fire department, four small children died from burns. None of the pilot’s targets were hurt.

Antonov no longer provides type certification for the An-2, so the for the many examples in the west, it is illegal to use the An-2 for business purposes. I mentioned above there are modernized versions with turboprop engines, cabin air conditioning, and GPS based navigation. There is of course the issue of how many improvements you can make before the plane is no longer simple enough to operate in the bush.

The currently offered, again from Ukraine, An-2-100. These can be built new or converted from old airframes

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

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USA 1893, A Columbian Exposition brings the worlds eyes on Chicago

Coming up on the 400th anniversary of the voyage of Christopher Columbus, America thought it a great time to celebrate it with a World’s Fair. They further decided to hold it in the west in Chicago to display how far things had come on the “frontier”. 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.

First we should take a little time with this stamp issue. In my opinion a masterpiece of a stamp issue. Rather than just show the World’s Fair. Instead we get a 15 stamp issue taking us through the history of Columbus’s negotiations with Queen Isabella, the highs of the first landing, the difficulties of the new colonies, the lows of Columbus being returned in chains to Spain and even the redemption he experienced in Barcelona late in life when people realized the magnitude of what Columbus accomplished. All this from 1893 when most stamps were royal portraits.

Todays stamp is issue A72, a 2 cent stamp issued by the USA in 1893. It was a 15 stamp issue with denominations as high as $5,( at least $132 in todays money, the CPI calculator only went back to 1913. According to the Scott catalog, the stamp is worth 40 cents used. High values in the set seem to stick with unused, never hinged copies especially the few imperforates and those with no gum. The $5 stamp is up at $9500.

It was an ambition of the USA to host a World’s Fair comparable with earlier ones in London and Paris. An earlier one in Philadelphia was unsuccessful. The Columbus anniversary was the excuse and Congress had to decide between bids from New York City, Chicago, and Saint Louis. Financial packages were heavily considered and it was quite the effort but Chicago outbid New York. It was also argued that Chicago had more space, cleaner air, and better represented a country whose center of gravity wasthen moving west.

Chicago also had a great advantage of new urban architects including Daniel Barnham  and Fredrick James Almsted to work on the project. They designed a beau arts style “White City” with a large reflecting pool representing Columbus’s ocean journey. There were 42 pavilions displaying different countries and record producer Sol Bloom designed an amusement park for the kids.

The Reflecting pool and the temporary buildings of the Fair

The fair started as a success. One of the displays was a “street in Cairo” that featured America’s first belly dancer doing the suggestive dance called the Hokky Pokki. The dancer was known as Little Egypt and was really from Syria and married to a local Greek restaurateur. The tune she moved to was composed by Sol Bloom and is today known as the Snake Charmers song.

Dancer known as Little Egypt doing the Hokie Pockey

The Fair ended early after the mayor was assassinated and it was thought more appropriate for the fair to close early. Surprisingly given the time, the Mayor wasn’t killed by an anarchist but a crazy man who thought that railroads were killing too many people at crossings and the Mayor should have fixed it. Clarence Darrow took the assassins’ case hoping to have him declared insane. The prosecution pointed out that he had loaded his revolver for safety by not having a bullet in the first chamber showing a right mind. It was one of Clarence Darrow’s few trial losses.

You can probably gather that the fair would not pass the smell test of the modern politically correct. Even in the period, black civil rights leader Fredrick Douglas wrote a pamphlet complaining that black people’s contributions to Columbus were being ignored. In more modern times the tact changed. Now the idea of an idealized white city is thought racist. The country pavilions were recast as freak shows. Special attention was directed at the Woman’s Pavilion which had a display of woman made Indian, Samoan, and African crafts under the banner of “Woman’s work in savagery”.

The powers that be in Chicago have changed a little since 1893. The Mayor is now a mixed Indian/African American lesbian named Lori Lightfoot. Earlier this year she authorized the removal of the Christopher Columbus statues in Chicago.

Chicago removing statue of Columbus in the middle of the night between protests.

Well my drink is empty and I will pour another to toast the people who put fairs together that celebrate progress or perhaps spill it on people that would take it all down. Come again soon when there will be another story that can be learned from stamp collecting. First published in 2020.

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Uzbekistan 1993, With no more silk road trade, the Tashkent Turks tire of the Boyars and the exiles and revert to Kokand

The silk road trade made Tashkent rich. It also made it a target of Turkish Khans seeking tribute. In desperation, the traders allowed themselves to be conquered by Russian Boyar adventurers hoping for good governance. Instead the silk trade was allowed to dry up and the city was flooded with exiles the Soviets didn’t trust and wanted out of the way. Maybe if they united with the rural Uzbeks and gave the Turks another try. 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 question was how and how much to subdivide the Turk people of Central Asia. Tashkent went to the extreme and tried to be a city state to protect it’s wealth. The early Soviet years saw the entire area organized as semi autonomous Turkestan, the other extreme of possibilities. The Soviet break up saw a middle road, with independent Uzbekistan reverting to a new Khanate of Kokand. That is what is reflected in the new coat of arms that is more like Kokand than more recent Soviet days.

Todays stamp is issue A8, a 15 Ruble stamp issued by independant Uzbekistan on June 10th, 1993. It was a four stamp issue in various denominations. According to the Scott catalog, the stamp is worth 35 cents cancelled to order. It is strange to see a non postal cancellation on what appears to be a bulk issue.

