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Isle of Man 1981, Remembering the Royal British Legion and Major Cain’s heroics at Arnhem

Here we have the story of a man who did his best in a hopeless battle and was awarded a Victoria Cross. His daughter never knew of the medal in his lifetime, not due to estrangement or embarrassment. Rather he just never thought to mention it. Worth remembering even if us in younger generations can’t  hope to measure up to the mountain of sacrafice of those that came before. 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.

Here we have a German Tiger II tank coming for Major Cain in Arnhem. All Major Cain has is a PIAT anti tank rifle that has no hope of penetrating the Tiger’s Armor and 25 % of it’s shells are duds. Yet he doesn’t run away. He is hoping that if the tank crews hear a lot of scary sounding booms they will back off and more of his men can be rescued. This all happened but the stamp shows a Tiger II when the tanks coming for him were really Sturmgeshutz III assault guns. Don’t blame the stamp designer, Major Cain’s Victoria Cross Citation got that detail wrong.

Todays stamp is issue A59, a 10 Penny stamp issued by the Isle of Man on September 29th, 1981. It was a four stamp issue in various denominations honouring the Royal British Legion on it’s 60th anniversary. According to the Scott catalog, the stamp is worth only 25 cents whether used or unused.

R. H. Cain was born in Shanghai to Isle of Man parents. He joined a Territorial Army (reserve) artillery unit while attending King William’s College and then working for Royal Dutch Shell, work which took him around the world. In 1940 he accepted an emergency reserve Commission in the Army and was assigned to the 1st Airborne Division. In 1943 he parachuted into Sicily as part of Operation Ladbroke. He was promoted and given command of a company.

After D Day, the British high command put together Operation Market Garden that would land the Ist Airborne division and an attached Free Polish Airborne Brigade in Arnhem in the hopes of seizing bridges over the Rhine River. The Rhine was a natural last line of defense for western Germany. What they did not realize was that there were two SS German divisions stationed in Arnhem getting refitted. Refit meant incorporating new recruits and new equipment including tanks. Airborne forces cannot parachute in heavy weapons. The battle saw inexperienced but well armed Germans facing fewer lightly armed but battle hardened men like Major Cain. The Germans were able to keep Arnhem  but many more of the British and Polish paratroopers were able to be evacuated thanks to the bravery and the inexperienced Germans not pressing their advantage. The scary booms of the PIAT rifles really were intimidating. Late in 1945, Major Cain left the army and returned to his job at Royal Dutch Shell. In 1965 re retired back to the Isle of Man and died of cancer in 1974.

PIAT stood for Projectile Infantry Anti Tank,
Stug III. no Tiger II but still very formidable

The Royal British Legion was a merger of three veterans groups of World War I. It was decided for the first time that officers and the ranks should be in the same organization to ensure equal treatment of the veterans from the lower classes. After World War II membership got up to 3,000,000 members. It still exists and promotes an Armed Forces Covenant that stresses that the unique sacrifices of the armed forces means that their service should be respected by all regardless of politics. They are behind the red poppies on lapels.

I mentioned above that Major Cain’s daughter did not know of his medal in his lifetime. She later helped get his story out. She was married to Top Gear’s Jeremy Clarkson and he hosted a BBC documentary on his late father in law. Time better spent than dropping pianos on old Morris Marinas.

Well my drink is empty and so I will have to wait till Monday for another story that can be learned from stamp collecting.

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Madagascar 1993, The name was so new, it was not yet on the stamp

Here we have another story involving the lead times of esspecially farm out stamps. The country name on the stamp, Malagasy had gone away with the change of government in 1992. The Cadillac automobile on the stamp is a 1985 model last built in 1988. The date on the stamp is indeed 1992 though the issue date on the stamp is 1993. Time isn’t on this stamps side. So slip on your smoking jacket, fill your pipe, take your first sip of your adult beverage, and sit back in your most comfortable chair. Welcome to todays offering from The Philatelist.

I shouldn’t like this stamp but I do. I talked above about the timing issues but the fact that they put this particular model of Cadillac on a stamp from a place where I would be surprised if even a single example sold intrigues me. I am actually a fan of this model, but most Cadillac fans hate them as just too small and unflashy. This raises the intriguing to me question of whether the stamp designer just lazily grabbed a stock picture of a Cadillac, or were the picking it to make fun?

