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Natal, Boers to the left, Zulus to the right and stuck in the middle with the Indians

An adventurer faces many challenges. In todays case, a large and growing colony was established, but only after he paid with his life. 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.

Natal was really surrounded. Three quarters of the people were Zulus and their off shoot, the Matebilli. They had killed the founder of the British Colony. There were about ten percent Boers, whites of Dutch decent, that had eventually lost a bloody war with the English. Another 10 percent were Indians brought in as indentured servants. That left the British the smallest minority. The British must have liked to see the portrait of Edward VII on todays stamp as a sign they had some support when trouble came. It is probably for this reason that every postage stamp issued by the colony was a portrait of the British monarch.

Todays stamp is issue A23, a half penny stamp issued by the British Crown Colony of Natal in 1902. It was part of a 16 stamp issue of various denominations showing the portrait of British King Edward VII. According to the Scott catalog, the stamp is worth 55 cents used. The 20 pound revenue stamp from this issue is worth $27,500 mint. Not many people would buy an expensive revenue stamp and then not use it to pay their taxes apparently.

Francis Farewell was a Captain in the British Merchant Marine. He married the daughter of a Cape Town merchant and scouted out a place to set up a trade post. His idea was to get into the ivory trade. Finding Port Natal, he returned with thirty settlers, 10 British and 20 Boers. He made a deal with the Zulu leader Shaka  for the land. after several petitions and further migration from Britain, Natal was accepted as a British Colony.

Zulu King Shaka. This image is European from 1824 of the actual man. Many modern statues of him are modeled after later actor portrayals.

It was found that sugar cane production was most suited to the local climate. This is very labour intensive, and the Zulus were unwilling to do the work. Indians were then brought in as indentured servants but many stayed and formed a local community that was at one point the largest Indian community outside of India. Gandhi even visited in 1898 to raise money for the struggle at home and helped found an association to prevent discrimination.

A modern museum diorama of Gandhi’s Natal visit. It is strange to see Gandhi with hair and dressed western instead of how he is remembered today. Wonder which image was the real him?

Farewell did not do so well. He travelled to the Zulu capital to trade beads. He was killed by Zulu warriors while asleep in his tent. Shaka had been deposed by his brother Dingane and things were no longer friendly. A war between the British and the Zulus was fought with the British winning and adding much Zulu territory to Natal. The Boer war later added much Boer territory to Natal. In 1910 Natal was merged to form the Union of South Africa.

Natal Colony founder Francis Farewell

Interestingly, in 1980 the apartheid South African government set up a separate state of KwaZulu as a homeland for the Zulus. It was under the former royal family of Zululand. KwaZulu was not recognized by any other country and was reintegrated by now majority ruled South Africa in 1994. The province is now called KwaZulu-Natal. Francis Farewell still has a  square named after him in Durban.

Well my drink is empty. Come again for another story that can be learned from stamp collecting. First published in 2018.

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Laos 1959, the last Royal succession

An ancient royal house lasted 800 years even through the colonial period only to die of “malaria” in a communist reeducation 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.

Post war Laotian stamps from the Royal period are really quite well executed artistically. The first years of communism in the late seventies show typical scenes of Soviet style soldiers and by the 80s the stamp issues were farm outs. The late forties through the early 70s were the golden age for Laotian philatelists.

The stamp today is issue A19, a 12 and a half Kip stamp issued by Laos on November 2nd 1959. It shows the gilded Stupa of Wat Chom on the summit of Phou Si in the then Royal capital of Luang Prabang. It was part of a 6 stamp issue in various denominations. According to the Scott Catalog, the stamp is worth 80 cents used.

The French were able to come back in 1946 and put back on the throne Sisavang Vong. He had been briefly deposed when the Japanese invaded Laos in February 1945. This time his realm was not just Luang Prabang but the entirety of Laos. The French withdrew again in 1954. The North Vietnamese invaded Eastern Laos in order to build the Ho Chi Min trail to supply the Vietcong in the south of Vietnam.

