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Pakistan 1964, Pakistan makes an appearance at the sort of New York World’s Fair

This not quite World’s Fair was dedicated to man’s achievement on a shrinking globe in an expanding universe. New York wanted to do it to show off progress since the 1939 Worlds Fair there. Conceived before the societal changes of the late sixties, by the time it was executed the fair was facing the realities of a changing world. 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.

Though the stamp shows the well designed culturally appropriate Pakistan Pavilion over a background of the Fair’s signature stainless steel Unisphere, the largest globe in the world, the stamp is somewhat let down by pour printing. The fair did provide a way for Pakistan to introduce itself to the Fair’s over 50 million visitors who were mostly children. The fair made an impression on the youth of that generation, as it was perhaps one of the last gasps of 1950s America.

Todays stamp is issue A60, a 1.5 Rupee stamp issued by Pakistan on April 22, 1964. It was a two stamp issue in various denominations. According to the Scott catalog, the stamp is worth 25 cents used.

The site of both the sanctioned 1939 New York World’s Fair and the unsanctioned 1964-1965 fair was Flushing Meadows Park in Queens. It had long been a marshy garbage and ash dump. New York builder Robert Moses had dreams of turning it into a massive 1100 acre park. The 1939 fair was just the opportunity to make his vision a reality. Unfortunately, the full scope of what he had in mind for the property could not be covered in the first fairs budget. A second worlds fair would provide the resources to finish the job.

Selling the rest of the world on the fair proved difficult, Seattle had hosted a worlds fair in 1962 and Montreal was scheduled for 1967. The Bureau of Exhibitions had several rules that were against the fair. No country was to have more than one fair in a 10 year period, no fair was supposed to last more than 6 months, and no fair was to charge rent to exhibitors. The organizers of the fair traveled to Paris to request that the rules be waived and the event be officially sanctioned by the BoE. This was refused and the organizers then went out with intemperate remarks about the BoE and the BoE responded by making an official statement suggesting that countries not participate in the fair. This is the only time this as happened. The fair went ahead but no shows were Canada, the Soviet Union, Australia and most of Europe. Indonesia initially agreed but relations deteriorated and the completed Indonesian Pavilion  was occupied and barricaded during the Fair.

40 nations did participate, mostly ones trying to ingratiate themselves to the USA. The most popular of the foreign pavilions was Vatican City, that brought over and displayed the Pieta. There were still over 100 pavilions mostly sponsored by American corporations. They mostly displayed consumer goods with a space or computer theme. The fair had a goal of 70 million visitors which would have had it break even with it’s initially high ticket prices. That goal was why it went two years but it only managed 51 million visitors, even after a second year ticket price cut.

The Unisphere globe was maintained in the park after the fair closed as United States Steel donated 1 million dollars to insure continued maintenance. Nevertheless the fountains were turned off in 1970. In the middle 1990s there was a refurbishment that turned back on the fountains. As of today, June 24, the Unisphere has not been removed as part of the BLM erasure of history. In 2019 it however was scaled by an environmental group  to hoist a banner protesting the Amazon River fires that year.

Unisphere in 2018

Well my drink is empty and I will pour another to toast Robert Moses and his realized dream of turning a dump into a park. I would propose a statue, but you know….. Come again soon when there will be another story that can be learned from stamp collecting. First published in 2020.

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Great Britain 1969, National Gyro replaces cash from the milkman

In the Britain of the 1960s, bank accounts were only for the top 20 percent. The working class were usually paid weekly in cash, but that left junior salarymen having to endorse their paychecks, often to the milkman, to get their money. A new Labour government knew there must be a better way, and kindly thought to use the established infastructure of the post offices to make it happen. 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 design of this stamp did not age well. The organization was just getting going in 1968 so one can understand the stylized emblem as a way to signal future promise rather than current reality. However now over 50 years have passed, emblems have come and gone and eventually the whole thing was privatized.  I came at this stamp thinking they were talking about some sort of radar technology.

