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Patiala Indian Feudal State 1940. The Prince is wondering where the Prince of Nabha got his harem

Patiala was a Sikh state in the Punjab. It was one of the  Phiulkian sardars that had made peace with the British and so were allowed to continue. What to do when the Prince notices his states best girls being kidnapped and his neighboring cousin Prince rapidly expanding his harem. Call in Sherlock Holmes. 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 for official use in Patiala. The low denomination, 1/2 Anna = .004 of an American penny in todays money, implies local mail. Wonder what the ratio of bills to commendations directed at his people from the Prince?

Todays stamp is issue O8 an official stamp issued by the Sikh feudal state of Patiala. It was a 14 stamp overprint of a British India issue featuring King George VI. According to the Scott catalog, the stamp is worth 25 cents used.

What became Patiala started as a village formed by a Sikh family castout. He was cast out for following another Guru. Thus the states in the area were separate though the ruling family were branches of the same family. The town took the name Patiala while under Baba Ala Singh who expanded his territory and rejuvenated the ancient Mubarak Fort. He was having constant battles with Afghans and Marathas and made a self defense treaty with the British East India Company.

Fort Mubarak’s main gate that is from Baba Ala Singh’s time.

In the 1920s Patiala’s Prince was having a problem with his cousin ruling Nabha. His police officers were being harassed in Nabha and more importantly young women were disappearing only to reappear in the Nabha Prince’s harem.  Things were getting quite hostile between them and that was quite dangerous for their continued existence. The British had a rule regarding the feudal states called the Doctrine of Lapse. If an area lacked a direct heir or the ruler was deemed manifestly incompetent, the state would revert to British India. Gosh, that is a doctrine that needs to make a comeback.

Patiala petitioned to a Sikh council called the Shiromani Gurdwara Parbandhak. They got no satisfaction there so it was referred to the British Indian courts. Their enquiry found that Patiala’s accusations were true. They forced the Prince of Nabha to abdicate and took over the states administration. There are some that thought that Patiala had more popularity with the British as a Patiala polo star was playing in Britain and winning championships.

Patiala Prince Singh. In addition to his huge harem he was also an accomplished cricketer.

In 1947 Patiala was the first feudal Prince to sign the Instrument of Accession to the new independent Union of India. In return, he was named the areas first governor.

Well my drink is empty. I checked and Patiala Prince Singh had 10 wives, numerous consorts and a a whopping 88 children. Wonder where he got his harem? Come again tomorrow when there will be another story that can be learned from stamp collecting.

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Uruguay 1962, Remembering first President Fructuoso Rivera, who with 33 Orientals embraced the monsoon

The first President of Uruguay was in and out of office and exile and is in some peoples thinking guilty for the massacre of the Charrua Indians. Not quite the legacy one might hope of a county’s founding father. Then you should remember that the people decided actively to embrace the monsoon to end Brazilian rule. Well they did that. 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 a country is formed by embracing the monsoon, you might expect the leader to have some anarchist flair. Yet here we have Uruguay showing President Rivera in the standard fake Napoleon get up so common to Latin America. Our founders must be founding fathers in the USA sense?

Todays stamp is issue A190, a 20 Centesimos stamp issued by Uruguay on May 29th, 1962. It was a three stamp issue in various denominations. According to the Scott catalog, the stamp is worth 25 cents whether used or unused.

In colonial times, it was agreed between Spain and Portugal to divide what was known as the Oriental Province between the two Empires. The area of modern Uruguay was the part given to Spain. The area was sparsely populated but the nomadic Charrua Indians who thought the colonials white, not oriental. After Spanish abandonment, the area became known as the independent Banda Oriental under a General Artigas. Cattle rancher Fructuoso Rivera joined Artigas’s army, himself rising to general. In 1820 the by now independent Brazilian Empire invaded and much or Artigas’s army went into Argentine exile. Rivera returned to his ranch.