Sisavang Vong was a bit of a playboy King. He fathered 50 children and had 15 wives. Two of his wives were his half sisters and one was his niece. And you thought European royal family trees did not have enough branches.

King of Laos Sisavang Vong . Question.
Your Majesty, can you spare a wife?
Answer. Stay away from my sister!

Sisavang Vong died in 1959 and was succeeded by King Sisavang Vatthana. He only had one wife and five children. He decided against a formal coronation as the country was in a state of war with North Vietnam and their allies, the Pathet Lao. The King tried to stay neutral in the conflict but the Vietnamese refused to abandon the occupation. The Ho Chi Min trail was subjected to heavy American bombing. A peace treaty was signed in 1973 creating a coalition government with the Communists but again the Vietnamese did not leave. In late 1975 the Pathet Lao moved into the administrative capital Vientiane and forced the King to abdicate.

More modern one wife King. Dear Western friends, we have enough of your bombs, please send bug spray.

Although 10 % of the country left for Thailand the King thought it his duty to stay, His personal situation gradually deteriorated. At first he remained in the palace but then volunteered to leave it so the new government could make it a museum. Soon he was under house arrest. Then the government feared he might escape house arrest and try to lead a resistance movement. His family was arrested and moved to a reeducation camp that was for high officials of the former regime. In 1978 the government announced that the King, his Queen and the Crown Prince had died of malaria at the camp. The youngest son escaped when the regime fell to Thailand and on to Paris. There he worked for the carmaker Renault and lobbied for Laos to return to a constitutional monarchy. He died in 2018.

The winds of change. Bet they came directly from the camp with all the malaria and lead poisoning.

Well my drink is empty. Come again for another story that can be learned from stamp collecting. First published in 2018.

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South Africa 1977, Then a time to remember but now a time to forget Totius in South Africa

A learned and pious man makes it his life’s work to translate the bible into his native tongue. The place he is from honors him with a statue sculpted by a local. Now that statue is vandalized and taken down, more than once. Why, because of the color of his skin, in the name of “justice”. 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 today is an issue of the apartheid regime of South Africa. As such, it is understandable to dig deeper at what the South African regime was honoring. A man who translated the bible, wrote poetry, and was the chancellor of a religious university. Sounds like uncontroversial  good work. Well not in todays world.

The stamp today is issue A189, a four cent stamp issued by the Republic of South Africa on February 21, 1977. It was a single stamp issue that honored the 100th anniversary of the birth of  Jacob de Toit, who wrote under the pen name Totius. According to the Scott catalog, the stamp is worth 25 cents used.

Totius was born in South Africa of Afrikaner decent. He was trained at home and in Holland and earned a Doctor of Theology in the Dutch Reform church. He was a army chaplain for the Boers in the second Boer War. He continued his fathers work in translating the Bible into Afrikaner. He also wrote poetry including lyrics based on the Psalms in Afrikaner. He was a conservative man who lost his young son to an infection and his daughter to a lightning strike, she fell dead into his arms as she ran to him. His poem on this, “Oh the pain thoughts” is one of his most famous works. He finished his translation of the Bible in 1932 and died in 1954.

South Africa did a lot to remember Totius in 1977 upon the 100th anniversary of his birth. In addition to the postage stamp, there was a bronze statue by Jo Roos to him commissioned. The statue as not faired well since the change in government. After being repeatedly vandalized it was removed from the park in his home town. The University where he was Chancellor then took it in 2010 and had it restored by Jo Roos and his sons. It lasted just 5 years at the university until it was removed again in a vandalized state in 2015. The church may still have it, hopefully they keep it hidden perhaps for some future time when all people’s history is respected in South Africa.

Well my drink is empty so I will pour another to toast Totius. South Africa was a rough place in the 19th century and apparently still is. Work to bring the Word of God and a little culture should be respected and one day it might be, not just forgotten. Come again for another story that can be learned from stamp collecting. First published in 2018.

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China Famine stamps in the 1920s, signal your virtue by decorating your letters

If there was a benefit to China opening up to western countries, it was when there was a crisis, help would come from far away. Probably too late and with a lot of hucksters involved. 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.

