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Afghanistan 1964, the Shah forgets how he is supposed to lean

1960s Southwest Asian stamps paint a somewhat bizarre picture of life in those countries. Usually under UN auspices, rapid progress and westernization is shown. The children are all involved in scouting, the women are uncovered and being educated. What happens though when the disconected elite start to buy in. The long serving Shah of Afghanistan’s motto was leaner on Allah. The stamps indicate that he was really leaning on a much shakier UN. 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 image on this stamp beggars belief. Is the average citizen supposed to believe that such a doctor nurse team with microscopes was at his service should he fall ill? When the Shah was deposed 9 years later, he was under doctor’s care in Italy. When the Shah can’t find a decent doctor locally, it requires a degree of being out of touch to put out a stamp like this. They probably hoped the average citizen wasn’t mailing letters so would never come across such brown nose the UN stamps.

Todays stamp is issue A213, a 3 Afghan Rupee stamp issued by Afghanistan on March 8th, 1964. Though this farmed out issue was almost 6 months late, it celebrated United Nations Day 1963 with an 8 stamp and two souvenir sheet issue in various denominations. According to the Scott catalog, the stamp is worth $1.20 whether unused or cancelled to order.

Mohammed Zahir became Shah at age 19 in 1933. His first few decades saw several of his uncles serve as Regent and Prime Minister. In the 1950s he started to take charge more personally and stopped leaning on his uncles. His official motto was “Leaner on Allah”. This seems a good motto for the King/Shah of a backward country implying both being chosen by God and also if things aren’t going well, blame not the King but God as it must be his will. Instead the Shah started relying on foreign aid much coming by way of the UN. One can imagine the tiny cadre of western educated Afghans dealing with the UN types. Can you imagine them to be Monarchists? I can’t.

The Shah listened to the offered advice. In 1964 there was a new constitution  with a bicameral legislature that was one third elected by the people. This resulted in a flood of new political parties of different stripes making demands.

In 1973, while in Rome for eye surgery there was a sudden end to the Monarchy. Not too surprising, the Shah only looks decent when compared to the very low bar of who came later. He was replaced though not by the modern lefties or the traditional religion folks but by his brother in law, a former Prime Minister. He was back as President, Prime Minster, and one political party General Secretary of the “Republic”. Sometimes you have to break the Monarchy to save it. Shah Mohammed Zahir was allowed to return to his Palace after the Taliban fell under the honorary title of “Father of the Country”, see https://the-philatelist.com/2018/10/03/afghanistan-1963-as-a-start-to-development-lets-begin-to-feed-ourselves-if-only-someone-could-build-us-an-irrigation-system/   . Finally he could stand straight.

The United Nations Day holiday celebrated on the stamp is October 24th, marking the day in 1944 that 50 nations met in San Francisco to sign the UN charter. In 1972, the holiday was repackaged as World Development Information Day to educate world opinion of all the UN was doing to address development disparities. Some times you have to break an institution to save it. I wonder if UN General Secretary Guterres has a brother in law?

Well my drink is empty and I will pour another to toast  the Doctor and Nurse on todays stamp. Wonder who they were serving, aid workers and foreign embassy personnel until their immigration applications go through  to serve the British NHS. Come again tomorrow for another story that can be learned from stamp collecting.

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French Equatorial Africa 1937 Pierre de Brazza and Malamine Camara duel with H.M. Stanley over who gets to cut down trees in the Congo

Logging was big business in the Congo River Basin. In the race for the hoped for windfall, an Italian and a Senegalese in the service of France clash with H. M. Stanley the Englishman in the personal service of the Belgian King. The clash wasn’t with pistols or fists but rather romancing chiefs and message schemes. 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 logging in the area had suffered from a black eye that this stamp tried to put a better face on. So we have a strong African working hard alone moving logs down a river in the shadow of a majestic French built viaduct. Adventure, danger, profits, and achievement all laid out. Inspiring no? Well on the no side was the Catholic Church, who had sent a team to access what was going on in the post slavery Congo River Basin and then reported back to the French Parliament of the brutality of the operations to African natives. Party Poopers. The French suppressed the report.

Todays stamp is issue A1, a two Centimes stamp issued by French Equatorial Africa in 1937. It was a 40 stamp issue in different denominations that lasted many years but was originally issued for the Paris International Exhibition. According to the Scott catalog, the stamp is worth 25 cents whether used or unused. A Libre overstamp from when the colony went into Free French hands in 1941 is worth $4.00.

