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Rwanda 1965, Check out the wildlife at the (A)Kagera National Park

The wildlife of the Kagera National Park as ebbed and flowed due to disease, poaching, and farmer intrusion. Numbers are flowing again thanks to an investment from a Warren Buffet heir and the leadership of an NGO with the artist formerly known as Prince Harry at the helm. 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.

This is a particularly well drawn and printed wildlife at Kagera National Park issue especially when you consider it dates from 1965. It is the work of J van Notem and printed by De La Rue.

Todays stamp is issue A17, a 20 Centimes stamp issued by independent Rwanda on April 28th, 1965. It was a 10 stamp issue in various denominations. According to the Scott catalog, the stamp is worth 25 cents whether used or unused as this one.

The Kagera National Park was set aside for protection by the then Belgian colonial authorities in 1934. It is named for the Kagera River that runs through it. In the time since this stamp, the park has added an A to the beginning of it’s name. The park is over 970 square miles and thus is the largest protected wetland in central Africa.

At first wildlife in the park was most famous for a huge herd of African wild dogs sometimes called painted dogs or Lycaon. They were so numerous the Belgians thought them a pest. In the 1970s the herd was gradually thinned by disease and the dog was last seen at the park in 1984. They were still numerous enough to earn a stamp in this 1965 issue.

Gone but not forgotten at Kagera National Park. The African wild dog.

The next big challenge for the park came in the aftermath of the 1994 civil war between the Hutu and Tutsi tribe. As refugee farmers returned to the country, apparently they chose not to return to their own farms but rather set up shop in the park. This was the end of the lions and the rhinos. All the herds took a hit and by 2010 the park was in pretty pathetic shape.

At that point a deal was struck to subcontract out the park to a non government organization called the African Parks Network based out of South Africa and since 2017 having former Prince Harry has President. The group got a 10 million dollar contribution from Howard Buffet, an heir of Warren. The group employs 1100 park rangers to work in the 18 parks they run in Africa. You can guess that this is mainly about offering safaris to tourists but tourists want to be able to see some animals so the group as arraigned the donation of lions from European zoos. In the politically correct fashion, this is marketed as returning lions from where they were stolen. The Parks Network also managed to get some rhinos from South Africa.

Tourism to the park has gone up 8 fold since the Parks Network took over Akagera not so National Park. This makes them 80% self sufficient. They can’t ever get to 100% because how then would they get another donation from Howard Buffet so he can see his name up there with Warren and Jimmy.

This stamp is about the still existing zebras so I thought you might like to see an embroidery by a group of female artisans from the Rwandan village of Rutongo. You can check out and buy more of their work at http://rutongoembroideries.com.

The Zebras of Akagera

Well my drink is empty and I suppose I should be toasting former Prince Harry for his work with the African Parks Network. I will hold off, it smells like a bunch of rich boys who just enjoy Safaris. Come again tomorrow for another story that can be learned from stamp collecting.

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Romania 1964, Valeri Bykovsky spends 5 days alone in space, a record still unbroken

When we think about how on the razors edge the early space flights were, we begin to get a sense of why the Cosmonauts and Astronauts were so revered, with so many stamps from so many places. 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 was a ten stamp issue celebrating various missions. Most countries doing space stamps indicated the cold war team they were on by which missions  they covered. Romania had a little bit of an independent streak and so honored the Cosmonauts and Astronauts of both worlds. Romanian Dumitru Prunariu went to space in 1981 on the Soyuz 40 mission as part of the Soviet Intercosmos program.

Todays stamp is issue C159, a 1 Leu airmail stamp issued by Romania on January 15th, 1964. The 10 stamps were of different denominations with the lower values being diamond shaped. The set was also, and more commonly available perforated. According to the Scott catalog, the stamp is worth $1.40. The perforated version loses about a third of that value.

Valeri Bykovsky was born in 1934 in a suburb of Moscow. At age 16 he heard a presentation given to young men by the Moscow aviation club and eagerly joined. This then lead to a spot for him at the Kachinsk Military Aviation Academy and he was commissioned at age 21. Valeri was a fighter pilot and later a parachute instructor. He had 72 jumps before being accepted in the Cosmonaut training program.