Todays stamp is issue A351, a 6o Franc stamp issued by the Madagascar Third Republic on January 28th, 1993. It was an eight stamp issue in various denominations. Each stamp features a slightly out of date model of a different manufacturer. According to the Scott catalog, the stamp is worth 25 cents cancelled. The stamp is this issue with a Renault automobile is imperferate for some reason and that bounces the value of it to $3.00.

Cadillacs were always very large and flashy luxury cars. Where they had offered a smaller model, it was aimed at female and urban drivers. In the late 1970s, American car manufactures were going to be required by the government for the cars they sell to have a set standard of fuel economy. At first Cadillac tried to finesse the issue by offering diesels and offering a gizmo on their gas engine that could turn off two or even four cylinders of their V8 engine to benefit economy. Unfortunately the economy benefit was not enough and further both gas and diesel engine proved troublesome. What was Cadillac to do? The conventional wisdom was that they should build much smaller cars more in the style of Mercedes.

Instead, and why I really like them, they tried to match as much as possible a traditional Cadillac just on a smaller scale. The cars became front wheel drive and mutch boxier to match the ample room of the old. The car still had a V8 engine, with traditional American low end torque but now smaller, cast in aluminum, and mounted transversely. Cadillac was the first manufacturer in the world to offer such a package and it was never common. Though rack and pinion steering and an independant rear suspension was added, the tuning though was to match the old smoothness and quiet. The car was 2 feet shorter and 800 pounds lighter than the car it replaced. In my opinion, and I am a tiny minority of Cadillac fans, the car was a tech masterstroke. Though early sales were good, rival Lincoln hit back with an all American “Mine’s Bigger” ad campaign. The fact that Lincoln was still bigger had more to do lead times than anything else but small big style Cadillac sales went down and the old Lincoln sales went up. Then later in 1985 the Government froze the fuel economy standard and thus the big Lincoln was allowed to continue. In 1989, Cadillac restyled this car to make it look bigger.

The “mine’s bigger” Lincoln. The fake convertible top was a fad available on both cars

The transition from Malagasy to Madagascar was not very successful. The country had the same strongman  since 1975 and in 1991 400, 000 marched to the Presidential Palace outside the capital demanding change. The Presidential guard dispersed the crowd by firing on them from helicopters targeting leaders. The President than agreed to the transition of power and a new election that he lost. Though there was the complication in that the strongman refused to vacate the Presidential Palace. He was right to stick it out as his replacement proved even more incompetent and was impeached. The country then reelected the strongman but he did not revert the name of the country to Malagasy.

Madagascar’s Presidential Iavoloha Palace. Approach with caution.

Well my drink is empty and I like it when one stamp allows me to gasbag on about vastly different topics. Come again tomorrow for another that can be learned from stamp collecting.

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Romania 1978, Remembering the first non stop trans Atlantic air travel in 1919

Early in the 20th century, there were those that espoused blimps for the roles that larger model airplanes eventually filled. There was just enough success to make the tech detour memorable. 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 headscratcher of this stamp is that it comes from Romania. Other stamps in this set honoring the history of blimps show German Zeppelin models over Bucharest in the 1920s, but that is the only tendential connection of blimps to Romania.

Todays stamp is issue AP75, a 1.5 Leu airmail stamp issued by Romania on March 20th, 1978. It was a six stamp issue in various denominations. According to the Scott catalog, the stamp is worth 25 cents cancelled to order.

Our story begins on September 23rd 1916 when a flight of four LZ model Zeppelins in the service of the Imperial German Navy made a successful bombing raid on London dropping 7000 pounds of bombs. LZ 76, on it’s first mission and commanded by Alois Bocker was hit by anti aircraft fire and was forced to go off course. Over the county of Essex it was caught by an RAF biplane fighter B. E. 2e flown by Alfred Brandon that forced the blimp to land in a field. The German crew attempted to burn the craft before it fell into British hands but failed and the British reverse engineered and copied the design.

The end of World War I saw a severe cut in demand but two blimp copies of LZ 76 flew in 1919. The one on the stamp R34 was built by Willian Beardmore and Company in Scotland. The blimp had a crew of 26 and cruised at 50 miles per hour. On July 2nd, the blimp set out from RAF Croydon for Long Island, New York. The journey took 108 hours and by the time the blimp made it to New York it was almost entirely out of fuel. Crossing the Atlantic east to west meant fighting headwinds and much later Concorde airliners would themselves be at the very edge of their range. Since nobody in the USA had experience remooring a flying blimp. one of the crew parachuted out before landing to show the waiting crew how it was done. The parachutist, E. M. Pritchard thus became the first person to reach the USA by air from Europe. The return trip was also successful and because of tailwinds only took 75 hours.