The interior territory of the Congo River basin was rich with logging possibilities with many small river that lead to the sea and export. Portugal had old claims in the area but for the most part Africans were left to themselves. However H.M. Stanley had been employed by Belgian King Leopold to make a productive colony, see https://the-philatelist.com/2019/10/07/great-britain-1973-remembering-henry-stanley/    .France countered with Pierre de Brazza an explorer trained in France but really an Italian from the then French affiliated Papal States.

de Brazza

de Brazza’s expedition relied heavily on mixed Moor/Berber Senegalese Sargant Malamine Camara who quickly picked up the local dialects. His being black also made it easier to deal with the African chiefs encountered. The de Brazza expedition came south from Gabon by river and made deals putting African tribes under the “protection” of France. His deal with the Batekes tribe as a big blow to H.M. Stanley and a French trading post was established taking the name Brazzaville. Far to close to Leopoldsville in the Belgian area. Stanley had a plan though.

Malamine Camara

After de Brazza returned to France to take his victory dance, Stanley pounced. De Brazza had left Camara behind to deal with Africans and protect the prize. H. M. Stanley had a fake messenger send a message in French ordering Camara back to Gabon on urgent business. He left immediately even though he claimed later to smell a rat. de Brazza had to mount a second expedition again including Camara who was welcomed by the Africans back in Brazzaville.

I did a stamp on nearby logging in Gabon here, https://the-philatelist.com/2019/06/27/french-equitorial-africa-1936-getting-gabon-interested-in-forestry/   . In the Congo it as been less successful post independence. The concessions to foreign owned operations were voided at the suggestion of NGOs and now the logs stay local. Unfortunately that does not mean trees are not being cut. They are rapidly now being cut in an unsustainable way to provide heat for cooking. Electricity is still more a future goal than a tapable grid in the Congo.

Well my drink is empty and I will pour another to toast the professional lumberjack. Hard dangerous work, but done professionally and sustainably everyone can benefit. Come again tomorrow for another story that can be learned from stamp collecting.

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New Zealand 1940, Dutchman Abel Tasman hopes to find gold in the Provinces of Beach, but only found Murderer’s Bay

Explorer Abel Tasman did not hang around his discovery of New Zealand the way the Dutch did in the Indies to the northwest. The Maori there were trying to kill him. Perhaps that was the correct decision for the Maori. The descendants faired better under the British than the Malayans further north did under the Dutch. Modern New Zealand is much more wealthy than modern Indonesia. 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.

They pack a lot of information on this stamp. The man portrayed as an obvious Dutchman, the ship undergoing a rough voyage and a map showing the part of the west New Zealand coast that was spotted by Tasman. It would probably be too much to ask to also include a club wielding Maori, but I bet the kids and probably the Maori would have appreciated it.

Todays stamp is issue O79, a 2 Pence official stamp issued by New Zealand in 1940. It was an 11 stamp issue in various denominations that show scenes from the colony’s founding. The “official” overstamp meant the stamp was used for government business. According to the Scott catalog, the stamp is worth 30 cents used. Without the overstamp the value falls to 25 cents.

The government of Holland had granted a monopoly to the Dutch East India Company for trade with the east after the realization that the world was round. The company had made an arrangement with local Malayan Prince Jakarta to set up a trading post in what the Dutch called Batavia. Among their employees was seafarer Abel Tasman. Tasman had a close brush with death when he landed without warning to trade spices on the island of Seram in the Malluccans and several of his companions were murdered. He escaped and returned to Holland. He then reupped for 10 years and brought his wife to Batavia. There was a theory at the time that the great Euro-Asian land mass near the North pole must be balanced out by another undiscovered land mass near the south pole. In the Indies they heard local legends of such a place rich in gold. The Dutch version of this was the “Provinces of Beach”. The Dutch East India Company sent out Tasman to find them.

Tasman of course first found the island of Tasmania off of southern Australia but this stamp requires me to get to the New Zealand part. Upon leaving Tasmania, Tasman intended to sail north but the rough seas and strong winds had his ships go east. He spotted the west coast of the south island of New Zealand in 1640. His earlier trouble in Seram had taught him not to rush ashore. He anchored a kilometer off the coast and sent a small boat ashore to scout some fresh water. They were met by club wielding Maoris that murdered them. Now the Dutchmen knew how the kiwi birds felt. Tasman thought the discovery important as he hoped the land connected to land already discovered at the southern tip of South America.