Ground control to Major Valeri. It is time for Vostok 5 to come home

After being a backup pilot on the Vostok 2 mission, Valeri got to space the first time on the Vostok 5 mission in 1963. The mission would see Valeri alone in his capsule and was scheduled to last eight days. During the mission he was to photograph the earth and conduct experiments including attempting to grow peas in space. Also of course seeing how space treated Valeri physically and mentally was the big experiment. Once in space, solar flares turned out to be much stronger than forecast. It was worried that the flares might change the the dynamics of the atmosphere and cause the already shallow orbit to decay and lead to a less controlled rentry potentially anywhere. It was decided to bring Valeri home early, still having spent 5 days in orbit alone, a still current record. Valeri was awarded membership in the communist party while in space and much decorated and promoted back home.

Valeri and a female Cosmonaut with schoolchildren in 1963

After seeing his potential Soyuz 2 mission scrubbed after the failure of Soyuz 1, Valeri went back to space two more times in 1976 on Soyuz 22 and again in 1978 on Soyuz 29. On Soyuz 29 he flew with East German Cosmonaut Sigmund Jahn, the first German in space and again part of the Soviet Intercosmos program. Sigmund took a plush toy Sandmannchen to space in order to film a piece for the the German animated children’s show. The film included included Soviet Cosmonauts joking that Sandmannchen should mate with their present Soviet plushtoy mascot Masha. Back on Earth, it was decided that the footage was not useable.

Late in his career, Valeri was a Major General and an important figure in the Intercosmos program. He died in 2019.

Well my drink is empty and I will pour another to join Romania in toasting the space travelers of both worlds. Come again tomorow for another story that can be learned from stamp collecting.

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Guatemala 1946, Remembering, well not very well, Jose Batres Montufar

Small poor countries really have a hard time displaying culture. Jose Batres Montufar’s family decided to destroy their copies of his poems just after his death so to avoid trouble with the government. That would probably have been the end of all memory if his favorite dictator hadn’t had a statue made of him. 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.

With most of his work not surviving, it is hard to judge Mr. Montufar’s talent, and with it the state of Guatemala’s nineteenth century poetry. He was really all they had. Well there was that bust though, so they have his likeness, and with a likeness you can make a stamp. The stamp then can give the illusion there was poetry once, a long time ago.

Todays stamp is issue A133, a 3 Centavos stamp issued by Guatemala in 1946. It was a four stamp issue with the highest denomination being airmail. According to the Scott catalog, the stamp is worth 25 cents used.

Pepe Batres, Jose Batres Montufar was a pen name, was born in 1809. He was a part of the rich Aycinena clan that had a monopoly in commerce in Guatemala back to Spanish colonial times. Pepe served as a soldier including a year spent as a prisoner of war held by the El Salvadorans. He rose through the ranks peaking at Captain in command of an engineering unit of the Guatemala Army. His schooling was by tutors and Pepe was fluent in French, Latin, and eventually English. His poems were romantic and heavily influenced by Lord Byron.

In 1829 the political left took over in Guetemala and the Aycinena clan had their properties seized and was forced into exile. The family claims the properties were handed out to bunch of liberal creoles and halfbreeds. They were understandably annoyed but looking at their portraits perhaps they shouldn’t be throwing stones from glass houses on ethnicity.

For a while Pepe was safe in the Army but as pressure on him grew he took leave to take part in a Central American funded expedition to map out a possible Atlantic-Pacific canal in Nicaragua. The expedition was lead by Englishman John Baily. The expedition was under resourced and got stuck in the rainforest. Pepe returned to Guatemala sick and dejected.

The Aycinena clan made a comeback in Guatemala funding the peasant army of Rafael Carrera. Though leading a peasant army and allegedly personally illiterate, once in power Carrera built a grand stone opera house for his singing mistress and across from it a statue of the great Guatemalan poet Jose Batres Montufar. At the time Pepe was serving in Carrera’s Army as a military provincial governor.