Todays stamp is issue A220, a 5 pence stamp issued by Great Britain on October 1st, 1969. It was a three stamp issue in various denominations showing off new technology at the post office. According to the Scott Catalog, the stamp is worth 25 cents used or unused.

In 1959 the government came out with a white paper that challenged that the banking industry was not serving the money needs of the bulk of the country. This confirmed what the Labour side of politics always suspected. The banking industry itself admitted that small accounts were unprofitable and at the time many smaller towns did not have bank branches making it hard for the middle class to access their pay. Many were really endorsing over they monthly paycheck to the milkman. Many other countries offered basic banking services through their post offices, which usually even the smallest village had. A new post office bank started from scratch could also use computers to automate processing and base more transactions off payer initiated wire transfer instead of payee based check cashing or depositing. The term giro was an old term for a wire transfer. The post offices would also benefit. They were already used to hand out welfare/dole payments and dealt in vast quantities of cash. Private banks were charging the post office high fees to do this and a National Giro Bank operated through post offices could take this function over.

The National Giro got up and running in 1968. A lot of money had to be spent to be ready to open nationally and the bank of course started with much infrastructure and no customers. The first few years saw the operation generated large losses  due from the government owners. In 1970, the then new Tory Heath government proposed labeling it a Wilson failure and shutting it down. They instead settled on a reorganization plan to lower losses.

Eventually National Giro was handling one in three wire transfers and was the sixth largest bank in Britain when ranked by deposits. It was the the first bank in Britain to offer an interest earning checking accounts. The bank also had a large stigma. The post offices remember handed out dole payments and GiroCheques became slang for handouts to lay abouts. There was also the problems that checks written by regular account holders resembled dole checks more than a check drawn on a private bank,

In 1989 the system was privatized and sold off to Alliance & Leicester, a mutually owned building society, similar to the old American Savings and Loan. The privatization included a contract that allowed it to keep working through post offices which it did until 2003. Alliance & Leicester was absorbed by the Spanish bank Santander Group in 2010. In 2013 the British post office relaunched some of the old money services under the Post Office Money brand.

New Emblem for the old service relaunched

Well my drink is empty and while Money will be more popular then Gyro their emblem seems lacking. Strange since current operations seem to spend ever more time on branding instead of doing. Come again soon for another story that can be learned from stamp collecting.

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Kamchatka 1994, fake stamps that do serious moral and economic harm to the Russian Federation and discredits the Russian Postal Service

In 2000 the Russian Federation appealed to the Universal Postal Union in Switzerland to help them put a stop to entities outside Russia from producing topical stamps purporting to be issued by regions of Russia with some autonomy. Hence most of these fake stamps come from the 1990s. This one I think is implying it comes from the Kamchatka Krai though the spelling is pretty wild with Roman script and that weird number 3. Some times it is difficult to figure out what a real stamp designer is trying to get across. Designing fake ones must add another level of 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.

If you are not an employee of the real Russian postal service trying to get collectors to appreciate what real Russian stamps have to offer, than perhaps you can appreciate this stamp. The fall leaf in the mouth of the turtle is a nice touch though I would imagine Kamchatka to be less deserty.

This is a fake stamp so there is no catalog value. I did a search for Kamchatka stamps on Ebay and only found legitimate Russian and Soviet issues showing off nicely Kamchatka volcanoes. Russia and the UPU must have done a good job stamping out these type issues.

The late 16th century saw Russian and Cossack explorers push into the Kamchatka peninsula and claim it for the Czar. The found the place very sparsely populated with Itelmen natives that were closely related to other Eskimoes of the Russian far east. Interesting they also found evidence that the Japanese had been there, including one living in a Itelmen village. The Russians thought he was a Hindu from India because Tokyo then called Hondo and Hindu were confused. He was sent to Moscow and Peter the Great helped him establish a Japanese school. There was also much talk among natives of an earlier expedition by Russians under a mythical Russian explorer called Fedotov, whose people had stayed on and intermarried.  The Itelmen the legend says thought them gods and left them alone until they witnessed a murder among the Russians. They then murdered them and looted their village. Well people should keep their bad behavior to themselves.