Tasman tried to communicate with the Maori but they could not understand each other. At one point Maori tribesman sailed to the ships in canoes. When the Maori played a wind instrument as part of their battle cry. Tasman’s ship responded by one of the sailors playing sea shanties on a trumpet. The Maori did stop and listen but it did not change their intent which was to board the ship and capture it. When the canoes got too close, Tasman was forced to fire cannon and muskets. He ended up sailing away having never set foot on New Zealand. He named the area he set anchor Murderer’s Bay. For some reason that name didn’t stick.

A 1642 Dutch rendering of the incident

The Dutch East India company was unsatisfied to Tasman’s work on this expedition or later ones. They decided to fire him and hire a more “persistent explorer”. He was even brought up on charges and stripped of his rank for a shipboard hanging without a proper trial. His real crime of course was not bringing in the gold. Tasman was able to live out his life as a well off landowner in Batavia.

Well my drink is empty and I am left wondering how the Maori could not have understood sea shanties played on a trumpet were  a sign of friendship? Perhaps a tribe’s warriors are not there to lay out the red carpet. Come again on Monday for another story to be learned from stamp collecting.

Update: Sorry this ran a little late today, for some reason the publication failed overnight at the usual time. I woke up this morning to see only yesterday’s offering.

 

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Spain 1967, the other Commonwealth, unclaimed

Samuel Johnson once inquired if there was one peaceful, empty dessert in the world that went unclaimed by the Spanish Empire. It was a critique about Spain doing nothing with all their territories. A tradition that continued in to post colonial status of territories. 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.

Franco era Spain was one time where there was slight outreach to the former colonies. Hence a convention of mayors in Spain from around the old Empire. Two fun things they included on the stamp. One is the gold filled? Spanish galleon ship. The second is including Portugal. They share a peninsula and lost together big parts of empire thanks to Napoleonic trouble at home. Why not include them in the party to remember old ties?

Todays stamp is issue A352, a 1.50 Peseta stamp issued by Spain on October 10th, 1967. It was a single stamp issue celebrating the fourth congress of mayors. These congresses no longer happen. According to the Scott catalog, the stamp is worth 25 cents unused. Interesting and a little depressing that when my collection contains a mint stamp, it is one where being mint does nothing for the value.

I am framing todays article contrasting Spain in regards to their old Empire in contrast to the modern British Commonwealth. This should make sense to stamp collectors as being within the British one is such a big part of their stamp issuance. The fact that there is very little outreach today from Spain shows a different route. That does not mean there is no Spanish commonwealth.

For one, Spanish is the second most spoken native language in the world, second to Chinese. This from a home country that contains less than one percent of the world’s population. The Catholic Church, though not originating in Spain, owes much of it’s worldwide spread to the Spanish Empire. Remember Empire was also the time of the Church inquisition, that limited practice of other faiths in the colonies as well as at home. Compare the prevalence of the Catholic Church in the old Empire to the Anglican Church in the British. The trade routes the gallion on the stamp reminds of the new foods that entered Europe from the Spanish colonies like corn, potatoes and yes beans, and the meat and livestock introduced to the colonies like horses, cattle, and chickens.

Other long lasting interactions were less positive. The Spanish tradition of spastic shifts from right wing to left wing and back again Claudillos remains throughout the former empire. There was also the specter of otherwise far separated peoples interacting bringing fourth new diseases. So indigenous people suddenly get small pox and Spaniards come down with syphilis.

Doing little to recognize Empire saves Spain a lot of money. A budget hawk might have questioned the value of Franco importing all those mayors for a party. Budget hawks were however never a strong Spanish tradition.

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

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Romania 1962, Remembering Grigore Cobilcescu, who figured out how to search for the oil

Romania only came out from under Ottoman domination in the second half of the 19th century. After that things happened pretty fast with locals offering ways to better utilize what God had given Romania. One thing God had given was oil and Romanians proved to have the ability to find it and develop it without the foreign  domination of for example the Middle East. 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 of the things that Romania did well with it’s stamps was present Romanians of high achievement to the wider world through their stamps. This was true or the early Royal and later communist government and on into the 1990s. Most years there was an issue of famous Romanians. This unfortunately has dropped away with famous Romanians being replaced by famous people stamps. I can learn something new about previously unknown to me Romanians. Elvis or Lady Di, not so much.