Todays stamp is not useful for postage. The idea was that people would buy the stamp, mostly in the USA, to decorate their letters. The proceeds would go to famine relief in China. It was not to be used for postage either in the USA nor China.

Since todays stamp is not an official issue of a government, it is not in any catalog. I did find one identical to mine on Ebay for $5.00. This stamp was issued after the famine by the China International Famine Relief Commission.

The famine of 1920 centered in Northern China in the area south of Beijing. The previous year had been very dry and so the harvest was small. The area had been heavily denuded of trees and it is thought that that contributed to the drought as tree roots tend to hold moisture longer. The area had been hit by a much deadlier famine in 1879. The famine in 1920 was believed to have killed 500,000 people.

China was in it’s warlord period. That does not mean the government did not do things to help. The tax on shipping grain between provinces was dispensed with in order that grain could pass more easily and cheaply from less affected areas. The distilling of grains into alcohol was also banned in Beijing to lessen this demand for grain. 1921 was a wetter year and so the harvest was better and that ended the famine.

During the famine, a different aid agency sold a 3 cent stamp raising over 4 million dollars. The three cents was supposed to equate to feeding one Chinese person for one day. This group wrapped up  with the 1921 harvest that was the end of the famine.

This bunch of sad sacks reports to be victims of the 1920 drought in Shaanxi

Todays stamp was the issue of a later group, the China International Famine Relief Organization. It issued relief stamps in several denominations from 1923-1929, both in the USA and China. They usually sold in the period of Christmas through to Chinese New Year. These were much less successful in raising money. The famine being over the overage was spent on making the area less drought prone. Most years however the stamp sales did not cover expenses.

Here is a much later fake stamp from yet another fake? relief committee. By then perhaps we should of stopped sending money and just sent mirrors

Well my drink is empty and I will pour another to toast those who bought these stamps in order to help people they didn’t know so far away.  Come again for another story that can be learned from stamp collecting. First published in 2018.

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Spain’s Franco turns ruins back into a Monastery

Memories can be long in politics. 100 years before a liberal secular regime in Spain had confiscated Church lands and thereby closed Poblet Monastery. Generalissimo Franco did not approve of this and sought to put things back together. 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.

Under Franco’s long reign in Spain, much was done to restore physically what was done to the many historic and Holy places that had once belonged to the Catholic church. The result of this was a long series of stamps from Spain that showed the beauty and majesty of these sites. While by the end of Franco’s rule in the mid 70s this style of stamp was looking somewhat out of style, I can understand why Franco felt the restoration of the sites was an achievement that should be remembered.

Todays stamp is issue A285, a 3 Peseta stamp issued by Spain on February 25th, 1963. It was part of a four stamp issue in various denominations that honored the restoration of the Poblet Monastery. According to the Scott catalog, the stamp is worth 25 cents used.

Poblet Monastery was founded by Cistercian monks from France on land in Catalonia retook from the Moors. The Cistercians believed in a simpler form of monastic life that involved austerity and physical labor as part of the journey to God. In the 14th century and later it became the burial site of the Kings of Aragon.

In the 19th century, Spain was under the reign of Isabella II. She was at first represented by a regency and there was much back and forth between liberals and moderates in her administration. Into this situation came Juan Alvarez Mendizebal. He was quite liberal and a banker of Jewish background. He was first Finance Minister and the Prime Minister, albeit for only nine months. He enacted a program for the confiscation of Church lands. This was  put forward as a benefit to the poor but worked to transfer much land to already wealthy landowners. This was done with no payment to the church and indeed most of the properties seized were ransacked and burned, including Poblet Monastery. The Royal tombs were desecrated but a parish priest from a nearby town was able to save most of the remains. Mendizebal was eventually sent into exile in London and Queen Isabella II was eventually forced to abdicate and go into exile in Paris.