Argentine cattle ranchers were very much threatened by Brazil’s move and funded a rejuvenation of the Banda Oriental army. Rivera met with his former comrades and agreed to be a part of it if they made a comeback. In 1825 33 “Orientals” landed at Arenal Grande beach and picked up additional figures from the countryside on a march to Montevideo. Those landed were not all from Oriental Province, some were Argentine and one was even from Mozambique. In Montevideo, the group declared independence from Brazil and allegiance to Argentina.

An imagination of the 33 embracing the monsoon and taking the oath to the Uruguay flag. The guy with the big afro giving the future Nazi salute looks fun

Brazil then declared war on Argentina. The war lasted 3 years and was eventually mediated by British diplomat Viscount Ponsonby. It was decided that Uruguay would be independent and affiliate with neither Brazil nor Argentina.

Viscount Ponsonby. He wouldn’t do as a Uruguay founding father, would he?

Rivera served three times as President although he was often at odds with many of his former comrades. Relations with the Charrua Indians declined as they felt their land was being intruded on by cattle ranches. In 1831 Rivera lead the army to attack the Indians in what was an antihalation. In 1834, Uruguay sent four Charrua Indians to Paris to be part of a circus freak show of a died out race. None of the four ever made it back to Uruguay alive. The race may not have totally died out. In 1989, a group was formed that self identified themselves as members of the Charrua nation. Uruguay allows Charrua identification on their census, and 700 claim it. Wonder if they are lobbying to start a casino.

Well my drink is empty. Come again tomorrow when there will be another story that can be learned from stamp collecting.

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Great Britain 1996, Remembering the first tv star, a puppet mule

“We want Muffin. Muffin the Mule. Dear old Muffin, Always playing the Fool”. Television was a new medium in 1946, but a new medium needs a breakout star. Even if it was a puppet. 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.

Children’s television had a fifty year history at the time of this stamp. So the stamp shows a black and white image of the BBC presenter Annette Mills and the Muffin puppet. Imagine someone today conceiving a show of a mature and accomplished lady performs original music while a mule puppet is made to dance on the piano by puppetiers who concieved the puppet, voice it and wrote the script.It would have never happened that way now and the Muffin reboots since never stuck to the formula. The formula would have looked familiar to 1940s Britain. There were still traveling kids shows such as Punch and Judy that were similar.

A photo showing how it was done on live TV.

Todays stamp is issue A469, a 20P stamp issued by Great Britain on September 3rd, 1996. It was a five stamp issue in various denominations also available as a prestige booklet that displayed Britain’s children’s tv over time. According to the Scott catalog, the stamp is worth 45 cents used. The prestige booklet is worth $16.

The original puppet mule was made by puppet maker Fred Tickner on commission from the husband and wife puppeteer team of Jan Busell and Ann Hogarth. It was part of the puppet circus of the traveling Hogarth Puppet Theatre. The in person show went on hiatus during the war. The Hogarth team was hired by the BBC to work with presenter Annette Mills, a talented singer, pianist, and in her earlier days a dancer. She was also the sister of actor Sir John Mills and aunt to later child star Haley Mills. On TV they were able to recreate the live old style live performance but had the added challenge of debuting new material every week.

The show was very successful and ran until 1955 when Annette Mills died of a heart attack. A few years later the show was reimagined with Muffin the mule getting a lot of friends such as Sally the sea lion and Perguene the penguin. On the new ITV show Muffin lived in Muffinham village and was put upon by the hijinks of his new compatriots. You can sense the modernity creeping in.

The stardom of the puppet was such that in 1959 Lesney Products, then makers of Matchbox cars, made a die cast metal Muffin the mule toy. It was the only tv character they ever did that for. The character was even brought to the Soviet Union with a series of Soviet made episodes. They did however convert Muffin to a donkey.

Well my drink is empty and though there are people here worthy of a toast, it seems wrong in relation to a kids show. Come again tomorrow for another story that can be learned from stamp collecting.