Todays stamp is issue A519, a 55 Bani stamp issued by Romania on July 20th, 1962. The famous people issue that year covered 9 people, none of which I had ever heard of. Proving that over time, The Philatelist has much still to learn and pass on to my dear readers. According to the Scott catalog, the stamp is worth 25 cents whether used or unused.

Grigore Cobilcescu was born in Lasi in what was then the Principality of Moldavia in 1831. Moldavia had been the first to exploit petrolium in the area not by drilling for it by gathering it from ditches where it would sometimes appear. The main use was fuel in lamps as it was before use in transportation. G. C. (this simple philatelist can’t spell long names and I found several different spellings anyway in my research), Studied geology locally and then won a state scholarship to further his studies in Paris. He then returned to become a geology professor at the University of Lasi.

In 1883 he did the work that contributed the most. G. C. correctly theorized the types of geological formations that might indicate where there were oil deposits. As Romania came together, this geology knowledge became very important. By 1900, Romania was fourth largest oil producer in the world and the largest in Europe. In recognition the Lasi University awarded to G.C. a seat in the Romanian Senate reserved for them. He used that platform to lobby for Romania to be very careful about letting foreign interests to take over what could be Romania’s route to wealth. He went so far as to resign his Senate seat in 1885 in protest to a trade deal the Senate had ratified with Austria Hungary. G.C. was right to worry about that, over the years Germans and Soviets have during different periods plundered the oil revenue stream given by Romania.

Despite digging ever deeper wells, water injection and even off shore Black Sea oil wells, Romanian oil production peaked in 1976. The drop off after that was pretty steep as the old fields went dry. By 1980, Romania was a net importer of oil. Thus they mostly missed out on the oil booms of the 1970s and 1980s. The earlier facilities had attracted so much unwanted attention from Germany and even Allied bombing followed so closely by Soviet seizing of the output. One wonders if Romania would have been better off without G. C.’s knowledge and leaving the exploitation for a time when the fuel was more valuable and Romania might have been more able to retain control of it. That worked for Norway.

Well my drink is empty and I will pour another to toast G. C. both for the new knowledge he discovered and for realizing how important it could be for his new country. Come again tomorrow for another story that can be learned from stamp collecting.

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Fujeira/Fujairah 1960s, Invoking Goya’s The Forge to tell the guest worker what is expected

Here we have another of Finbar Kenny’s Dune stamps issued under the apparently misspelled name of the then Trucial State of Fujairah. The stamp trade calls them fake, but these little village states are interesting and why not relate the subject of the stamp back to the place however tendential. Kenny’s topicals were beautiful if fake and perhaps unfortunately evocative of the future of the hobby. 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 now over 50 years old and I am fascinated by the spelling discrepancy of the name. Even if you look at the Arabic the spelling is different. Does an Emir just decide to change or is it one of those things that just changes to better reflect local pronunciation?

Finbar Kenny’s stamp output is considered by the trade as fake. The stamp professes it’s value in Dirhams  which puts it after 1966 when that currency replaced the Indian Rupee in the Trucial States. The area was annoyed by India’s devaluations. Join the club. Fujairah postage was handled by the UAE post 1971.

Fujairah was a small village of 50 houses that may have broken away from Sharjah around the beginning of the 20th century. The Bithnah Fort had been built there to protect a trade route that traveled up a wadi, (a usually dry creek bed)going inland. The original purpose was to protect from Wahabis but later control of the fort signified if the area was leaning toward Sharjah on one side or Muscat on the other.

Bithnah Fort

The British had decided that Fujairah was a part  of Sharjah which they had a protectorate deal with so it didn’t really matter who had the fort. That changed in 1952. A British oil company wanted to make sure the petroleum exploration concession stood up anywhere in the area so suddenly the British granted Fujairah recognition and protectorate status. Yay team another Emir gets paid! There wasn’t oil in Fujairah. The big current industry is a cement factory and the bulk of the population are guest workers from India. So much so that the schools follow the standard Indian syllabus. Perhaps the British oil company should have skipped the Emirs and dealt directly with by then independent India as successors to the British in the area. The oil wealth of the UAE pays for new development. Among them is a new beach resort near the Oman border called the Al Fujairah Paradise. The average high daily temperature is over 90 degrees Fahrenheit with summer months over 100 degrees. Paradise or Hell on Earth?