A 19th century Russian depiction of an Itelmen. What is he about to do with that knife?

There was much hardship for the Russian explorers who faced many uprisings and stolen reindeer from their Eskimo guides as well as rebellious Itelmen. The Itelmen had it even worse for the encounter with the Russians as they contracted and were greatly thinned out by small pox. The suicide rate, the Itelmen had also discovered Russian vodka, was quite high. The Czar made it illegal for an Itelmen to kill himself and the Russian Orthadox Church made extra effort to convert and assimilate the Itelmen.

There was a period when the area had legitimate stamps of their own. Between 1920 and 1922 a red Soviet aligned Far Eastern Republic was allowed to exist as a neutral buffer state during the white-red civil war. The red Soviets were worried that Japanese soldiers in Vladivostok would attack them. The Far East Republic did not go well with a coup against the installed government and the rural areas breaking off as an autonomous region. The stamps were mostly overprints of old Czarist issues.

Real Far Eastern Republic stamp from 1922

Today the area is overwhelmingly populated by Russians. Intermarriage meant that Idelmen no longer based their ancestry on pure blood, but rather on the the practice of the Itelmen language. Fewer than 100 mostly older people now speak it.

Well my drink is empty and soon there will be another story that can be learned from stamp collecting. First published in 2020.

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Yemen Arab Republic 1967, Egypt pulls out, so it is time for conciliation

At the time of this stamp both North and South Yemen had rival entities claiming the future. In the North that even meant rival stamp issues. With the Egyptian pullout, perhaps it was time to see if the sides had more in common, like needing a new patron. So slip on your smoking jacket, fill your pipe, take your first sip of your adult beverage, and sit back in your most comfortable chair. Welcome to todays offering from The Philatelist.

When two sides in a civil war are putting out stamps, The Philatelist did a Royalist one here, https://the-philatelist.com/2019/06/20/fake-north-yemen-stamp-remembers-the-barefoot-bazooka-guy-freedom-fighter/   , you can bet the issues are more to raise revenue than for actual postage. So here we get an elaborate oversized issue on Flemish painting masters. Bizarre thing for socialists of North Yemen to be spending time on. Anyway the painting is “The Peasant Wedding” by Pieter Brueger and is from the 16th century. Brueger is noted for finding the nobility in his images of peasants. There is a mystery as to who the groom is in this wedding celebration. There is an old Dutch proverb that says it is a poor man that cannot be at his own wedding so this may be a take on that. Though Brueger mainly operated out of Antwerp, the painting today hangs at a museum in Vienna.

This stamp is issue A60 a 1/4th Bogaches stamp issued by the Yemen Arab Republic in October 1967. It was 15 stamps on Flemish painting masters issued in three groups of five. The higher denominations were airmail issues. According to the Scott catalog, these were real stamps as this force was holding Sana the capitol and the post office. They put the value at 25 cents whether unused like this one or cancelled to order.

In 1967, Egypt pulled out it’s military presence from North Yemen as they were needed at home after the 1967 Sinai war with Israel. The socialists that they supported still held the capital of Sana and the Saudi Arabian backed rebels the highlands. After an unsuccessful siege on Sana in 1968, the Royalists were nearly spent. So however were the socialists without Egypt.

It was time for Abdul Rahman to make his move. He was the son of a judge but at different times he was put in prison by the King and by Nasser in Egypt. Rumors persisted around Rahman that he was a secret Jew named Hadad that was adopted by his important Muslim family. He says Hadad was his stepbrother. In any case in 1970 he was able to form a government of conciliation that included socialists and royalists. This government had the backing of  Saudi Arabia, which is so important with Saudi Arabia so rich and Yemen so poor.