 

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Guinea 1967, 20 years of the Democratic Party of Guinea, 20 down and 17 to go

Guinea in this period was a one party state with the leader Touré reelected unanimously every 5 years. Such success must have put Guinea on top of the world. Well that is what this stamp issue expresses and was early enough that some still might have believed. 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 celebrates 20 years of the Democratic political party  and also the opening of the “People’s Palace” in the capital Conakry. The Democratic party had been the only legal party since 1960 so was hardly democratic. The peoples palace was of course for the use of President Touré. The Palace was built with eastern bloc aid, it must have been strange for them to be in the palace building game.

A large sign covering the central part of the entrance hall to the Peoples Palace in Conakry. Three values are represented : that of work, symbolized by a woman holding a sickle, cultural tradition by a drum player and the struggle for national independence by a man armed with a torch and rifle. 

Todays stamp is issue A63, a 30 Franc stamp issued by Guinea on September 28th, 1967. It was a four stamp issue in various denominations the top value being airmail. According to the Scott catalog, the stamp is worth 25 cents canceled to order.

Sekou Touré was born a peasant farmer in a small village in then French Guinea. He claimed to be the great grandson of King Touré of the precolonial Wassoulou Empire. The claim was enough to get him enrolled in French schools in Guinea until he was expelled at age 15 for protesting the quality of the food the French were providing. Apparently we are to believe  before he left school he made a deep study of Marx and Lenin. After school he pursued his true calling as a labor organizer. Getting somebody to get people working would be quite the novelty in an African country, but no he was a strike guy. Strikes are probably hard to pull off in Africa as who could tell the difference. That stuff doesn’t pay the bills so Touré was also a postal clerk. He had to take a test for that job so that probably proves he could read. He was a founding member of the Democratic Party that wanted complete independence from France.

In 1958, Touré had his shot and took it. The new French 5th Republic allowed a fairly sudden vote in the colonies whether to remain in the French community or get snap independence. Guinea was the only African colony to chose independence and got it in 1958 with Touré as President. Telling the French to go away was very popular throughout Black Africa and the Black community in the USA. Seeing his in depth study of Communism, the Soviets and the Chinese were very forthcoming with aid. As was more lefty forces in the west like the Peace Corps.

They say image is everything but not always. Askari soldiers in the service of Portuguese Guinea raided Guinea finding no opposition but also not finding Touré. They had hoped to instill a national uprising but found the radio station inoperative so they couldn’t get the word out. After they left, Touré portrayed it as a great victory and had the Soviets cast him another statue. The truth showed as the new High Command executed much of the Army and government officials as traitors.

Nice of the Soviet sculptors to remember to put African features on the brave Red soldier defending home and hearth

In 1977, it became impossible to claim that communism was working economically. Female merchants in Conakry’s main Medena Market rioted saying that the government set prices were too low. The government stopped trying to enforce those rules. Finally in 1984 Touré died of a heart attack at the Cleveland Clinic in the USA when he did not trust the hospitals in Guinea.

So what was the results of Touré and the Democratic Party’s 26 year rule with ample foreign aid. The worker’s average income was $140 a year, literacy was below 10 percent, and life expectancy in Guinea was 41 years.

The sun will come out tomorrow

Well my drink is empty and no I will leave the toasting of Touré to his still many fans. Come again tomorrow when there will be another story that can be learned from stamp collecting.

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Austria 1983, Was Upper Austria the first WiFi Hotspot

We must do a stamp on a Chamber of Commerce convention in Linz that is meeting in a dreary late brutalist building there. This sounds like a formula for a dreary stamp. Why not at least spice up the building with bright colors. Then kick it up a few notches with a building emblem of a technology a generation away. That will get a certain stamp collector scratching his head. 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 just must be backdated, in the manner of a Biden mail in ballot from the ghetto. Austria is no slouch in the realm of high technology but they did not have WiFi in 1983, I don’t care what that building says on it’s side.

Todays stamp is issue A645, a 4 Shilling stamp issued by Austria on August 16th, 1983. It was a single stamp issue recognizing the 27th International Chamber of Commerce Professional Competition held in Linz. I can confirm the was a talent section to the competition but I am still awaiting confirmation on the swimsuit portion. According to the Scott catalog, the stamp is worth 40 cents used.