Spanish Painter Goya painted the Forge to show off strong workers dealing with molten hot iron. It is thought to be an allegory to the tough Spanish people dealing with the recent intrusion of Napoleonic era France. The iron forger is putting his strength behind an anvil to work the hot metal. The anvil of history at the time was a concept that would correct short term injustices. Perhaps the Indian toilers in hot modern Fujairah can relate to both Finbar Kenny and Goya.

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

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Indonesia 1992, Its time to party with the functional groups, to make this country function

Indonesia has not been a huge success as an independent country despite ample resources and a large population. Some feel it is because the country traded one colonial master for another. If only power could be shifted to institutions controlled by natives. That would get the party started, the Golkar party. 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 topical bird stamp meant for world collectors from a poorer post colonial nation. There are two signs on it of a greater ambition. One is that they at least show you a bird from Java. The other is the poor, dated, local printing. They were at least doing for themselves, a functioning group necessary to get the party started.

Todays stamp is issue A403, a 200 Rupiah stamp issued by Indonesia on July 1st, 1992. It was a four stamp issue in various denominations. According to the Scott catalog, the stamp is worth 25 cents used.

Indonesia has a population that is about 2 percent people of Chinese heritage. This was true in the Dutch conducted census of 1930 and continues today. That may be a surprise to people outside as the majority of immigrant Indonesian communities in the USA and Australia are Chinese. At the time of being the Dutch East Indies, the Chinese were counted as a separate class and kept out of pieces of the economy. That changed with independence. The Chinese quickly took a leading role in the economy and were a powerful force for secularism and communism in politics. Ties to mainland China were close.

Well how did that work out for the native population? Not very well. The wealth that used to head for Holland now went to the Chinese and there was much resentment of flashy Chinese wealth in Indonesia. Wasn’t that supposed to be over after the Dutch left. In the late 1960s, Indonesia got a new leader President Suharto. He tried to purge the leading Chinese and reorganize Society. He thought instead of political parties there should be a leadership of functional, ethnic Indonesian groups. The A group was the armed forces, the B group was the Bureaucrats and the big G group which was everybody else. There is much talk of cruelty and repression of the Chinese but I would point out the continuity of the Chinese population despite their lower birth rate.

The problems got a little better but not entirely. Obviously in a country like Indonesia the people of the G group just don’t matter. The people of the A and B group can be often bought off by the rich Chinese. Over 30 years after the reorganization of society under Suharto’s Golkar system, the 2 percent of the people that are of Chinese heritage control 73% of the financial assets of the country.

After Suharto the Golkar movement was forced to become just a political party. They have been in and out of power. There platform currently is a program to lift the average Indonesian to the wealth of the member of a first tier nation. They hope to achieve this by 2045 when by their measure, there are others see https://the-philatelist.com/2017/11/24/well-we-think-we-are-independant-we-have-a-constitution-a-flag-and-austrian-stamps/   , Indonesia will have been independent from the Dutch for 100 years. You could argue that the Chinese rose based on merit and Indonesia is not just a colonial outpost of China as it was for the also few in number Dutch. Can a minority of 2 percent really be allowed to control three quarters of the economy Eventually the writing on the wall in southern Africa said no whatever the consequence. So far Golkar in Indonesia is just a party and the Chinese are still dancing.

Well my drink is empty and being stuck at home I may have another and rewatch “Crazy Rich Asians”. Come again tomorrow for another story that can be learned from stamp collecting.

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Liberia 1915, Republic of Maryland in Africa versus the Kru

What to do with African slaves that had achieved their freedom perplexed pre Civil War America. Both abolitoinists and those that still owned slaves agreed passage back to Africa was an option. The state of Maryland, with a large proportion of freed slaves appropriated money to start a Maryland in Africa. What of the Kru people of west Africa who had managed to keep Europeans to trading posts. Perhaps they might view freed American slaves not as long lost brothers but as black faced European invaders. Well some times there needs to be more consultation and the harbor island on the stamp is the perfect place for 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.

This stamp displays Providence Island in Monrovia harbor. The first sight of Africa for the African-American colonists. Not much to look at really but reflective of the challenge facing the new arrivals from America and the adjustments to the status quo required by the native Kru people.

Todays stamp is issue A58, a 3 cent stamp issued by Liberia in 1915. It was a two stamp issue in different denominations. According to the Scott catalog, the stamp is worth 25 cents used.