North Yemen President Rahman

In 1972, forces of the old South Arabia tried to make a comeback in South Yemen with backing from the Saudis and North Yemen under Rahman. What a change from being a part of the free Yemeni  movement against middle eastern royals. The war was not successful but the two Yemens agreed in principle to join into one Yemen. It took 18 years for that to happen.

Their coming for you, South Yemeni Pan Arab socialist. Slowly..

That area or the world is not known to be forgiving of losers. In 1974 Rahman was couped out of office under a program, pogrom?, of correcting the revolution and getting rid of the legacy of decadence. Easier said than done. He lived the rest of his life in exile in Damascus.

Well my drink is empty and I will confine my toasting to the wedding couple on the stamp’s painting. Hope they were able to track down the groom. Come again soon when there will be another story that can be learned from stamp collecting. First published in 2020.

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New Zealand 1982, A nattering nabob comes to New Zealand, bringing sheep

A nabob is a word that comes to English from Hindi. In the English language it came to mean a fellow who returns after making a great fortune in India. When nabob John Cracroft Wilson arrived in New Zealand, he was perhaps not the fellow you would have expected to bring with him that rural England staple, a flock of sheep. You might not also expect New Zealand to take to the raising of sheep in a bigger way than even England. Even today with a diverse urban society, New Zealand hosts ten sheep for every human. 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 view of a sheep herd is an attempt by the stamp designer to evoke spring. There were four stamps in the issue, one for each season. This is the lone season that implies work. Not sure what to make of that.

Todays stamp is issue A275, a 70 cent stamp issued by New Zealand on June 2nd, 1982. It was a four stamp issue in various denominations. According to the Scott catalog, the stamp is worth 85 cents whether used or unused.

Sheep raising was not practiced by the Maori prior to the arrival of Europeans. The islands, especially the south island, are quite suited to it with ample grassland and well distributed rainfall over the seasons. John Cracroft Wilson was stationed in India during the time of the East India Company. He was tasked there with hunting down groups of native thugs that were preying on British in residence there. Thugery is another word that came to the English language from Hindi. He was quite successful at it but when faced with a patch of ill health he decided to find a more temperate climate and chose New Zealand.

Seeking a calmer rural life, he stopped in Australia and acquired a flock of sheep. One can imagine how treacherous it must have been to move a flock of sheep by sea in the time of sailing ships. Indeed the journey was quite hard on the flock with over 1200 of them having to be put overboard. He founded an estate near Christchurch that he named Cashmere. The name was to be evocative of the Indian region of Kashmir.

Just as Mr. Cracroft Wilson was getting established in New Zealand he was called back to India at the time of the Sepoy rebellion. His success in this period against thuggery was so that he was said by the Viceroy Lord Canning to have saved more Christian lives than any man in India. Mr. Cracroft Wilson was awarded by Queen Victoria the rank of Knight Commander in the newly established Order of the Star of India. Soon however he was back in New Zealand to tend his growing sheep flock. The growing flock required him to lease three additional sheep runs.

Sir John Cracroft Wilson

At the time New Zealand was short of accomplished men so Mr. Cracroft Wllson was pressed into a variety of roles. He was head of the Jockey Club, the Acclimation Society, a military cavalry reserve unit, the Governor of Canterbury College. He also served in the New Zealand Parliament where he was quite the nattering nabob in debate. Dealings with the Maori were a hot topic and Cracroft Wilson proposed importing a unit of Gurkhas from India to make short work of them. The suggestion was not taken up.

The sheep industry got a big boost in 1882 when it became possible to export the meat frozen and not just the wool. At the peak the flock of sheep in New Zealand was 70 million. With land becoming more valuable, it is no longer possible to allocate so much land to the sheep. The flock is down now to 39 million, but that is still 10 for every human being and ten percent larger than the sheep flock of the UK. The decline of market price for wool meant that by the 1980s, dairy farming became the bigger industry.

Well my drink is empty and I will pour another toast the Hindi language. I had no idea there were so many contributions to ours. Come again soon when there will be another story that can be learned from stamp collecting. First published in 2020.