At first Chambers of Commerce were local clubs for merchants. The first one formed on Marseilles, France in 1599. Soon the local affiliates were merged into national organizations that were regulated by the government and lobbied for pro big business measures. This can be seen in Austria where the first chamber formed in Vienna in 1848 but by 1868 there was a national parent organization regulated by an act of the Reichsrat legislature. In many European countries, including Austria, membership in the chamber of commerce is required by businesses over a certain size. The dues, as with union dues on the other political side are a major source of resources for center right political parties.

This is currently creating some trouble on the political right. The Chamber as advocated for liberal immigration policies in order to push down labor costs for big business. As right politics becomes more populist, this is a big bone of contention and in the USA the Chamber has begun redirecting it’s political support to Democrats.

This involvement in national politics is becoming a deterrent to local professionals and merchants joining the chamber. A late friend of mine was a member recruiter for the local chamber. After he quit he explained that he was a salesman his whole professional life but had very little luck getting people to join the local chamber. A local club for business people would have been welcome but not one where dues are redirected toward political lobbying that the locals opposed.

Well my drink is empty and I will pour another to toast my late friend. He always flew better on two wings. Come again tomorrow for another story that can be learned from stamp collecting.

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Cambodia 1997, Putting the Indo in Indo China with a Khmer Temple to Shiva

In the 1990s, Cambodia had their King back, see https://the-philatelist.com/2018/04/11/968-cambodia-the-human-rights-flame-burns-bright-at-least-on-the-stamp/   , and was ready to again lay claim to the old Khmer culture that went back 1100 years and built in stone. Interestingly this was the period that the Khmer Empire converted to Hinduism, that did not stick in the Buddhist country. 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 1000+ year old temples featured on the six stamps of this issue survived as they were of stone but had long been swallowed by the jungle until uncovered by French colonial era adventurers. That they are from a long gone empire is not important, that they honor God in a different way than modern Cambodians is not important, that they were rediscovered by the French is not important. The important thing is they show a history of people achieving art and engineering, a civilized people. As with this ancient stone complex remembered by Panama that I wrote up, see https://the-philatelist.com/2020/07/09/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/   , the stone construction was so important.

Todays stamp is A305, a 1500 Reil stamp issued by the Kingdom of Cambodia on April 13th, 1997. It was a 6 stamp issue in various denominations that came out in two groups of three and showed views of the Khmer Empire era stone temples. According to the Scott catalog, the stamp is worth 35 cents cancelled to order.

Bantea Srei Temple was dedicated in 969AD to the Hindu God Shiva. It was built at the time of the Khmer Hindu Empire at the directions of courtiers of King Rajendravaman II. It was built of red sandstone that it as amenable as wood to elaborate carving. It is slightly removed from the more famous Angkor Wat complex. At first it dedicated to both Vishnu and Shiva but 200 years later rededicated to just Shiva. The Temple returned to the jungle around 1400 AD. This was about the time the Khmer Empire converted to Buddhism and 100 years before it fell. The modern Cambodian name means “The Citadel of Women” relating to some of the stone murals.

Red Sandstone carvings at Bantea Srei Temple

Andre’ Malraux was an important man in early 20th century art and literary circles in Paris. He had explained Cubism style painting in a book that widened it’s audience. He was a great fan of T. H. Lawrence and longed to have similar adventures in the East. The discovery of Angkor Wat had endowed the then French Protectorate of Cambodia with exotic mystery. Malraux travelled there and rediscovered the Bantea Srei Temple. His travels in the East were fodder for several well received French books but all was not well. Back in Paris, he was arrested and convicted of looting some original statues from the complex he rediscovered. He argued to no avail that since the statues ended up in Paris museums it was hardly looting. France eventually forgave Andre’ Malraux, much later in life French President de Gaulle named him French Minister of Culture.

Andre’ Malraux in 1933 after he did his time.