In 1921 R34 crashed into a hillside in the Yorkshire moors in bad weather. It had not recieved the sent return to base signal. R34 was scrapped and the RAF ended their blimp program entirely later that year as an economy measure.

R34 after the crash

William Beardmore and Company was a giant concern in the twenties building ships, airplanes, one blimp, cars and owning a steel mill. At it’s height it employed 40,000 people. The Deppression was hard not just on blimp production and bankers forced Mr. Beardmore out of his own company. Most operations were quickly would down but  a few persisted. A competitor to the London Taxi by Beardmore lasted until 1966. The Parkhead Forge steel mill lasted until 1983. The shipyard is now a hospital and the steel mill is now the site of a shopping mall called The Forge but forgetting Mr. Beardmore.

Well my drink is empty. I included a lot more names than I usually do hopefully inspiring the readers to look up further the interesting men of earlier times that actually achieved things. Come again tomorrow for another story that can be learned from stamp collecting.

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Poland 1986,Remembering Dobrawa’s advise, If you want to avoid Holy Roman Germany, get with God, and Bohemia and err.. her

This is a fun one. You would think with collecting postage stamps, we could only go back in history to 1840 and the first stamp. Every now and then a country puts out a stamp that goes way back, when Royalty was cruel or brave or even haughty and when a King gets religious, so does his whole country, because he said so, and because his wife told him to say so. 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.

Dobrawa was a foreign Duchess that married a long ago King. Not someone you would think Poland would choose to particularly remember. As the stamp shows, she has a book for you. A Good Book. The country read the Book and some still do. When they do they should remember Dobrawa.

Todays stamp is issue A875, a 25 Zloty stamp issued by Poland on December 4th, 1986. It was a two stamp issue the other showing Dobrawa’s husband, King Mieszko I. According to the Scott catalog, the stamp is worth 40 cents used.

In the 960s AD Poland was still a Pagan country ruled by King Mieszko I. Nearby Germany was ruled by Kaiser Otto the Great who had recently added the title of Holy Roman Emperor. Otto was expansionary both based on patriotism but with the added duty of Christian conversion animating. Polish King Mieszko felt threatened and so sought out allies. He found a ready ally in Bohemia that was then a Dukedom ruled by Boleslav the Cruel. He may have been cruel but that does not mean he did not feel the same threat from the Holy Roman Germany. Bohemia was already Christian. To cement the alliance between Bohemia and Poland, Boleslav offered for Mieszko to pick a wife from his two daughters and Mieszko picked the older one Dobrawa.

Dobrawa arrived in Poland with a large entourage. Among them was Jordan, an Italian Missionary Bishop that reported directly to the Pope. Dobrawa then made it a condition for marriage that Mieszko be Baptized. Mieszko agreed and Jordan both performed the Baptism and officiated the wedding. He was then named the first Bishop of Poland with a base in Poznan. Dobrawa was then the Patron of several of the early Catholic churches in Poland. The union was successful. The Polish alliance with Bohemia outlasted all of them. There were also two children, another Boleslav, this one the Brave who succeeded the Polish Throne, and Segrid the Haughty. Segrid managed to marry, hopefully in different periods both the Kings of Sweden and Denmark. Perhaps Segrid was haughty by I nominate the additional honorific of Hottie.

We know these stories because of the work of the chronicler Cosmas of Prague. 150 years later he wrote the definitive history of the Bohemian people. He inspired a group of followers called Cosmas followers that updated his works as history went along. There are modern historians that dispute details of Cosmas. They say that it is just Catholic iconography that liked to emphasize the role of woman in the conversion of Pagans. Party Poopers.

Cosmas of Prague

Well my drink is empty and I will pour another to toast the the Brave, the Great and even the Cruel and the Haughty among us. That is a lot of toasting, I may need a bigger bottle. Come again on Monday for another story that can be learned from stamp collecting.

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Panama 1967, Remembering Palenque, the Mayan city state that rose out of the jungle under Pakal the Great and his mother Lady Beastie only for the jungle to reclaim

Panama was clearly excited by Mexico City getting the Olympics in 1968. In the runup to the games there were many stamp issues showing solidarity with Mexico. This issue shows of some of Mexico’s indigenous ancient sites, of which there were many in Latin America and a part of history that many of the day wanted to better connect to. 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.