Providence island was a trading post set up the Portuguese. Trading occoured with the native Kru people who were not themselves slaves but traded them. They were a seafaring people and so could come to the island by canoe. The Portuguese built very limited facilities but a fresh water well a stone building some fruit trees and a small pier were the only infrastructure for miles on this area of the African coast. These were just not things built by the Africans for themselves.

The state of Maryland had a high proportion of freed slaves especially around Baltimore. The Haitian Revolution in 1820 and the Nat Turner slave rebellion convinced the then white government that the situation was not sustainable. See this Brazil stamp,  https://the-philatelist.com/2019/04/18/brazil-1891-an-elite-overthrow-the-monarchy-to-avoid-a-haitian-outcome/  , that shows the influence of Haiti there. The legislature appropriated money to send free blacks to Africa in a rival to Liberia state of Maryland in Africa. It proved a hard sell to the freed slaves but 4500 were sent to Maryland in Africa by the 1840s. The native Kru people had not been consulted.

Map from 1839 showing the “Kroo of Kroomen” between Maryland and the rest of Liberia

Of the 4500 hundred colonists only 1800 survived. The Kru people rose up against the state of Maryland in Africa and stated their alliegance to Great Britain and their desire that Maryland in Africa and Liberia should be merged into neighboring British colony Sierra Leone. This is not really what they wanted but implying Britain was on their side surely must have intimidated. Maryland appealed for help from Liberia and when it arrived the Kru were driven back and Maryland in Africa and Liberia merged with Maryland becoming a county of Liberia. The American state of Maryland was only able to  persuade 2 percent of the freed blacks in Maryland to try their luck in Africa.

Well my drink is empty and I will pour another to toast the survivors of the colonists in Liberia. With no infrastructure and unfriendly natives all around, it is amazing they weren’t just wiped out. Come again tomorrow for another story that can be learned from stamp collecting.

 

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Poland 1980, instilling a maritime tradition

The new Poland of 1919 had only a small outlet on the Baltic Sea. Yet that outlet put the Polish people as part of the Hanseatic maritime tradition of the area. Part of the embracing of this was Poland acquiring a sailing ship, the Lwow, to train a new generation of Polish mariners. 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 Poland of 1980 had a much longer coastline than the Poland of 1920. In fact at the Gdansk shipyard, there was a new Polish tall sailing ship under construction to continue the training of sailors for the navy and the merchant marine. This would be the first constructed in Poland and still serves as the Dar Mlodziezy. It makes 1980 a great time for a stamp issue to remember the ships and men that came before and built the tradition.

Todays stamp is issue A753, a 2 Zloty stamp issued by Poland on July 21st, 1980. It was a six stamp issue in various denominations. According to the Scott catalog, the stamp is worth 25 cents used.

The Lwow was built in 1869 at Birkenhead in England as the commercial vessel. She was made of steel and had diesel engines in addition to her sails. In 1893 she was sold to an Italian firm and renamed Lucco. In 1898 she was caught in a bad storm off of the Cape of Good Hope where she lost several of her masts and nearly sunk. She was able to make it to Durban in South Africa but was then stuck there awaiting repairs. The ship was eventually bought by a Dutch firm there, repaired and put into use as the Nest, now out of Batavia in the Dutch East Indies. The ship then retired to Holland in 1915 still in good condition.

It was in Holland where it was spotted by Poland and acquired cheap. The ship became the Polish Navy training ship Lwow. She was to be based out of the newly constructed seaport at Gdynia. The Poles were building this port opposite the then free state of Danzig as though they were supposed to have port rights in Danzig, the German dock workers there would always go on strike when there was a Polish ship to service. The first Captain of the Lwow as seen on the stamp was Tadeusz Bonifacy Ziolkowski. He was a Pole from the Polish part of Pomerania who had previously served in the Imperial German Navy. The ship was used heavily to teach navigation skills but it also had to earn a living taking cargo around the Baltic.

A naval tradition built quickly around the ship. One of it’s later Captains was Mamert Stankiewicz who later became famous. He was another Pole from Courland in modern Latvia who first served the Czar of Russia’s Baltic fleet. After serving the Polish Navy he was made Captain of the ocean liner MS Pisudski. The ship had been built in Italy and then bartered in exchange for Polish coal. After the war broke out in 1939 the ship made a quick conversion to troopship in England. On her first voyage as such, she was torpedoed by German U boats though there was no record of it on the German side. Captain Stankiewicz was the last to leave the ship after trying to save his crew in the best naval tradition but later died of hypothermia from being in the cold waters. There are armchair quarterbacks who argue the ship instead hit a mine and could have been saved by a more experienced crew. Armchair quarterbacking is pretty much what we do here at The Philatelist but is it really so terrible to let Poland have her heroes.