Architect of the looting of Church lands such as Poblet Monastery, Finance Minister Juan Alvarez Mendizabal
Queen Isaballa II during her Paris exile. Will the current disrespect and pillaging of traditional sites again end in escapes to London, Paris, or Tel Aviv, time will tell?

Franco was on the winning side of the Spanish Civil War in the 1930s. He promised peace through law and order and respect for the Church and the Spanish heritage of colonization or as he put it nation building. In the particular of the Poblet Monastery, in 1940 a new group of Italian Cistercian monks were brought in to repair the monastery and get it going again. The royal remains were returned and the tombs restored. To the credit of all, the monastery was allowed to keep going after the end of Franco’s regime and still exists today as an active monastery. It currently has about 30 monks and is on its 105th Abbot.

Well my drink is empty and yes I am going to pour another and toast Generalissimo Franco. At least on this one thing, he was on the side of the angels. Come again for another story that can be learned from stamp collecting. First published in 2018.

 

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Philippines 1951, The Huks, the foriegn aid scam, and the quiet American

A rare American decolonization struggle. 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 today is oversized and from the early 50s. That is a good sign that the aim is the foreign collector, mainly in the USA. At the time the Philippines was the recipient of a great deal of foreign aid, mainly from the USA. It was also asking for more to deal with a communist insurgency, the Hukbalahap, (the Huks). The picture of the harvest paints a picture of aid being used wisely to improve the lot of the rural peasant and thereby lessen the appeal of the communists. A new aid package was given in 1951 so the stamp was successful. Philippines earns double points for implying that the government was paying for the program.

Todays stamp is issue A102, a 5 centavo stamp issued by the Republic of the Philippines on March 1, 1951. It was part of a three  stamp issue in various denominations celebrating the governments peace fund. According to the Scott catalog, the stamp is worth 25 cents.

The USA granted independence to the Philippines on July 4th 1946. Interestingly Philippines celebrates independence in June relating back to the break from Spain in 1898. The government was elected but corrupt with a string of ineffectual presidents. A small communist rebellion started after the government refused to hear the grievances of the peasants. The Huk rebels were lead by veterans of the struggle against the Japanese. The Philippines had yet to enact a land reform to free the peasants from large plantations with absentee landlords.

The Hukbalahap take a break from all the mayhem to read the newspaper. Notice only the leader reads.

The aid pouring in from the USA was both civilian and military. The military aid was directed by a former OSS operative then an Air Force Captain named Edward Lansdale. He became close with Ramon Magsaysay first when he was Defense Minister and later as President of the Philippines. Some sources say they were friends and others say that Lansdale physically beat Magsaysay to get him to do the USA’s bidding. Speak softly and carrying a big stick has always been a USA ideal after all. Either way the Huk rebellion subsided but never fully went away.

Captain Lansdale with President Magsaysay. Now listen Mr. President, do what I say and me and my angry friend leaning against the tree won’t have to get rough with you.

President Magsaysay later died in a plane crash and Lansdale went on to work out of the USA embassy in Saigon, South Vietnam. His work there was rumored to be the basis for the Graham Greene’s novel “The Quiet American.” He is also rumored to be the basis for the character of Col. Hilindale in the book “The Ugly American”. Oliver Stone also has a Lansdale like character dressed like a tramp on JFK’s route in Dallas circa 1963. He apparently got around.

My drink is empty. I have been somewhat sarcastic about Col. Lansdale and he certainly seems to be at the center of a few conspiracy theories. Remember though that the USA was handing out large checks to these countries that certainly did not have to take the money. Isn’t it better that someone was there fighting that the USA got some value for all it’s generosity? Come again  for another story that can be learned from stamp collecting. First published in 2018.

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French India 1941, Flip Flopping toward reality

In stamp collecting there is much about colonies. If there is a universal theme, it might be that trouble comes when a settlement goes beyond a trading post. Sometimes even maintaining a trading post is not realistic when the times are against it. 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 aesthetics of this stamp are fun. It celebrates the 1939 New York World Fair. But colonial issues stay around a while probably as they have to be ordered/requested from the home country. In this case the colony of Pondicherry and a few other trading posts had aligned with the Free French on the Allied side of World War II. Hence the old New York Fair is overprinted France Libre. These were issued in the French trading posts. Vichy France, the German wartime occupation puppet also printed stamps for French India which they still claimed ownership. These new issues did not get to the colony, only collectors.