One thing this stamp does convincingly is teach how to be remembered. Build in stone. It is believed that the area was occupied from about 2500 BC through 900AD. Yet virtually the entire site was built in a 35 year period under Pakal the Great. Carved into the stone edifices were stone reliefs that told how the elite lived and the then understanding of their history. 35 out of 3400 years is a drop in the bucket but all we have.

Todays stamp is issue A150b a 21 Centessimos airmail stamp issued by Panama on April 18th, 1967. It was a six stamp issue in various denominations that was also available as a souvenir sheet. The three highest denominations including this stamp were airmail. According to the Scott catalog, the stamp is worth 50 cents cancelled to order. The souvenir sheet is worth $18.00.

Palenque is the Spanish word for the site of the former Mayan Indian city state in the modern state of Chiapas in southern Mexico. In it’s time it was called Lakamha, which translates into big water. What we know of the place comes from modern guesses at translating the hieroglyphics that have been found in great numbers. The place was abandoned and taken over by the jungle. Even now when it is a major tourist site hosting almost 1 million visitors a year, experts believe it is only about 25 percent excavated. Recently they discovered the Western Hemisphere’s earliest viaduct. It had a spring loaded release that could release 20 feet of water under high pressure. Nobody has figured out conclusively why they built it.

The glory days of Palenque started under someone known as Lady Beastie in 600 AD. She acted as ruler after the death of her husband the last King and before her son Pakal could take over at age 12. She is believed to have had a large influence on Pakal during the first half of his long reign. Interesting her stone depictions of her time ruling are much more masculine appearing than those earlier or later. Pakal started his building spree 33 years into his reign with a temple and just kept going. The Throne than past to two of his sons who continued Pakal’s projects though the second son worked mostly on the Palace. The city was sacked by rival Mayan city state Tonina in 711 AD. After that there were no more local Kings but there was still some farming in the area until around 900AD.

Lady Beastie

The site was discovered overgrown by jungle by the Spanish Conquistador de la Nada in the 1520s. Nothing was done and the whole area was very sparsely populated. In 1786 the Spanish administration in Guatemala sent out a proper expedition that included an architect and a draftsman to make copies of the stone reliefs for further study. The findings of the expedition were much later published in London As “Descriptions of the ruins of an ancient city” that was very popular and got the word out about the place.

Well my drink is empty and one thing I find interesting is that these ancient sites always seemed to be discovered and interpreted by outsiders before taken to heart by the actual descendants. Come again tomorrow for another story that can be learned from stamp collecting.

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French India 1923, Check out the Temple to Kali, you won’t find that in Paris

The French were in the city of Pondicherry for 250 years at a trading post. As they were there to trade, and it was a city open to trade as far back as the Romans there was no need to try to convert locals to French cultural or religious practice. This is great for the stamp collector as the place can show off the exotic foreign culture in the context of a French prism. Now Puducherry has the tables turned and likes to show off architectural relics of the French now firmly in the context of modern India. No stamps though. 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 off the local Hindu Temple to Kali. The overstamp showing the new currency formulation that year inadvertently tell the stamp collector that the place is really all about money. The vast bulk of the people were then and are now Indian. Elections in the late 1940s saw the people vote to stay French. As in Hong Kong, not wanting to break the golden egg trumped national identity. As with Hong Kong the nation will eventually enforce their will, golden egg be dammed.

Todays stamp is issue A5, a 1 Fannon 6 caches (1.5 Fannon, 8 Fannons made a Rupee) issued by French India in 1923. The new currency that year replaced Centimes and Francs. An earlier version of this stamp from 1914 has no overstamp. This was a 26 stamp issue in various denominations. According to the Scott catalog, the stamp is worth $1.50 cents used. Without  the overstamp the value would go to $2.25.

As the Indians of the day were not writing down their own history at the time, the first mentions of the marketplace at Pondicherry were in logs of Roman Empire traders in the first century AD. At the time the city was known as Poduke. It was part of the then Indian Empire of Kanchipuram.

The French arrived in the area in 1674 under the auspices of the privately owned French East India company. The company had a large investment personally by the French King and had a monopoly on French trade with Asia. The company fairly quickly failed as it was very expensive to maintain far flung outposts from India to Madagascar to Mauritius. After the financial failure the French government stepped in more formally to protect the enclave from British or Indian encroachment.