The rediscovery has inevitably lead to the complex becoming a tourist attraction. The Cambodians have tried to stem relics disappearing by replacing them with modern copies. They also accepted Swiss aid to protect the site from being reclaimed again by the jungle by installing a drainage system.

Well my drink is empty. Come again on Monday when there will be another story that can be learned from stamp collecting.

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Belgium 1964, Benelux shows how to unite, you have to add another layer

The Benelux have reasons to not get along. There are different languages and religions. They were once united in a way that saw the Netherlands dominate. Perhaps not the best memory for Belgium and Luxemburg. Still there might be some advantages in some standardizing, how much is the question. So slip on your smoking jacket, fill your pipe, take your first sip of your adult beverage, and sit back in your most comfortable chair. Welcome to todays offering from The Philatelist.

This stamp from Belgium recognized the twentieth anniversary of the Benelux countries governments in exile  signing the London Customs Convention. Interesting that the stamp chose to show the three countries seperate Royal Heads of State. A King/Queen/and Grand Dutchess might naturally be suspicious that integration with other realms might be limiting. Perhaps this is to hint that the integration won’t go too far.

Todays stamp is issue A185, a 3 Franc stamp issued by Belgium on October 12th, 1964. This was a single stamp issue that actually missed the signing anniversary by a month. According to the Scott catalog, the stamp is worth 25 cents used. A similar stamp was also issued by the other Benelux countries and share this ones low value.

The first step toward reintegrating the Benelux countries economically was when Luxemburg and Belgium signed a customs union in 1921. One feature of the agreement that was not successful was the two countries setting their respective Francs at a fixed exchange rate. This exchange rate had to be changed twice during the 27 years it was in effect.

In 1944, when the governments of all three countries were in exile in London and thus were more under the will of the British than their own voters, a London Customs Convention was signed. The countries did not again try to fix currencies and did wait till 1947 to ratify the agreement. It took effect in 1948.

The most important thing about the customs union was that it provided a model on how countries could integrate. Soon there was a new Benelux Parliament based out of Brussels that did not replace legislatures in the three countries. An integrated Secretariat had figure heads from the three countries in turn on one year terms. The decisions of the integrated system in some cases are to be ratified by the counties separate governments. The customs union expanded into a full economic union in 1955. Of course this is all sold on the promise of greater economic efficiency. To what extent the expense of two governments where there was one counteracts this is not fully explored.

If this sounds a lot like what later happened with European integration you are correct. The process was directly the model for the 1970s and 1980s Schengen negotiations.

Today the EU requires members to adopt their rules on issues beyond economics. This can lead to troubles when for example Eastern European nations prefer to stick with more traditional rules on things like abortion or homosexual rights. I could find no record of similar arguments between the Benelux countries in this time frame. Whether that was the result of more similar people agreeing or the three Royals on todays stamp preventing overstepping is fun to consider.

Benelux Union building in Brussels.

Well my drink is empty. All my American readers have a nice Thanksgiving and come again on Friday when there will be another story that can be learned from stamp collecting.

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Mauritania 1961, Daddah forms a one party Islamic Republic, the people are naturally thrilled, but how do the Barbary sheep feel?

Here we have a new country in the first few years of independence. There was reason to hope, there was a new capital, a new industry was coming online, they had taken the name of an ancient empire, and like an ancient empire they had additional territorial ambitions. 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 do like the delicate French style coloring of this stamp. The Barbary sheep is still numerous in Mauritania and the Maghreb. It’s natural predators are the Barbary Lion and Barbary Leopard which are extinct or near extinct. So it’s main threat now is man. I joked above about how the sheep feel about the country’s change. Perhaps there is room to worry, a group of Barbary Sheep is called an anger.

A more youthful Barbary sheep

Todays stamp is issue A13, a three Franc stamp issued by the Islamic Republic of Mauritania in 1961. It was a 15 stamp issue in various denominations. According to the Scott catalog, the stamp is worth 25 cents used with what appears to be an actual postal cancellation.

