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Ireland 1956, the USA helps Ireland remember their role in the USA Continental Navy

The first ship’s captain in the rebellious American Continental Navy was an Irish Catholic. He chose the life of a sailor after his tenant farmer family had been forced from the land by British landowners. Well that might be a story now independent Ireland should be interested in. We will give the Irish a statue to tell the story. 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 statue on todays stamp was a gift of the USA to Commodore John Barry’s home county of Wexford in Ireland. The statue was delivered by a United States Navy destroyer. The Irish Naval Service has an annual John Berry day where they do a ceremonial laying of a wreath at the statue. Ireland was interested in the story. Ireland did another stamp for Barry in 2003 on the 200th anniversary of his death as part of an issue of Irish mariners who rose in other people’s navies.

Todays stamp is issue A31, a 3 Penny stamp issued by Ireland on September 16th, 1966. It was a two stamp issue coinciding with the American gift of the statue. According to the Scott catalog, the stamp is worth 25 cents used.

John Barry was born in 1745 in Tacumshane, Ireland. The family were tenant farmers under a British landowner. After being forced to leave the land for undisclosed reasons, the family moved to the port of Rossliare where an uncle operated a fishing boat. Future Commodore Barry started out as a cabin boy.

Relocated to Philadelphia in the American colonies, he received the first commission as a ships captain in the rebellion against the British. As you might expect, the American continental navy was not a proper navy  but pirate ships that raided shipping operating under letters of marquis issued by the Continental forces. One of his most successful  battles with the Royal Navy was the Battle of Turtle Gut inlet in 1776. A Royal Navy blockade ship was chasing a brig carrying a load of gunpowder. They forced the brig to run aground. Barry’s pirate ship crew was able to row to the shipwreck and recover most of the gunpowder. The then left an explosive charge with a delay fuse for when the British boarded the next day.

The British were impressed with Barry and offered him a bounty and ship’s command to change sides. Barry responded there were not enough pounds in the British Treasury or ships in the Royal Navy for him to abandon his adopted country.

Barry survived his many ship commands and in 1797 George Washington declared him America’s first Commodore, a title no longer used in the USA Navy. The statue in Ireland is not Barry’s only monument. There is a park named for him in Brooklyn and the navy has a destroyer named for him. It is the fourth USA Navy ship named for him and though it is getting older, commissioned in 1992, it recently received a midlife update and is equipped with the AEGIS missile system. There is also a sailor’s bar named for him in Muscat, Oman.

Well my drink is empty and I will pour another and toast the US Navy for taking the time to tell Ireland a story they wanted to hear. Come again tomorrow for another story that can be learned from stamp collecting.

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West Germany, Airbus 320 a new Euro competitor to the aging 737

Here we have a German stamp celebrating new technology. Except now the technology was a multi country effort with origins in Great Britain. The resulting plane was no faster than what it proposed to replace. Not too promising you might say, but the designers were reading the zeitgeist correctly and the A320 family has the most orders of any jet airliner in history. 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.

There are two interesting things about the presentation of the A320 on this stamp. One is the date of issue, coming only 3 months after the plane received it’s certificate of airworthiness. Europe was littered with single country unsuccessful airplane designs at the time and they couldn’t have known yet how successful the A320 would become. It shows how dramatically important Europe viewed the program. The continent was spending a fortune importing Boeing airliners. Import substitution from a domestic could fix that. The second thing is including the flags of the Airbus consortium partners as equals. If things are presented that way enough times, people might believe.

Todays stamp is issue A635, a 60 Pfennig stamp issued by West Germany on May 5th, 1988. It was a two stamp issue in different denominations. According to the Scott catalog, the stamp is worth 40 cents used.