Kali first appeared as a Goddess around 600 AD. Kali translates into the feminine form of the fullness of time. She appears when the higher Goddess Durga is attacked by two demons. Durga responds with such anger that her skin darkens resulting in Kali appearing out of her forehead. Kali’s is colored dark blue with sunken eyes, a tiger skin sari dress and a garland of severed human heads. She quickly defeats the two demons. I can understand why the stamp shows her Temple rather than Kali directly. It might have made Pondicherry seem unwelcoming.

Hindu Goddess Kali

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. 27th wedding anniverary greetings to Mrs. The Philatelist who takes all the stamp pictures for the website.

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Togo 1983, We must make reservations early for The Feast of Victory over the forces of evil

Etienne Eyadema was the longest serving leader in Africa when he died in 2006. He claimed to process superpowers and his long rule  where he did stand for election does provide some evidence. His powers were so great that his son replaced him and just recently won reelection. 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 was a farm out issue of famous paintings related to the Crucifixion of Christ in celebration of Easter. In this case by Raphael. When the President has superpowers and only about a quarter of the country is Catholic, I find it hard to believe Easter is that important to Togo.

Todays stamp is issue A253, a 70 Franc stamp issued by Togo in 1983. It was a three stamp issue in various denominations that was also available as a souvenir sheet. According to the Scott catalog, the stamp is worth 25 cents cancelled to order.

Etienne Eyadema was born into a poor Kabye tribe family from the interior of Togo. As a young man he joined the French Army for whom he fought in Indo China and Algeria. In the early 1960s he returned home to now independent Togo and was commissioned an officer in the Togo Army. He was a Coronel when he participated in the 1963 coup where he personally murdered President Olympio. He stayed in the Army a few more years until there was another coup and he was ready to become President. He maintained close relations with both Germany and France, the former colonial powers and the French were still active in the economy where there was a fairly lucrative bauxite mine. As President, he banned all other political parties except his personal Rally of the Togolese People.

President Eyadema early in his reign before everyone realized the extent of his Superpowers

A President needs to have some ability to  intimidate to avoid the next revolution. In 1974 there was a plane crash of a Togo Air Force C47 that was taking Eyadema from the capital to his hometown. The fact that he walked away from the deadly crash was proof of his superhuman strength and the plane must have been sabotaged by evil forces that opposed his plan to nationalize the bauxite mine. Soon there were comic books with Eyadema cast as Superman and even male wristwatches where his portrait would appear and disappear every 15 seconds. His entourage began to include 1000 girls who would sing and dance his praises. The date of the plane crash became a national holiday and excuse for a national feast remembering his victory over the forces of evil. Eyadema even changed his first name in honor of the crash.

The monument at the crash sight. The pack of dogs seems impressed

Naturally there were political opponents who would have rather him disappeared permanently from their watches. To end a riot, Eyadema granted an amnesty that allowed exiles to return to Togo in 1991. The opposition met in a forum and immediately declared itself a sovereign national assembly with a new Prime Minister but Eyadema still a ceremonial President. Surprisingly this was allowed as Eyedema waited for the inevitable infighting between the opposition to ease out his opponents one by one. In a few years he was back in total control despite have allowed rival political parties and Presidential candidates. In addition to his superpowers, a source of strength has been the the still French managed bauxite mine belonged personally to him and now his son.

Eyedema died in 2006 aboard a Gulfstream jet taking him to France after suffering a heart attack. The head of the Army of Togo then declared his son President. His son has as his last name the new first name Eyadema made up after the plane crash. Opposition leaders complained that the transfer of power was unconstitutional  but then 15 seconds later Eyadema’s portrait again appeared on their watches.

Well my drink is  empty and so I will just have to wait until next January 24th for the still celebrated Feast day. Come again tomorrow for another story that can be learned from stamp collecting.

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Belgium 1961, Marie Curie and uranium in Katanga lead to electricity in Mol and Zaire for a time

Belgium now spends much time rankling over how to get rid of its nuclear plants that give the country over half of it’s electricity. The plants are aging and it is not realistic to build new ones. Yet the emission free generation is vital to meeting pollution goals. However going back to 1961 allows us to go back to a more optimistic time when the first electricity began to flow. 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 BR3 nuclear reactor was to the the first that would provide electricity to the people of Belgium. The original idea was to build it in Brussels and have it open to the public as part of the 1958 Brussels Worlds Fair. That it was even seriously considered is pretty bizarre. Eventually it opened a few years later located in the existing nuclear research center at Mol. The delayed opening was still important enough to warrant an issue of stamps that attacked the issue of how to show the plant in a good light with mediocre design and poor printing.