After Pepe died his family worried that his work would annoy the political right because it poked fun at them  and annoy the left because of who his family were. The opera house, I did a stamp on it here, https://the-philatelist.com/2017/11/06/guatemala-columbus-theatre-still-impressive-on-the-stamp-but-really-in-ruins/  , went through many changes trying to stamp out the memory of Carrera before collapsing in an earthquake in 1920. The very top of Pepe’s statue was remounted as a bust and given to the national library.

Pepe’s bust

Well my drink is empty and I will pour another to toast the illiterate General Carrera who saw to it that Guatemala would at least remember the poet they couldn’t read. Come again tomorrow for another story that can be learned from stamp collecting.

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Spain 1981, Leave the Nuns alone and tell us more about the Donkey

In the period after Franco, there was a good deal of rehabilitating figures that sat out Franco in exile. Seems a strange thing to do as the average person can’t just leave because they don’t agree with the politics of their leaders, so you end up honoring the elite who have choices. Here we have poet and writer Juan Ramon Jimenez. 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 Philatelists.

1981 was the birth century of Mr. Jimenez and he got just a ton of recognition. Not only this stamp but a similar image of him graced the back of the 2000 Paseta bank note. At the University of Maryland, where he had taught Spanish and Portuguese in the later years of his self imposed exile, in 1981 he had a new dormitory named for him.

Todays stamp is issue A605, a 30 Paseta stamp issued by Spain in 1981. This was a six stamp issue put out in two sets of three depicting great Spanish men. According to the Scott catalog, the stamp is worth 25 cents used.

Juan Ramon Jimenez was born into a rich family in Moguer, Spain. He studied with the Jesuits and at the University of Seville, with an eye toward the law. He instead switched to writing poetry and in this was heavily influenced by Nicaraguan poet Ruben Dario and the modernist movement in poetry.

In this phase Jimenez would suffer bouts of depression which he would self medicate by sexual promiscuity and then a stay at a sanitorium. Dirty stories of his escapades were the main body of his prose. Around 1912, he was in residence at a sanitorium in Madrid that was staffed mainly novitiate Nuns. When his dirty stories got back to the Mother Superior, Jimenez was thrown out of the sanitarium. It is not known whether the stories actually happened.

You are not going to get a Nobel Prize in Literature for chasing around young Nuns with cold feet and even worse talking about it. Luckily for Mr. Jimenez he was about to enter a more productive phase. He wrote a full novel called Platero and me about a writer who travels around his the rural area of his childhood with a donkey named Platero. He did a good job of showing the simple love between the animal and his master. The book was his masterpiece and was a hit throughout the Spanish world and beyond.

When the Spanish Civil War broke out, Jimenez relocated first to Puerto Rico and then Florida. He was hit with another bout of depression and his literary output reverted. He put out a collection of the romances of Coral Gables. I have to assume that Coral Gables in his period was not the retirement community it is today. Luckily the committee of the Nobel Prize in Literature was still thinking more of Platero the donkey from 40 years before than the cold footed young Nuns or the hot flashing seniors of Coral Gables when they awarded Jimenez the Nobel Prize in 1956.

Mr. Jimenez died in 1958. Perhaps his home town Moguer had better ideas of how to best honor the author. They erected a statue to Platero the donkey.

Bronze statue of Platero in Moguer

Well, my drink is empty. I have perhaps been a little harsh on Mr. Jimenez. He could not be expected to deliver a work that so vividly described a time and place after abandoning his homeland. I wonder if he considered that before leaving? Come again tomorrow when there will be another story that can be learned from stamp collecting.

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Italy 1937. Lets make sure the kids can go to camp this summer

Italy’s government was pretty notorious in 1937. That does not mean that life didn’t go on for Italians. Such as for example, the kids going to summer camp. 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.

1930s stamp engraving wont be the prime medium for capturing a 500 year old piece of Florence renascance skulpture. It was nice that they included it with the modern images of children on the other stamps in the issue to show the importance of children to society over time and to make the whole issue less political.

Todays stamp is issue A207, a 75 Centesimi stamp issued by Italy on June 28th, 1937. It was a 10 stamp issue in various denominations that promoted the Summer Exhibition for Child Welfare. The higher denominations were semi postal issues that included a surcharge to help fund the camp trips for disadvantaged kids. According to the Scott Catalog, the stamp is worth $17.50 used. The 2.75 +1.25 Lira denomination also used this image but colored blue green, It’s value used is up at $275.