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Russia 1970, An Imperial era Cruiser Aurora, just keeps surviving if not her Captains

The early 20th century was an embarrassing time for the Russian Navy. There was an embarrassing defeat by Japan, a deadly friendly fire incident where fishing boats were mistaken for ridiculously far from home Japanese torpedo boats and this cruisers most famous shot was a blank fired under mutiny. 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 older Naval warships from the naval construction race are quite strong looking and indeed an important role for them was to project power. They had huge crews so large hulls, they were armor plated unlike modern ships and the multiple large cannons are more visually powerful than modern shipboard missile silos.

This stamp is issue A1800, a three Kopeck stamp issued by the Soviet Union on July 26th, 1970. It was a five stamp issue in various denominations showing ships of the Soviet Navy. The Aurora was 70 years old at the time of the stamp but was still a navy ship with a crew and captain to maintain the ship and handle tourists and ceremonial functions, the other vessels in the stamp set were modern. According to the Scott catalog, the stamp is worth 25 cents.

The Aurora was launched in 1900 after being constructed in Saint Petersburg. It was a 6000 ton cruiser with a crew of 650 and part of the three ship Pallada class that were designed for Pacific ocean service. As a new ship, the sailors aboard had inadequate training. In 1903, the ships set out for Port Author in the Russian far east to reinforce the ships there. While on route in the Red Sea, there were second thoughts and the heavier ships were called back. Once back home in Saint Petersburg, there were third thoughts and the ships were again ordered to the Pacific accompanied by much of the Baltic fleet.

It was here that lack of training caused a disaster. Spotting several British fishing trawlers from Hull in the North Sea, they were confused with Japanese torpedo boats and fired at. Then the fleet went into chaos firing wildly at friendly ships. Aurora was lightly damaged and lost two sailors including the ship’s chaplain.

Arriving in the Pacific the force then faced the Japanese fleet. The fleet of this period Japan was mainly British built and trained and had new tech range finders that made their big guns more accurate. The Battle or Tsushima was devastating for the Russians. Many ships were damaged or sunk with the two top admirals and many ship’s captains, including the Aurora’s dying. The damaged Aurora was made a flagship and protected some smaller and slower vessels running from the Japanese fleet. The force made it to neutral Manila and was interred there for the rest of the war.

After the post war return, Aurora was made into a much needed training ship. However a ship full of young cadets many of whom were politically radicalized was not much good to the Czar. In the February 1917 Revolution, the ship mutinied and her captain was killed to be replaced by a sailor elected from the crew. In November 1917, the mostly Bolshevik crew fired one blank round that signaled to the city the beginning of the attack on the winter palace.

The ship’s crew picked the winning side in 1917, so was awarded this Order of the October Revolution

The 20s-40s saw the ship again engaged in training duties and friendly show the flag foreign visits. During the Siege of Leningrad from 1941-1944, the ships 6 inch cannons were removed to form an onshore battery and the ship was heavily damaged from air strikes. Refurbished post war it resumed as a training ship before being parked permanently as a tourist ship. Firing the first (blank) shot of the 1917 revolution is thought quite noteworthy.

To last so long the ship has had much work done. In the late 1980s, the below waterline hull was cut off to be replaced by a new hull created from the original ships drawings. The old hull was sunk to create a reef. In 2013 it was suggested to by the Russian Defense Minister that the Aurora be named flagship of the Russian fleet and resume showing the flag foreign visits. The ship was duly taken to it’s original shipyard and refurbished but then instead just returned to it’s Saint Petersburg home to continue to receive tourists. Not many ships from this era survive. One that does is the Japanese battleship Makasa, that the Aurora faced at the battle of Tsushimi. Keeping these old ships painted and afloat is expensive but there are many fans. In 2009 the Makasa was fully repainted by volunteers from the current American aircraft carrier Nimitz. Admiral Chester Nimitz had previously promoted saving the Makasa during the American post war occupation.