Polish ships Captain Mamert Stankiewicz

The Lwow was retired in 1930 and scrapped in 1938. She was replaced by a German made tall sailing ship called Gift of Pomerania in Polish service. Soon enough the rest of Pomerania itself would be gifted to Poland.

Well my drink is empty and nobody is going to sea these days here in the USA or in Poland and so I might as well have another. Come again tomorrow for another story that can be learned from stamp collecting.

 

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Czechoslovakia 1919, The Czar of Russia creates a Czechoslovak Legion that conquers Siberia and inspires a new nation

This high denomination stamp is for relief of orphans of Czech veterans of World War I. At least the ones that fought on the winning side. The  orphans of veterans of the losing side may be equally in need of relief, but naturally the winners have inspiration and glory on their 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.

In 1919, Czechoslovakia had just been formed on territory broken off from Austria Hungary. This reflects in the style of this stamp that owes more to Poland and Ukraine than Austria or Hungary. If the new country was going to work it would have to pull together and find new ways to move forward. The baby on the stamp would grow up in a different place than it’s parents.

Todays stamp is issue SP2, a 100 Haleru semi postal stamp issued by the newly independent Czech and Slovak Republic in 1919. It was a six stamp issue in various denominations that celebrated one year of independence and supported orphans of those that served in the Czechoslovak Legion. According to the Scott catalog, the stamp is worth 25 cents. This is an awfully low value for a stamp displaying so much interesting now 100+ year old history from an area where stamp collecting is so prominent. Perhaps subconsciously, it is history that offends the many philatelists of Vienna and Budapest.

In 1914 the first world war broke out and Czarist Russia found itself fighting Germany and Austria Hungary with much of the fighting going on in modern day Ukraine. The Russian Stavka authorized the formation of a battalion of troops that would fight on their side and be recruited from Czechs And Slovaks. Recruiting both peoples turned out to be very important later though in reality the force was over 90% Czech. The bulk of Czechs and Slovaks were fighting for Austria Hungary with various degrees of enthusiasm. The Battalion gave a good accounting of itself in battle and was expanded to brigade size. Independence leaders at home who imagined and independent Czechoslovakia took notice and began promoting the force as a Legion. To continue the expansion of the force recruits were sought from Austria Hungary POWs held by Russia.

The 1917 Revolutions in Russia turned the tables somewhat. The Soviets made peace with Austria Hungary leaving the not communist legion somewhat lost in the Ukraine. Czech leadership decided to evacuate the force to France to continue to fight and get out the idea that the Czechs and Slovaks could form a new nation. The hard part was going to be to get to France. A deal was struck where the Soviets were paid to allow the Legion to board the Trans Siberian Railroad for the long journey to Vladivostok to there board ships to France. This would not be easy. there was a civil war between White and Red Russians and trains were not really running. The tracks more provided a path to march east. They often had to fight their way past Soviet forces along the tracks. There was even a strange battle with Hungarian POWs they met just east of the Ural mountains. The Hungarians were marching west back toward Hungary after the end of their war with the Czechs marching east.

The bravery of the force marching and fighting their way through Siberia was heavily promoted in the West with some justification. Keeping the force together with no home country in a strange land was quite a military feat. The West lapped it up, World War I was still going on and if the Reds fell in Russia it might rejoin the war. American, French, and mainly Japanese troops landed in Vladivostok in 1918 with the goal of saving the Czechoslovak Legion. Instead they found the Czechs already there. Luckily for the Legion, the war in France was over before they could arrive. They had fought enough. Czechoslovakia was awarded a large territory at the end of the war at the expense of Hungary and Germany and the leadership was overwhelmingly Czech as the legion had been. If the Russian high command Stavka had only recruited Czechs for the legion, would there have been a united Czechoslovakia post war?

Czechoslovak Legion troops in Vladivostok in 1918 meeting Japanese to be taken to France. I wonder if the band knew the Japanese national anthem? What a strange time!

Well my drink is empty and though my sympathies might be more toward a united Austria Hungary who can not rout for these fellows marching East to  go West through Siberia. Come again tomorrow for another story that can be learned from stamp collecting.

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