The image on this stamp is “il Bambino”. It was created by sculptor Luca della Robbia in Florence during the 1440s. Della Robbia also worked in stone, bronze, and wood, but he is best known for his work in terra cota. Happy, Holy Spirit filled children were usually his subjects and decorated the alter of many Italian churches of his day. Della Robbia  produced one offs for individual commissions and also more mass market versions.that came from molds. He was successful enough to acquire a great house that contained a workshop that also employed many  of his family members. Indeed the workshop was able to continue in the house for over 40 years after della Robbia’s death.

A reader might be put off a little by the Fascist government coopting della Robbia’s work. The fact is though that the work is now long in the public domain and if you look below you will see a modern poster image of the same work available at Walmart. Interestingly they admit it is a work by della Robbia but date the work to 1912.

The Walmart poster. Walmart assures thick poster paper

Well my drink is empty and I will pour another to toast Walmart for out coopting even the Fascists. Come again tomorrow for another story that can be learned from stamp collecting.

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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 Monday when there will be another story that can be learned from stamp collecting.

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Brazil 1960, Recognizing a bit late the birth century of L. L. Zamenhoff

There has long been an ideal that if there was a common language that all spoke, it would go a long way toward different people solving disputes. Already as a schoolboy L. L. Zamenhof developed what he hoped could be an international language based on his native Yiddish but with a Latin script. He promoted his idea under the pseudonym Dr. Esperanto, which is Russian for doctor who hopes. 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.

It is a little surprising that Brazil decided to honor Dr. Zamenhof with a stamp. The practice of Esperanto in Brazil is centered around an off chute of Catholics called spiritism. This is a little off track from the task of improving the situation of Jewish minorities in eastern Europe. A stamp honoring Esperanto in the Brazil context might be better served by a spiritist such as Chico Xavier.

Todays stamp is issue A434, a 6.5 Cruzeiro stamp isued by Brazil on March 10th, 1960. It was a single stamp issue that came out a year late to properly celebrate the birth century of Dr. Zamenhof. According to the Scott catalog, the stamp is worth 35 cents unused.

Levi Zamenhoff was born in a mainly Jewish city in what was then Russia but is now eastern Poland. In his town were also Russians, Poles, Germans, and Lithuanians that all spoke different languages. Levi saw how many petty disputes escalated because people couldn’t communicate. Levi already as a school boy was a ready scholar of languages and thought he could solve it by making a simplified Yiddish but with a Latin script could be taught to all. This of course would be advantageous to Jews who were usually a minority but were well represented among merchants and professionals who deal with all. They couldn’t be all expected to learn the multiple native tongues. It also, he believed, fit with his pacifist politics. Amazingly, Levi finished his proposal for a common language at age 17.

Levi being too young to get his work published studied to become an eye doctor. He practiced his profession in Lithuania, Austria, and Russia and that reminded him of the common language need. When he married a well off girl named Wanda, Levi was able to convince his new father in law to back the publishing and promotion of his common language. He published under the pseudonym Dr. Esperanto that was quickly taken up as the name for the language. The language quickly found favor with utopian pacifist worldwide that had more than their share of  Yiddish speakers. This fit with Levi'[s political views. He even rebelled against Zionism as he believed nationalism was a disease to be avoided even among oppressed minorities.

The first Esperanto Congress in 1905

One might have expected the language of Esperanto to thrive among international political movements that so dominated the 20th century such as Communism and Fascism. Instead Nazi era Germany banned the teaching of Esperanto despite the many linguistic connections of German and Yiddish. In fact the Nazis executed Levi’s Warsaw based eye doctor son Adam during the Palmiri massacre of prominent Jews and Poles. Soviet leader Stalin decreed a more complete banning of Esperanto declaring it the language of spies and traitors.

Well my drink is empty and I will pour another to toast Levi Zamenhof and all those who did their best work in high school. Come again tomorrow when there will be another story to be learned from stamp collecting.