This area on the West African coast south of Morocco took the name of the old Carthage/Roman era empire, see https://the-philatelist.com/2020/10/29/algeria-1952-french-algeria-remembers-cherchell-when-it-was-a-roman-mauretanian-empire-under-juba-ii-and-cleopatra/ . There is no overlap in territory or tribe with the old entity. During the French colonial period the area went undeveloped as it was viewed as a buffer between Arab Morocco and the more important French African colony of Senegal. The area’s population was mainly nomadic Arab tribesmen.

In the runup to independence, work was done on nation building. A new capital named Nouakchott was laid out and constructed assuming 15,000 people. A large iron ore deposit was discovered and infastructure was put in place to mine it and get it exported. Moktar Daddah, the first Mauritanian to hold a University degree, was chosen by the French as the leader in the hope he could hold together a coalition of the ethnic groups.

Not everything went smoothly but there was a flurry of progress. Daddah did indeed hold together his coalition by banning political opposition. The iron ore mine came on stream in 1962. In addition to French aid, China and Saudi Arabia stepped up with aid. Spain was nearing the end of it’s time in the Spanish Sahara and Daddah worked out a plan to divide it with Morocco.

The problems soon began to mount. The new southern capital attracted many Africans willing to live the city life. Thus the nomadic Arab tribesman resented the powers of the government as they seemed foreign. The mine required 3000 expatriates to run it. The salaries that were paid to the expatriates so dwarfed local wages that the mine attracted the ire of the counties leftists. Attempting to occupy territory in the Spanish Sahara brought conflict with the well armed POLISARIO, that wanted to turn the area into another independent country, see https://the-philatelist.com/2018/08/02/saharaui-semi-nation-on-the-other-side-of-the-wall-of-course-with-stamps/   .

Daddah worked hard to keep things moving forward. He nationalized the mine and replaced the Franc with a local currency. He announced an effort toward more Islamic national institutions to placate the Nomadic Arab tribesmen.

President Moktar Daddah in 1977, the year before he was deposed.

Daddah had a long run but it was not meant to be. Coronels from the Army, tired of the northern war, mutinyed and forced Daddah from office and into jail. Daddah eventually was able to depart for Paris where he had earlier studied. If he had held out longer, perhaps the country would have turned enough to what he was trying to build. The country is now much less nomadic with the capital, remember it was designed for 15,000, now having over a million people. Even the best of leaders would have struggled with that level of growth.

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

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Costa Rica 1954, Showing off a survivor in the easy come, easy go world of industry

The industry stamps of small countries often tell much. Often what was important at the time of the stamp is just gone. Here we find an industry with some staying power. So slip on your smoking jacket, fill your pipe, take your first sip of your adult beverage, and sit back in your most comfortable chair. Welcome to todays offering from The Philatelist,

It is not the easiest to picture a vegetable oil processing plant in a good light. This one even has puffing smoke stacks. De La Rue did a pretty good job though. The hilltop location give a certain monastery feel.

Todays stamp is issue C227, a 5 Centimos airmail stamp issued by Costa Rica in 1954. It was a 20 stamp issue that came out over 5 years that showed off industry of Costa Rica. According to the Scott catalog, the stamp is worth 25 cents whether used or unused.

Traditionally the biggest business in Costa Rica is agriculture. This is still the case as far as number of people employed, but in terms of gross national product it has fallen behind tourism. While being by far the most prosperous Central American country, there is still a very real issue of haves and have nots. This has been exacerbated by the influx of North American retires. Such activity looks great for GNP and also adds impetus to environmental enforcement. For example, recently Costa Rica banned commercial fishing fleets from both of their oceans but still allows sport fishing in their rivers to appease the retirees. It should not be surprising that the unemployment rate among locals is near 10 percent even before Covid.