Nuclear fans at the Brussels Worlds Fair could console themselves for missing out on the BR3 reactor at the Atomium built for the fair

Todays stamp is issue A159, a three Franc stamp issued by Belgium on November 8th 1961. It was a three stamp issue in various denominations celebrating the opening of the BR3 reactor at Mol. The plant didn’t actually start generating electricity until the next year. According to the Scott catalog, the stamp is worth 25 cents whether used or unused.

The Belgian mining operation in the Katanga region of Belgian Congo discovered uranium ore in 1911. An atomic research unit was set up back in Belgium that worked closely with Marie Curie. During World War II and the Manhattan project a deal was struck that gave the USA access to Katanga uranium  and Belgium access to American nuclear technology. The BR3 reactor followed  the earlier BR1 and BR2 research only reactors at Mol. All were American designs.

The BR3 produced electricity until 1987. The early 1980s had seen 7 new nuclear reactors and there was no need to try to extend beyond it’s intended 25 year life span. It was the first plant of its type to be decommissioned. The site still hosts the nuclear research reactors. Studies from the early 2000s long after BR3 indicate that children with 15 kilometers of the Mol complex have 3 times the risk of developing leukemia and higher rates of thyroid cancer.

The nuclear research in Belgium had an unfortunate consequence in their former colony. In 1959 the Belgians constructed a nuclear research reactor nearby Kinshasa in a town now called Mama Mobutu. It opened in 1959 and was the first reactor in Africa. After independence the dictators of the country thought the site gave them much prestige. President Mobutu even managed to buy and get operating a second reactor that supplied electricity. This troubled Belgium and they assisted with maintenance and annual inspections. As the country gradually fell apart so did the plant’s output until it stopped completely in 2004. The more recent governments have ambitions to get the plant working again but are being told it is not possible to source parts for the now quite old design. Pieces like fuel rods traced from the plant regularly show up on the black market. Climate change and soil erosion are now threatening the entire site with collapse. There are worries that when it does the old nuclear fuel might leak into the water supply of Kinshasa. I know, reason 37 for not drinking the water in Kinshasa.

Sinkholes near the nuclear complex in Mama Mobutu

Well my drink is empty and I wonder if there is a place to get another on in the Atomium. Come again tomorrow for another story that can be learned from stamp collecting.

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Soviet Union 1930, bringing education to the masses

One area where the Soviets did a good job was bringing education and literacy beyond just the Russian elite as under the Czar. This stamp from midway in that process lets me check in on what they were doing to bring that about. So slip on your smoking jacket, fill your pipe, take your first sip of your adult beverage, and sit back in your most comfortable chair. Welcome to todays offering from The Philatelist.

This stamp is failed both by the low quality of the printing and the well worn condition of my copy. What the stamp is showing is children putting together poster style newspapers as part of an educational exhibition that year in Leningrad. I can’t be too mad at myself for the condition of the stamp. How miraculous is it that any of these tiny gummed and perforated little slips of paper can survive 90 years, trips around the world and multiple owners?

Todays stamp is issue A120, a 10 Kopeck stamp issued by the Soviet Union on August 15th, 1930. It was a single stamp issue. According to the Scott catalog, the stamp is worth $8.00 unused though that number might assume a better condition.

The educational system under the Czar regime was limited. According to the 1897 census, the literacy rate for the country was only 28%. For females that number was only 13 percent. Near the end in 1914 the regime had managed to get 91% of school age children enrolled in a school. It was slow going as almost all the schools taught in Russian rather than the native tongue of the region.

The new communist regime had high goals for education and decreed very early that school was compulsory, free, and children had a right to up to 9 years of schooling. Everyone would go for four years, some would go for seven years that would qualify them for further vocational training at the new Teknikums. Those who went the full nine years were qualified for University. With the Red and White Civil war raging the first few years saw school attendance drop from 91% down to 25% in the low year of 1920.