The 150 seat airliner market in the 1970s was dominated by the Boeing 737 and the Douglas DC9 that dated from the 1960s. I did a stamp on the DC9 here, https://the-philatelist.com/2020/01/02/turkey-1967-showing-off-the-new-douglas-dc-9/   . The French Caravelle, the British Trident and the British BAC 111 had been unsuccessful in the market. Airbus’s first airliner the A300 was larger though they had a short version the A310 they were not having much luck with, as it was too much plane for the job. British Aerospace, Fokker in Holland, Dornier in Germany, and Aerospatiale in France formed a consortium outside of Airbus to work on a design under British design chief, Derek Brown. Brown had worked previously on a proposed Hawker update of the old Trident airliner. The airliner they proposed was no faster that what it hoped to replace and the big advancements were in the areas of fuel efficiency and pilot workload. This later area was important to Europe as their air forces were smaller and so they were not throwing off as many veterans to serve as pilots. Civilian trained pilots had many fewer flight hours and so fly by wire technology was incorporated into the “Joint European Transport or JET”. Reducing what was expected of pilots was copied by Boeing, the American air force was later shrinking as well. The airliner layout was similar to the 737 but the interior managed to be 6 inches wider.

Airbus saw the program as a threat, but saw the hole in their product line so brought the program in house still under Mr. Brown. Germany sought and got a bigger share of the work including assembly in Hamburg. Britain got more of their people in all facets of the program so as a way to preserve a separate British ability to make airliners. I mentioned that the A320 program is one of the most successful in history but notice that none of the original consortium players still exist as separate entities. The design relied heavily on subsidies from the Airbus partner countries to be brought to market. I bet the tax payers did not realize that even as successful and long lasting as the A320 would not be enough to save any of the companies. To better position for worldwide demand for the A320, assembly can now be specified by the customer in Alabama in the USA or in Tianjin in China. Sometimes multinationals forget where they come from and even what their purpose was.

Both the 737 and the Airbus 320 continue to be developed. For Airbus that means more efficient engines called A320 neo, for new engine option. The old version was re-branded A320 ceo for current engine option. The equivalent 737 are the NG and the troubled MAX. Both manufacturers are limited by the basics of a very old now air frame design, but there is a lot of expertise that wouldn’t translate easily to a really new design. Plus who would pay?

Last year Airbus announced with some fanfare that the A320 family of airliners had passed the 737 in total orders. As of 2020, Boeing still leads in number built at 10,575 versus 9,313. We will see if the future order advantage translates into actual planes.

Well my drink is empty and I will pour another to toast Derek Brown. I am sure he was proud of the A320 design but I wonder if he would have preferred it could have still been a Hawker and could have sustained a British aerospace industry. Hawker in the 1970s looked pretty viable also having the Harrier jump jet and the evergreen Hawk jet trainer. Come again tomorrow for another story that can be learned from stamp collecting.

 

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Italy 1972, 100 years of the Alpini Corps

The modern Italian Army is not known for it’s military prowess. This is especially true of forces that Italy sent far beyond it’s borders. There was an idea however to recruit locals from the Italian Alps  who would be ready to defend the new territories in the north. The success of this can be seen in the fact that Italy retains all these gained 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.

On a 100 year anniversary stamp, the stamp designers had the choice to show the Alpini Corps as people imagined it or how it then existed in cold war Italy. The modern troops just have a small extra insignia on their standard uniform, so we collectors are lucky the designers let us see the old Alpine style hats and pack mules so evocative of mountain combat.

Todays stamp is issue A573, a 25 Lira stamp issued by Italy on May 10th, 1972. It was a three stamp issue in various denominations. According to the Scott catalog, all stamps in this set are worth 25 cents whether used or unused.

Prior to the coming together of Italy, the Alpine area was controlled by Austria. It was defended by a network of four large fortifications shaped to form a box shaped defense. This system was called the Quadrilatero and became much more vulnerable with the event of rifled cannons. The land passed to a united Italy in the 1860s. In 1872 A young Captain in the Italian Army wrote an article for a military journal that proposed the forming of an Alpine corps of soldiers recruited in the region to provide a defense of the new regions. The knowledge of the land would provide many advantages to mounting a successful defense. The article came to the attention of the King and was acted upon.

Quadrilatero Austrian forts to defend north Italy

The force was successful in that they were able to prevent a full breakthrough of Italy’s northern defenses when faced with Austrian attacks during World  War I. The fighting saw 114,000 casualties suffered by the Alpine Corps. That is a larger number then today’s entire Italian Army. World War II was less successful for the Alpine Corps. The units without a fight surrendered to the Germans when they took control of Northern Italy to continue the fight against the Allied invasion. One Alpine Corp unit, however that was stationed in Montenegro decided to change sides and keep fighting, this time along side Yugoslav partisans. The Germans were able to raise a new division of Italian Alpine troops that fought beside them to the end of the war. They mainly clashed with Brazil’s Expeditionary Force. That may reflect German opinion of their abilities or loyalty.