Costa Rica has attempted to counteract this trend. They have opened free trade zones to attract foreign owned industry. Costa Rica seemed to attract a crown jewel when Intel built a chip manufacturing plant. It employed 5000 well paid employees and the output of the plant was 25 percent of exports of Costa Rica and 4.9 percent of GDP. In 2014, Intel anounced that they were ending manufacturing at the barely ten year old plant in Costa Rica and laying off over half the staff. The current largest employer in the free trade zones is Amazon.com, but most of their jobs are lower pay, lower skill, warehouse jobs.

The once important Intel plant

One industry that has proved more consistent is vegetable oil. It is still locally made and owned. It sells under the brand En Su Punto in 10+ countries. I can’t confirm that they still operate out of the factory shown on the stamp. Their website, facing the same problem no doubt as the stamp designer, would rather show you their product.

Costa Rica’s own vegetable oil

Well my drink is empty, so please come back tomorrow for another story that can be learned from stamp collecting.

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North Vietnam 1965, Remembering Nguyen Du for his epic poem of romance and corruption

North Vietnam in 1965 was in a struggle arguing their Soviet and Chinese influenced system would be better and less corrupt than the South’s western, colonial, and Catholic influenced system. What better time to remember Nguyen Du’s epic poem that was Chinese influenced and told of Northern Vietnamese corrupted by their Southern rulers. 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.

Nguyen Du was a figure from 200 years before in a country that was not doing much to record it’s history. This works well for this stamp as his work and in this case his northern birthplace is cast as mythic and  which proports to show a very different Hanoi.

Todays stamp is issue A158, a 12 Xu stamp issued by North Vietnam on November 25th, 1965. It was a four stamp issue in different denominations celebrating Du and especially the epic poem The Tale of  Kieu. According to the Scott catalog, the stamp is worth 40 cents used.

Nguyen Du was the seventh son by the third wife of a Vietnamese Prime Minister. His mother was a poetic songstress which at the time was considered disreputable. Du was well off and well educated and after completing his studies he was employed as a government advisor  called a Mandarin. He also married his own songstress which was still considered disreputable. The dynasty he worked for and swore loyalty to was overthrown and Du was out of a job. 6 years later the new guys were out and a new group of Southern rulers were in. This time Du accepted his job back as a Mandarin and eventually was promoted to Ambassador to China. Working for the new people was thought a betrayal. In China Du found a minor romance novel that he thought under a pen name he could translate into Vietnamese verse and it would serve as an allegory to trying to keep your honor while serving a corrupt government.

The Tale of Kieu is the story of an attractive young educated girl named Kieu who travels to visit the graves of her ancestors with her younger sister. Kieu meets and falls in love with a young man. Before they can marry he is called back to his home village for 6 months to mourn the death of his uncle. While at home herself awaiting reunification her family gets cheated in a business deal and losses all their money and the government is threatening to jail Kieu’s father and brother. To buy their way out of trouble, Kieu sells herself into marriage with a middle age man and tells her younger sister to fulfill her previous promise of marraige. The older man Kieu married turns out to be a pimp and delivers Kieu to an upscale brothel. There she attempts suicide but is instead forced into the life of a prostitute. She is especially popular and degraded as she is of higher class than the other prostitutes. One of her clients is a government Mandarin who takes pity on her and buys her out of the brothel and makes Kieu his wife. When her first husband hears of this  he tries to force her back to the brothel as he is still her husband. Kieu runs away and hides out with Nuns. At the Nunnery her first love finds her, but Kieu thinks herself too debased to take up again with him.

The epic runs to 3254 verses and is delivered in a six-eight meter. There are some in Vietnam who can recite it in full. In 2007 there was a movie version called Saigon Eclipse that moved the story to the present day and had Kieu working in a massage parlor in San Francisco to pay off her family’s debt in Vietnam. No fault of North Vietnam in that one. Well maybe a little.

Film Poster for Saigon Eclipse. The producers seem to have forgotten that Kieu is not supposed to look like the other prostitutes.

Well my drink is empty. I can see how the south can be accused of debasing corruption but perhaps those up north should check if they themselves are throwing stones from glass houses. Come again tomorrow for another story that can be learned from stamp collecting.