Well my drink is empty and I will pour another to toast those that keep these giant monuments to history afloat. Come again soon when there will be another story to be learned from stamp collecting. First published in 2020.

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Benin 1997, The Renaissance is limited to the capitol

One question that arises when there is a dictator for life. With whom do you replace him. Domestic and international pressured opposition to be allowed in government. The new politicians were promising a Renaissance. 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 bird on this stamp has nothing to do with Benin. The stamp uses the old name carduelis spinus. The more modern term is the Eurasian siskin or the more common name Black-headed goldfinch. It is not endangered and winters in southern Europe and summers in northern Europe and Siberia. Saint Petersburg in Russia has surpassed even Benin in honoring the black-headed goldfinch. There is a frequently stolen and replaced statue of the bird. The reason the statue is frequently stolen is that the birds coloring resembles the uniform of a prominent local school.

Todays stamp is issue A284, a 150 Franc stamp issued by Benin on July 30th, 1997. It was a six stamp and one souvenir sheet issue in various denominations honoring songbirds. According to the Scott catalog, the stamp is worth 50 cents cancelled to order. In the early 2000s, a large group of Benin issues were declared fake and some old issues were overstampted for use. The overstamp included a lower denomination but of course that does not mean that the Benin franc appreciated. For some reason the catalog claims value of the overprinted version up at $80.

This area of the west African coast was changed a great deal both by colonialism and the end of the slave trade. The French built the new capital on the coast with their administration centered there. This was both a draw and a displacement of the local tribes. The end of the slave trade saw European navies trying to stamp out the trade still going on with independent Brazil.

Soon ship fulls of Afro Brazilians began to be deposited all along the coastal ports. They became a separate ethnic group than began to achieve far higher levels of economic development than their numbers would indicate.

From 1972-1992 Benin was ruled by Dictator Matheou Kerekou. He was an avowed Marxist and changed the name of the country from Dahomey to Benin. The French had used the name Dahomey but it was also the name of the place before them. The name change was hoped  to better represent the tribes of the interior. Can’t have that.

It will surprise nobody that Benin did not become a worker’s paradise. The end of the Cold War provided an opportunity for the put upon Afro Brazilian merchant class to rise. The sudden end of Eastern bloc aid was a blow and the early 90s was a period of donor fatique. Nicephone Soglo and his wife Rosine formed a Party for a Renaissance in Benin. They were well off and of Brazilian heritage and the party was most powerful  in the capital.

You never see the President of Brazil dressed like this. Soglo should send him an outfit.

International pressure forced Kerekou to appoint Soglo first Prime Minister and then he successfully ran for President in 1992. Benin was perhaps overdue for a renaissance. Solgo’s results were somewhat short of Florence though the Brazilians in the capital were happyish. Solgo did think to attend in person, one of the few heads of state. the first Tokyo International Conference on African Development. Benin was looking for another benefactor and Japan was about the only one out there offering new money. Interestingly the first conference was judged a failure by the Japanese because they were still just handing out direct aid instead of anything sustainable or measurable.

Tokyo gets a full house for it’s African aid conferences. Perhaps too full, the next one is set for Kenya

 

Kerekou ran against Solgo again in 1996 under the slogan, How do you like me now? Well that should have been his slogan. He was then reelected. Solgo did not slink away. Instead he realized his party’s prospects were mainly in the capital. Soglo ran for Mayor of the capital and ended up mayor for life. Well until he was replaced by his son. No doubt the promised renaissance is right around the corner. No doubt Soglo’s son has calls in to China and Brazil.

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

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United Nations 1970, Fighting Cancer UN style, with conferences

In theory, international cancer organizations make sense as an advancement made in one place can be offered quickly to fellow cancer sufferers around the world. So the question is, how is this organization founded back in 1935 doing? 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.

Despite the not great printing, I do like the image on this stamp. A Greek style hero in direct battle with a deadly beast. The Union for International Cancer Control is of course more about conferences and scientific publications, but it is good to remind attendees that there are people out there battling for their lives who need a hero. Notice the stamp is mostly in French despite being a New York United Nations issue. It was not until more than 10 years later that the Geneva offices of the UN began to offer separate issues.