The regime also made a big effort to  bring literacy to adults. Young adults of Komsonal deployed to villages to offer literacy classes to adults free of charge. This program lasted between 1920-1939 and succeeded in bring literacy to older folks who had missed out on school under the old system. These classes met less resistance because they were taught in the areas native tongue. Though the Soviets generally were in agreement in the long term goal of Russification of the regions, it was simply more expedient to do it this way.

I mentioned above the problem of illiteracy was specially severe among females. A club. the Ali Bayramov Club opened up in many locations. Jeyran Bayramov was an illiterate young  widow from Baku who married her former brother in law Ali  as per Azeri tradition. Ali was a communist activist who encouraged Jeyran to pursue education and Jeyran was transformed. She founded the first club in Baku named for her husband. The club was marketed as a sewing club in order that women would be allowed out of the house by husbands and fathers. The clubs did indeed offer sewing classes but also midwifery classes, telephone operator classes and literacy classes. The Soviets got behind the clubs and even let the original one in Baku occupy to old fancy Palace of Happiness that had been the home of an Azeri oil baron. The oil baron didn’t need it anymore, he killed himself upon the Soviets entering Baku. The club members also began pushing for the unveiling of females. The clubs were shut down in 1937 by which time women were literate and unveiled.

Palace of Happiness in Baku. What a great way to show the importance of education than handing out one of the old palaces for it

Well my drink is empty and I will pour another to toast literacy. Without it my dear readers would just be left looking at pictures. Come again on Monday for another story that can be learned from stamp collecting. Have also a nice Fourth of July, to whatever extent we are still allowed to celebrate it.

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Poland 1979, 50 years of LOT Airline

Fifty years, well with a six year interruption, was a long time for an airline to last. It was not the first Polish airline rather  a merger of two former airlines under government control. This continuous government ownership has allowed LOT to have now lasted over 90 years when so many other countries lost their flagship airline. 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 makers made some interesting plane choices for the stamp. The airline started out with German and Dutch airliners but the stamp chose to feature the one Polish made airliner the airline used in it’s first decade. Understandable, but the 1979 chosen aircraft was a Soviet made airplane. LOT then operated Polish made small turboprops but wanted to show off a jet. The LOT emblem has remained unchanged throughout and you can barely make it out on both planes. I would have liked to see it more prominent.

Todays stamp is issue A714, a 6.9 Zloty stamp issued by Poland on January 2nd, 1979. It was a single stamp issue. According to the Scott catalog, the stamp is worth 25 cents cancelled to order.

LOT formed in 1929 in a merger between the former Aerolot and Aero Polish airlines. The national government held an 86% stake with the rest owned by the city of Poznan and the province of Silesia. The new emblem that is still in use was the result of a national design competition won by artist Tadeasz Goronowski. The first year saw the first international service to Vienna. The first airliners were Fokker Trimotors and Junkers F.13. In 1933 there was a competition to replace the F.13 that was one by the locally made PWS 24. LOT was the only customer for the PWS 24 and only used them until 1937 when they were passed to the Polish Air Force as staff transport. One of the 11 built evacuated to Romania in 1939 where it was briefly used by the then Romanian flagship airline LARES.

LOT’s long serving emblem

In early 1945 LOT was reformed completely under the new national government and had a fleet of DC3s some of which were the Soviet copy. The first jets did not come into service until 1968 in the form of the Tupolev TU-134. The later TU-154 featured on the stamp has a bad place in Polish history. Much later in 2010 a VIP transport TU-154 of the Polish Air Force crashed killing many Polish dignataries traveling to the site of the 1939 Soviet Kazarin Forest massacre of young Polish cadets. There weren’t many old Soviet airliners still operating in Poland in 2010 so the irony was not lost. Since 2010 the Polish Air Force has allowed another TU-154 to rust in peace at Minsk airport.

In 1989 the airline began to convert to western airliners including the Boeing 767. The airline had high hopes for new direct service between Warsaw and Krakow and the midwestern American cities that once hosted large Polish communities. These mostly didn’t pan out. The airline has also suffered from Poland’s poor relations with Russia complicating flights to China. On fairly bright spot financially is the otherwise rare service it offers to Hanoi in Vietnam. The airline has so far avoided being privatized but came close with negotiations a few years back with Turkish Airways. The airline currently has 98 planes serving 120 destinations.

Well my drink is empty and I will pour another to toast T. G. the logo designor. He is of course long gone but his work is still viewed daily in 120 destinations. Not a bad legacy. Come again tomorrow for another story that can be learned from stamp collecting.