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East Germany 1983, Keeping time at the Dresden Salon

Collections build off each other. A collection of armor and weapons grew to include thousands of clocks and sundials. Luckily when a royal house is the collector, it is not just hoarding but the makings of a national treasure. 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 Philatelists.

You may wonder why the East Germans were showing off some of the old treasures of the Dresden Mathematics and Physics Salon. They had earned the right to. In February 1945, the Zwinger palace complex was mostly destroyed in the Allied fire bombing of the city. The collection mostly survived as it previously been moved for safe keeping mostly into rural castles. The city fell to the Soviet Army soon after and one might have expected that to be the end of it, as lets face it, putting back together palace complexes and Royal collections is not their wheel house. Sometimes people outperform and the complex reopened in 1953. One thing that did go away was the observatory that had offered an exact official time for Saxony for the previous 150+ years.

Todays stamp is issue A710, a 20 Pfennig stamp issued by East Germany on June 7th, 1983, the 30th anniversary of the Salon’s reopening. It was a six stamp issue in various denominations. This stamp shows a horizotal sundial created by Christopher Trechsler in 1611 on the commission for the Salon. According to the Scott catalog, the stamp is worth 25 cents used.

The first known sundials have been found in Egypt and date from 1500 BC. Depending on how good the model is for the suns movement in relation to the season and the location, a sundial can give a very accurate time.

In 1570, Italian Astronomer Giovanni Padovani, who operated out of Verona published a widely read work explaining sundials including details of how to make them. He included tables for the different latitudes.

August the Strong, Elector of Saxony, collector of sundials and builder of the Zwinger

In the 15th Century Albert the Bold was Duke of Saxony and established a chamber in his Dresden residence to house his collection of armor and weapons. It became one of the largest collections in the world. Later Augustus the Strong, Elector of Saxony and King of Poland expanded the chamber and the collection expanded to include time pieces. Augustus was building in Dresden an elaborate complex called the Zwinger. The added space allowed the collection to be broken up and thus came about the Salon of Physics and mathematics.

Salon of Math and Physics in the Zwinger complex

There was a further reconstruction of the Zwinger that reopened in 2013. The current collection contains over 3000 clocks and scientific instruments and still includes Christopher Trechsler’s sundial from 1613.

Another view of the 1611 sundial on the stamp

Well my drink is empty. Come again tomorrow when there will be another story that can be learned from stamp collecting and don’t forget to vote.

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Algeria 1952, French Algeria remembers Cherchell when it was a Roman Mauretanian Empire under Juba II and Cleopatra

The period French would tell you they were dragged into the Magreb to be done with Barberry pirates. What they found and cataloged were remnants of previous civilizations dating to Pheonicians, Carthage, Berbers and especially Romans in Cherchell. 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 a statue of a bird resembling an eagle taking off with a male baby. The statue is from Roman times and is in the collection or the archeology museum in Cherchell. The best I can figure it relates to the ancient Hebrew Demoness Lilith, she has Greek, Roman, and Arabic equivalents. Lilith is thought to be the the first wife of Adam, who lost her first son. Her grief turns her into a flying demoness, who swoops in to steal male babies so she can suck their blood. In the Greek-Roman version Lamia, she can’t stop seeing her dead baby and Zues takes pity and gives her the ability to remove her eyes from their sockets.

A Babylon version of Lilith. Notice the eagle wings, claws, and feet

Todays stamp is issue A35, a 15 Franc stamp issued by the then French colony of Algeria in 1954. It was a 6 stamp issue in various denominations showing Roman era statues in Cherchell, the one time capital of the Roman Mauretania Empire. According to the Scott catalog, the stamp is worth 25 cents used.

The Mauretania Empire was centered on Cherchell but extended west to the Atlantic ocean. It was occupied by Moors, Berbers, Jews, and Phonecians and was an important trading post in the western Mediterranian. Cherchell was well known for it’s high quality silver coins, but also exported grapes, fish, and furniture. It was also the sole source of a purple dye that was important to the adornments of Roman ceremonies. Mauritania had originally allied with Carthage but was soon annexed by Rome.