Todays stamp is issue A110, a 13 cent stamp issued by the United Nations on May 22nd, 1970. It was a two stamp issue in conjunction with the then Union Against Cancer conference in Houston, Texas that year. According to the Scott catalog, the stamp is worth 25 cents used.

There was a first ad hoc conference of international cancer experts in Madrid in 1933. There it was suggested that the conferences become regular events. In 1935 in Paris an organization was formed under the Latin name Unio Internationales Contra Cancrum UICC, to provide for the conferences. The group had members both from governments and private cancer societies. In 1947, the organization moved to Geneva to work more closely with the World Health Organization.

As the conferences grew the UICC began to get involved in publishing with both a scientific journal and a frequently updated textbook on cancer diagnosis. There is a full time staff of about 50 in Geneva under a medical professor.

Above her there is a ceremonial head that is chosen by members to serve a two year term. Here is where there as been some backsliding. For the whole history of the UICC the President was a doctor or professor. Instead now we have Princess Consort Dina of Jordan as the President. She is not a doctor though she lead a pro cancer society in Jordan after losing her mother to cancer. Some may view this as breaking the glass ceiling that have kept down Muslim women who are also Princess Consorts, but it also displays going down the modern rabbit hole of virtue signaling celebrity over hard science. Sure enough her accomplishment was scheduling  the next conference, now conference and expo, in the Middle East in that hotbed of cancer research that is Oman. Fate has stepped in and the Oman expo was cancelled due to the coronavirus.

Princess Dina of Jordan without her crown at the UN talking cancer

Fear not, the UICC is still actively producing webinars on fighting cancer in the age of COVID. Subtitled no doubt, go home and die. If the UICC is going to stay with not science leaders, I propose the next one be the singer Bonnie Tyler. She understands Holding out for a hero as conveyed on the stamp.

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

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Dhufar 1974, The Sultan’s stamp advisor keeps alive the dreams of his rivals whether Imans or communists

Where would we be without the ultra helpful stamp advisors of local Sultans? Well stamp collectors aren’t  going to learn much about the province from official Omani issues and only a tiny portion of collectors are Mormon, and so are aware of Dhufar’s place in Mormon lore. 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 of course is not a real stamp so there is no catalog listing. It proports to remember the 100th anniversary of the Universal Postal Union, which dates it to 1974. Dhufar was not a member, and as far as the Union was concerned, the area was represented by member Oman. The stamp does not tell us what painting this is.

Oman was a rough place in the 1960s. The interior sections under a Imam were trying to break away from the Sultan of Muscat. The nomadic interior people were far different from the descendants of Arab traders on the coast. In neighboring Saudi Arabia, the Imam had some support. He also had postage stamps, printed in Britain by stamp dealer Clive Feigenbaum and handled by Lebanese stamp dealer Youssef Salam Tedros. The support lead Lebanon and Syria to accept the State of Oman issues for postage so it was possible to order your topical stamps with real postal cancelations. I covered a fake state of Oman issue here, https://the-philatelist.com/2020/03/18/omanstate1969-the-state-of-being-a-fake-stamp/    .

The discovery of oil in the interior strengthened the Muscat Sultan’s resolve to hold on to the interior and the Imam was defeated and went into exile. If Feigenbaum and Tedros were to continue their fake stamp business they needed a plan B. Tedros became the postal advisor to a local Sultan in Dhufar in northern Oman on the border with Yeman. He was and is a vassal of the Sultan of Muscat.

Muscat took the name of Oman as part of national reconciliation. There was a new threat as socialist South Yeman began supporting rebels seeking to liberate Dhufar and all of Oman from the Sultans. There was fighting in Dhufar that made the world news and indeed areas of Dhufar were under rebel administration.