The stamp today is issue CD82, a 2 Fanon 12 Cashes stamp issued by the Territories of French India in 1941. The overprint was on the 1938 two stamp issue of the New York Worlds Fair in 1939. According to the Scott catalog, the stamp is worth $4.75 mint. The version without the overprint is $1.25. A later version of the overprint that added a cross is $7.25.

Several European countries set up trading posts in India. France and Britain agreed to respect each others posts and both agreed not to meddle in Indian affairs. While that is pretty laughable it explains how the relatively tiny area around present day Puducherry was allowed to last into the mid twentieth century.

World War II created a conundrum  for the still far flung French Empire. This can be seen in the behavior of French India governor Louis Bonvin. Bonvin had been appointed governor by the prewar French government after serving in Gabon, French Africa. After the German invasion on June 20th 1940, Bonvin radioed that he felt it was his duty to fight on the Allied side after French defeat. On June 22nd, an armistice between France and Germany was signed and Bonvin immediately recognized the authority of the new German backed Vichy government under Marshal Petain. He was quickly informed by the British that French India would be occupied if it sided with Vichy France. By the 27th, Governor Bonvin announced is unwavering loyalty to the Free French cause. The Vichy government tried Bonvin in a military tribunal in Saigon, Vichy French Indo China convicting him of delivering French territory to a foreign power. He was sentenced to death and his wife sentenced to life in prison. Since the couple was not present the sentences were not carried out. Bonvin returned to France in late 1945 but died the next year of an ailment he received in India. Kind of sad or is it funny that the Vichy death tribunal never got him but colonial jungle fever did. Funny!

Governor Bonvin. You wouldn’t recognize his dancing ability by looking at him

French India was later made untenable by the independence of India in 1947. Already there had been stirrings in labor troubles at Pondicherry textile mills. France and India agreed that the territories should vote on their future. In the event the vote never happened. Socialists unilaterally declared union with India with the support of the mayor of  Pondicherry but not the colonial governor. However when the Indian flag was raised over the police station in 1954 that was the de facto end of French India. No one was forced to leave the area and French was still an allowed language. The French government formally ended French India in 1962. Pondicherry was formally renamed Puducherry in 2006 and the left over French architecture is a major tourist draw.

The pro merging with India forces were of course dancing to a different drummer. No doubt the French residents seeing this, were all in favor of a shirt wearing movement among the Indians

Well my drink is empty so I will pour another to salute the dancing ability of Governor Bonvin. Come again for another story that can be learned from stamp collecting. First published in 2018.

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El Salvador 1938, pretending to honor the Pipil Indians

In 1932 there was a peasant uprising. It was quickly put down but Pipil Indians were blamed and severely repressed. That might not be approved of by outsiders such as the USA. Thus this stamp, printed in America was a bit of a deception implying everything was fine. 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 today is a farm out stamp from if not a banana republic, more precisely a coffee republic. Therefore when the home country is having problems with their Pipil Indians who were the coffee plantation workers, why not put out stamps for America that show happy productive Indians. I find myself having some respect for the deception. Stamps should be used to put forth a countries best self. The displaying of the ideal also reinforces that it is indeed the way things should be.

The stamp today is issue A137, a 5 centavo stamp issued by El Salvador in 1938. It is part of a nine stamp issue in various denominations that display various aspects of Pipil Indian life. According to the Scott catalog, it is worth 25 cents used.

El Salvador received independence from Spain in 1821. At first it was feared that El Salvador and the other central American areas would be absorbed by Mexico. To avoid this, A Federation of the Central American states was started and El Salvador even petitioned to become an American state. Luckily the petition was ignored and Mexico decided that they would not press claims in Central America. The Federation dissolved in 1837 and the states went forward alone. At first the main crop was indigo with the then numerous Pipil Indians engaged in subsistence farming on reservations. With the decline in indigo, coffee became the cash crop. More land was needed and Indian land was taken under newly passed vagrancy laws and the Indians themselves set to work the coffee plantations for a days pay that only covered 2 tortillas and a few beans that had to be bought at the plantation store.