The man who became their great King Juba II was a Berber who travelled to Rome where he was educated and made a Roman citizen. Octavian crowned him King of Mauretania and he married Cleopatra Selene, the daughter of Cleopatra of Egypt and Marc Anthony. This was the golden era for Cherchell, then called Ceasaria. Trade grew, the arts and the study of history were renewed and the fortified city was reorganized into a Roman style grid plan. Juba II was a learned man who wrote books on history, geography, grammar. He also discovered through his doctor that the local succulent flower euphorbia was a powerful laxative.

Juba II and Cleopatra’s tomb in Algeria

Mauretania was eventually conquered by the Vandals and later the Visigoths. The areas importance greatly reduced. As Cherchell there was another boom as a completely French city with a large army presence. Over time Arabs entered seeking employment in the fields and the city but remained fiery but mostly peaceful during the 1950s Algerian war. The Europeans left in mass at the time of independence and again the city lost  importance. It still gets water from an expanded cistern system first put in by Juba II.

Well my drink is empty so I will have to wait till tomorrow when there will be another story that can be learned from stamp collecting,

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Tanzania 1993-94, Checking out the rhinos at the original place to hear more cowbell

Ngorongoro Crater is a large grassy plateau in the crater of a long dormant volcano. This provided a food rich home for thousands of animals. As long ago as 1921, laws have been passed to protect the animals habitat, but getting the Maasai tribe to listen is ever the challenge. 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 issue celebrated the national parks of Tanzania. For Ngorongoro Crater, we get a fun view of a rhinoceros. The rhino has been particularly hard hit since Tanzanian independence with numbers down 95 percent to just a few dozen. The international community declared the area a world heritage site, but getting poor, desperate natives to value their heritage is not easy. Money is handed to the government for protection and none gets passed to the tribe who are the ones that actually have to leave the animals alone.

Todays stamp is issue A187, a twenty Shilling stamp issued allegedly by Tanzania on October 29th, 1993. The stamps of this issue were not actually available until late 1994. This was a seven stamp issue in various denominations that was also available as a souvenir sheet. According to the Scott catalog, the full set of the seven stamps is worth $4 whether unused or cancelled to order. No value is given for the stamps individually but simple division gets you 57 cents each. There is also no value specified for an actual postal cancelation. Do any exist?

The grassy plateau of the crater is thought to have formed about 2 million years ago over a pool of dried lava. The crater floor is two thousand feet deep and covers an area of 100 square miles. Still the crater floor is 6000 feet above sea level. The name Ngorongoro comes from the Maasai and describes what a cowbell sounds like in the crater with the echo.

Tanzania was first in the area of German East Africa. The first European to visit the crater was Austrian explorer and cartographer Oscar Baumann. Baumann had had a rough time in Tanzania where he was exploring his theory of the source of the Nile River. Baumann and his assistant were taken by Arab traders that were unhappy that the Sultan of Zanzibar had sold the area to Germany. They were beaten, robbed and even stripped and held till Austria Hungary paid a ransom. Despite the setback, Bauman continued to explore the area until Austria Hungary named him consul to Zanzibar. The Zanzibar of the day was quite an unhealthy place to live and Baumann died a few years later of a bacterial infection at only 35.

Oscar Baumann trying to fit in wearing a fez in Zanzibar

With the natives being nomadic, it was two German brothers, Adolf and Friedrich, that first set up a farm in the crater in 1898. They hosted hunting parties and tried unsuccessfully to drive the herd of wildebeests out of the crater. The wildebeest is the most common animal in the crater. In 1921 all hunting was banned in the crater except on the former German farm.

Wildebeests and zebras in a herd in the crater

The next challenge came in 1951 when the then British colonials set aside the Serengeti Wildlife Park. This meant moving the Maasai nomads out and them going in large numbers to the crater. In 1959 Britain tried to limit the damage being done to the crater  by also making  Ngorongoro crater a national park. Soon enough Tanganyika was independent and in 1979 it was the UN coming in to try to save a few of the animals by declaring it a world heritage site. The area is considered by them to be endangered by human intrusion.

Well my drink is empty and hears hoping the UN is successful in saving the wildlife of the Ngorongoro Crater. Come again tomorrow when there will be another story that can be learned from stamp collecting.