The Silk Road was the key to developing Tashkent. It wasn’t just Chinese silk, but also paper and gunpowder that were traded. The Turk population had to be able to interact with Chinese, Indians, Russians, and even Germans and British. The wealth and interaction changed the city and it attempted to govern itself as a city state, still under a local Turk Khan. The neighboring and formerly ruling Khanate of Kokand whose borders closely resemble modern Uzbekistan was able to reconquer Tashkent. To due so they occupied it with 30,000 defenders for the walled city.

Into this came Russian Boyar General Mikhail Chenyayev. Boyars were a multinational class of aristocrats who contract with the Czar to do  certain tasks. In Chenyayev’s case he was to bring the Russian flag to central Asia. He only had with him 1000 men. Knowing how well defended it was, the Czar had instructed him to leave Tashkent alone. Instead his small force scaled the wall in the middle of the night and killed the Kokand leader and paralized the defenses. Promising the city would be tax free and not militarily occupied, Tashkent was conquered.

As the Czar gave way to the Soviets Tashkent changed in a way that disappointed the local Turks. Cold war barriers got in the way of the old trade. In the meantime Moscow picked Tashkent for industrialization and as a place to go for eastern European exiles to whom they did not really trust. The city grew to be the fourth largest city in the Soviet Union, but the Turks were now a minority in their own city. The end of the Soviet Union saw a new Kokand form as Uzbekistan and there was a quick migration out of the exiles and Soviets. The city has not shrunk as the population was replaced by rural Uzbeks. The migration out can be spotted on modern AT&T commercials. The spokeslady, Milana Vaayntrub, was born in Tashkent in 1987, the daughter of Jewish exiles. The change saw the family emigrate to the USA when Milana was a toddler. The question is, the Soviets didn’t trust her family, nor did the Uzbeks, can AT&T?

Milana Vayntrub as Lily the AT&T lady. When she is not selling you a phone, she is advocating for Syrian refugee settlement in Europe. Interesting Tashkent doesn’t occur as a likely destination.

In recent years, China has been interested in reinvigorating silk road trade with a Chinese financed Silk Belt and Road initiative. This will not be of any good to Uzbek Tashkent. The Chinese have decided instead to route the new belt of roads and rail through Kazakhstan.

Well my drink is empty. Come again soon for another story that can be learned by stamp collecting. First published in 2021.

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Ras Al Khaima/ Khaimah 1969, Finbar Kenny brings postage stamps to a high tent on a pirate coast

Translated Ras Al Khaima means top of the tent, and indeed the Emirate contains the highest peak in the United Arab Emirates. In the old days it probably had some great smugglers dens. Now it hosts the worlds longest zip line. This stamp collector would rather talk about the old days. 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 docking of the lunar and command module of that years American Apolo 11 mission to the moon. A note about how spelling changes. They currently list three acceptable spellings for the Emirate in English, none of which is the one this stamp from 1969. The Emirate now seems decisive in wanting an h at the end of Khaima. Interestingly, in the first year of the Emirate’s stamps in 1964, the cancelation to order done on the stamp spelled the Emirate differently than on the actual stamp. The cancellation was prescient on putting the h at the end of Khaima, but then switched the Al to El which again is not one of the three allowed English spellings.

This dune stamp is considered fake so it is not in the catalog. Between 1964 and 1972 1036 stamps and 70 souvenir sheets were issued by Ras Al Khaima. Mid way along the currency switched from  Indian Rupees to Riyals so there are even some overprints of early issues changing the currency. This issue of 6 stamps and one souvenir sheet came out on August 15th, 1969.

The area of Ras Al Khaima has been occupied by humans continuously for 7000 years. It is associated historically with the trading post of Julfar. The area has been rules by the House of Al-Qasimi since 1721. Another line of the Royal house rules the Emirate of Sharjah. During this early period the British involved with the private British East India Company labeled the area of the coastline a pirate coast. There is some contention that this is just the British putting labels on trading competitors, however it is known that the Al-Qasimis were tied to the Somalis. Their allies in old times were the Persians and their rivals were the Omanis in Muscat and their British allies.

At first there was much inconclusive fighting with Muscat. In 1820 to they said put a stop to the piracy, the East India Company attacked by land and sea the fort at Ras Al Khaima. When they charged the fort they found it almost deserted. Unable to locate Emir Al-Qasimi, they traveled to Sharjah and had that Al-Qasimi sign a capitulation that agreed to an end to piracy and slavery. Ras Al  Khaima again seperated from Sharjah in 1869.

1820 British and Muscat siege of Ras Al Khaima

In 1963, the British stopped being the protector and stamp issuer for the Trucial States as they called them. That allowed American fake stamp guru Finbar Kenny come in to fill the stamp breach, signing a deal with Sheik Saqr Al-Qasimi. However the time period was very bad for Ras Al Khaima. Two islands that the Emirate claimed were occupied militarily by Shah era Iran. It seems the Al-Qasimi ties with the Persians had frayed. This became very important to stamp collectors because Ras al Khaima delayed joining the United Arab Emirates until the whole area agreed to to take up the cause of returning the islands. As a result of the delay, Ras Al Khaima produced the last fake dune stamps. Emir Saqr ruled from 1948 -2010.

Emir/Sheik Saqr Al- Qasimi

In 2003 Saqr removed crown prince Khalid in favor of son Saud. Khalid was forced into exile in old rival Muscat, Oman. Upon Saqr’s death on 2010, Khalid posted a video claiming the Emirship for himself, but the Emirate council recognized instead the selection of Saud. Khalid than funded a western PR campaign suggesting that his father and brother were in cahoots with the Islamic Republic of Iran in their nuclear weapons program. Sometimes the Philatelist has to update his scorecard to track the leans. Dunes do shift.

Well my drink is empty. Come again soon for another story that can be learned from stamp collecting.