A coup lead to a new regime lead by Maximiliano Hernandez Martinez that stabilized the government and was favored by the wealthy landowners. The new regime allowed previously exiled Communists such as Farabundo Marti to return. Marti started signing up members and organizing a peasant uprising. He was educated and personally secure but managed to win some support from the Indian peasantry. An uprising occurred during Holy Week while the government was off. Indians attacked landowners with machetes and communist officers in the Army took briefly the radio station. Once Hernandez Martinez was back in place he rallied loyal army units to put down the rebellion. Marti was captured and quickly shot. He became an important figure in El Salvador and both the eighties left wing rebellion and the current El Salvadoran left of center party use his name in their title.

President Maximiliano Hernandez Martinez. Quite youthful and dashing, no?
Farabundo Marti from the poster of a Soviet film. Locally they tried to make him look like a man of the people and less like Patti Hearst’s guru.

More importantly, Hernandez Martinez began to heavily go after the Pipil Indians. The Indians had to stop wearing there traditional dress and stop speaking their language to avoid trouble with Hernandez’s troops. There is very little left of the Pipil Indians in El Salvador today. Hernandez Martinez was into the occult. Once during a small pox epidemic he had colored lights hung around the capital believing this a cure. He also thought it worse to kill an ant than a men as a man would be reincarnated while the ant was just finished. After he was in power for about 15 years he finally resigned when a student strike went national and paralyzed the country. He went into exile. As an old man living in Honduras in the 1960s, Hernandez Martinez was assassinated by his chauffeur. It seems the driver’s father was killed in the uprising 30 years earlier. What goes around comes around.

Now they have it. When making a ridiculous claim, look sad, downcast, unthreatening and most importantly! Pretend you still exist.

Well my drink is empty. Today there are myriad stamp issues from all over gushing about a minority. I wonder if in the fullness of history they will seem as being as fraudulent as todays stamp. Come again for another story that can be learned from stamp collecting. First published in 2018.

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French Somaliland 1940, The colonials get taken advantage of in Djibouti

Ethiopia is landlocked. However there are trading posts on the coast that have been there forever. Controlling them goes a long way to benefiting from Ethiopian trade. 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.

Todays stamp shows a Mosque in a French colony. In doing show it goes along way to describing the colonies purpose. Getting products into and out of African and Christian Ethiopia has long been a job of Arab traders. However progress meant that railroad construction would be helpful. To get that done, the French were invited in by the Arabs. Hence the area becomes French Somaliland and there is little effort put toward Christianizing. The target was Ethiopia.

Todays stamp is issue A24, a 3 Centimes stamp issued by French Somaliland in 1940. It shows the Sunni Mosque in Djibouti city. It was part of a 33 stamp issue in various denominations. According to the Scott catalog, the stamp is worth 25 cents mint or used.

The area had been ruled into antiquity by Arab sultans who pledged their allegiance to Egypt. The villages on the coast of the Red Sea were transshipment points  for camel trains of goods in an out of landlocked Ethiopia. Ethiopia was Christian and fairly uniquely in that period, African ruled. The trade in coffee and other goods was quite lucrative. It was thought that a train line from Ethiopia through the Ogaden dessert would be lucrative and the French were invited in to get one built.

The train was initially successful  with Djibouti experiencing a population and trade boom at the expense of other trading posts in British and Italian Somaliland. The new population however was largely Somali and therefore African and Muslim.

Eventually a second train line opened up through Eritrea to the coast and the train line to Djibouti failed requiring a French government bailout. When Somalia got it’s independence there was a push to join that was resisted. Eventually Djibouti achieved a measure of independence under a one party state headed by the French selected President and now his nephew. Independent Somalia did not fare much better after plunging into war with Ethiopia over the Ogaden desert.