In the press materials for the stamp issues, it was strongly implied but not said directly that the stamps were for use in the rebel held areas. This implication lead socialist Syria briefly to accept the stamps  for postage so there are a few Damascus postal cancelations of the stamps. Oman’s real post office did not accept the stamps but did not file formal objections to Dhufar stamps with the Universal Postal Union as they had done previously to the State of Oman issues.. They must have understood that it actually was for the benefit of the Sultan.

A clocktower in modern stampless Dhufar

In 1986, the fighting in Dhufar came to an end with the rebels defeated and the Sultans still in charge. The Sultan and the stamp dealers decided it was time to end the stamp issues. Too bad the socialist rebels never had a rival postage stamp advisor. Tiny far off, war torn places are better with rival stamp issues.

The stampless, doomed Dhufar rebels. Leave it to the socialists to let their women fight alongside

Dhufar plays a part in the lore of the Mormon Church. The Mormon prophet Lehi is believed to have sailed from the “Land of Bountiful” around 600 BC for the New World. They place the land of Bountiful as Dhufar.

Well, my drink is empty. Come again soon when there will be another story to be learned from stamp collecting. First published in 2021.

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South Africa 1942, Saluting a few South African fighter pilots

This stamp is a little bit reminiscent of a Japanese stamp done a while back, see https://the-philatelist.com/2019/02/13/japan-1942-saluting-the-japanese-pilot/   . Here we have an official portrait of DSO awarded pilot while he was still in the fight. There is a great story to tell. 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.

South African artist Neville Lewis had served in the British Army in World War I and between the wars developed a distinguished reputation as a portrait painter. In 1940 he was named the first official war artist of the Union Defense Forces. In 1942 there was an idea for a stamp series showing the contributions of the various services. Lewis summitted images suitable for minituration on a stamp of an individual fighter pilot, a nurse, a sailor, a tanker, and a member of the black native corps. The pilot, the sailor, and the nurse made the issue. Lewis was disappointed that the native corps member did not make the issue as he thought it was the best, but it should be remembered that the native corps did not deploy overseas. The image is below.

Volunteer soldier of the South African Native Corps who didn’t make the cut to be on the stamp issue

Todays stamp is issue A27, a one and a half Pence stamp issued by South Africa in 1942. It was a nine stamp issue in various denominations. According to the Scott catalog the stamp is worth 25 cents used.

Bob Kershaw was a pilot of a Hawker Hurricane fighter with No. 3 squadron of the South African Air Force. There was a deployment in early 1941 to Kenya to participate in the campaign to dislodge the Italians from Ethiopia. On March 15th, during an attack on a Italian air base at Dire Dawa, Kershaw’s Squadron Commander John Frost’s Hurricane was hit by anti aircraft fire. The hit was to his engine’s coolant tank and so he knew in short order that the Rolls Royce Merlin engine would overheat and seize up. Frost decided to land the Hurricane at a satellite field. He did so and set the Hurricane on fire so it would not fall into Italian hands.

Hawker Hurricane fighter

Seeing what was happening, Kershaw also landed his still flyable Hurricane and by ditching parachutes and Frost siting in Kershaw’s lap and handling the stick, both were able to escape in the single small seated Hurricane. Kershaw became the first South African recipient of the British Distinguished Service Order. Kershaw soon converted to Spitfires and was promoted to Major. He was however later shot down and survived the war as a POW.

Frost left and Kershaw center

John Frost was later made a wing commander and his unit converted to the American made P40 fighter. Over Egypt  and escorting also American made A26 Boston, America called them Havoc, bombers, John Frost went missing and neither him nor his plane was ever found. It is thought that he may have fell to the famous German ace Hans- Joachime Marsalles who got six of his 158 kills that day.

Kershaw post war managed a Ford car dealer in London. He eventually moved back to South Africa where he was made a wing commandant in the post war air force. He died in 1998 in Knysna.

Well my drink is empty. This will be a fun night because there is so much toasting to do. Come again soon when there will be another story to be learned from stamp collecting. First published in 2021