The Sunni Mosque on the stamp still stands. The country of Djibouti today is 96 percent Muslim and it is the state religion.

Years go by and not much changes at the Djibouti Mosque

The railroad declined and the Ethiopian leg of the journey nationalized. The EU appropriated 50 million Euros to try to keep it going but it still closed in 2016. A new railroad company was set up 75 percent owned  by Ethiopia  and 25 percent by Djibouti. China was contracted to design, build, and train locals to operate a new train next to the old French line with construction finishing and a trial run happened in 2016. The Chinese got paid but the company found itself so deep in debt that there was no further capital to get the new train into commercial operation. One can imagine the railway company furiously calling China, France, the USA to help. Hopefully they no longer pay their phone bill.

A reminder of the old not operational French railroad to Djibouti
A reminder of the 2016 trial run of the not operational new Chinese train to Djibouti.

Well my drink is empty and to me the French come across fairly badly for getting sucked in to build the railroad. I doubt any profit from it ever made it back to France. Come again  for another story that can be learned from stamp collecting. First published in 2018

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China 1957, Building on Japanese and Russian foundations in Changchun, Manchuria

The first automotive plant in the biggest country by population in the world. Now the biggest automotive market in the 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.

You don’t often see smokestacks on a stamp. Today a developing country would probably just show the factory gate. The complex shown with its large size and wide boulevard gives a real sense to its importance to China. A truck factory was a big deal. the first domestic truck factory is a really big deal. Imagine a poor country where all the motorized transportation has to be imported. Inevitably this means there will be too few of them and the trucks will cost far more than they should, both to acquire and maintain.

Todays stamp is issue A73, a 4 Juan stamp issued by the Peoples Republic of China on May Day 1957. It displays the first automotive works that opened the year before. It was a two stamp issue. According to the Scott Catalog, the stamp is worth $2.75 mint.

Changchun has been an important center for industry since the 19th century. Located in Manchuria, it was the recipient of Russian and Japanese ambitions. In 1898 the train came to Changchun as a result of Russian construction building off their railroad network. It was for a while the end of the line as Japan fought a war with Russia in 1905 and for a short period their systems did not connect. The Japanese eventually set up a puppet state in Manchuria under old Emperor Puyi with it’s capital in Changchun. The Japanese put much effort into making Changchun a showcase city for the Greater East Asia Co Prosperity Sphere. They lavished much money on architecture and infrastructure. The population skyrocketed and in 1944 contained over 140,000 Japanese workers and 5 times that many Chinese. Some of that carried over  when the Chinese regained control of the city in the late 40s. Even today most Chinese bullet trains come from Changchun.

Japan Co Prosperity era government building still in use as a hospital in modern Changchun. Architectural Brutality with Japanese and Chinese flair. The Co Prosperity Sphere for the win.

The Russians accepted the Japanese surrender in Manchuria in 1945 and played a further role in the future of the Chinese city. When the plant on the stamp opened in 1956, the first product was a Russian truck, the Zis-150. The Chinese rechristened the truck the FAW Jia Fang C-10. It was the most common Soviet truck of the 50s and the Chinese made it until 1986. In 1958, the factory expanded its offerings to include the Hong Qi,(Red Flag), a long running series of limousines and large sedans for high officials.

The Soviet original Zis 150 truck. An image search for Gia Fang just gets you androgenous Chinese people with that name. I miss white wall tires as much as the next guy, but on the towed cannon?

The first factory is still around. The third largest domestic automaker FAW is still based in Changchun. FAW stands for First Auto Works. It is known today for its license production of Audi sedans and its own line of economy cars and commercial vehicles. As of yet, they have been unable to re-launch  the Red Flag series of limousines.

Well my drink is empty. This is perhaps not the story of success it would seem at first blush. Yes China fully supplies it’s own automotive market and indeed exports. What it has not been able to do to date, over 65 years later is design their own instead of licenses and pathetic thievery.  Come again for another story that can be learned from stamp collecting. First published in 2018.