The force was imagined as defensive but has still been sent far and wide to Eritrea and Libya in Africa and even to China as part of Italy’s response to the Boxer Rebellion. More recently, units have fought in Afghanistan. None of these deployments turned out particularly well.

In today’s Italian Army, the units are still referred to as the Alpini Corps. However, the force is down to two brigades, which is only 2/3rds of one division. In World War Two, before all but one surrendered without a fight, Italy fielded 6 Alpine divisions.

Well my drink is empty and I will pour another to toast King Victor Emanuel I. The young captain, later General, I am sure could not have imagined the King would read his article and know a good idea when he read it. Come again tomorrow for another story that can be learned from stamp collecting.

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Venezuela 1974, An ignorant people is a docile people

Venezuela was one of the many nations that broke off from Gran Columbia after independence from Spain. This breaking apart leaves small nations to try to piece together a cultural heritage as Venezuelans rather than Colombians of even Spaniards. So here we have an author from a period of history when less than 20% of the country could read. To promote him might distort a sadder legacy. 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 shows author Rufino Blanco Fombona standing in front of some of the books that he published. The portrait is worthy of a man of letters who rests in the National Pantheon of Venezuela. A nice positive image, but one that totally distorts the Venezuela of Blanco’s time.

Todays stamp is issue A212, a 10 Centimoes stamp issued by Venezuela on October 16th, 1974. It was a four stamp issue in various denominations honoring the birth century of Mr. Blanco. According to the Scott catalog, the stamp is worth 25 cents whether used or unused.

Rufino Blanco Fombona was born in Caracas in 1874. He published about 10 books of fiction in the first three decades of the 20th century. During the years he was active he was nominated five times for a Nobel Prize in Literature. The nominations got his books out on the wider world market that was unusual for a local literary figure of the time. He never won the award and the nominations shouldn’t be conflated to assume that Blanco’s work ranked among the worlds best. The nomination was often a sign of respect and support for someone trying to create literature in a desolate place. Blanco’s name is on an upscale primary school in todays Venezuela.

Education in the old days of Venezuela was spotty at best. The Spanish and the Columbians left little in the way of educational institutions and even their outposts were few and far between. Aside from outreach from the Catholic Church, little at all was done to educate indigenous people. Well off people were taught by tutors or at boarding schools. Simon Bolivar’s tutor is often elevated in order to imply levels of education that were not reality.

In 1881 school attendance was mandated by the government and a few schools were built. Oil was discovered in Venezuela in 1919 and oil revenue started to flow to the government. On purpose the money did not flow into education. Less than a third of eligible children attended school and the nations literacy rate was around 20 %. The long term dictator of the period, Juan Vincente Gomez openly stated his belief that an uneducated people were a docile people. Remember stability is supposed to be a selling point of a dictator. He may have had a point. An uprising in 1928 was lead by university students. Obviously members of the top two or three percent of their age cohort. The uprising was put down and the student leaders sent into exile. Lefties like to point out how rough Gomez could be with agitators in the use of murder and torture. Hanging men upside down  by their testicles till dead. Yet these students only got a probably well funded exile, a leap year. Well the rich are different, even to a dictator. Many of the exiled students came back to be leaders in Venezuela. There is debate how much of the early oil revenue was stolen by Gomez and how much by Wall Street. I imagine some was spent on leap years.

Student agitators from 1928. Notice the coat and ties to say I am better than you and the berets to say I hate you. I bet they would lose a vote on whether they should be hung upside down by their you know what.

Later governments got more democratic and oil revenue kept flowing so things eventually improved. There is a perception that the situation in Venezuela has deteriorated under the Socialists claudillos lately. One area that has continued to improve is literacy which is currently 96%. This is one of the highest in Latin America. They should perhaps do more stamps on people that made that happen and less made up stories from the countries dark age.

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

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Malagasy 1964, Trying not to go it alone

So what do you do when you are just broke. Do you become independent and go it alone with the thinking that if we build our way out of this, it will be our achievement alone and we will have built our own prosperity. Or do you just try to put a local black face on what the French were doing, in order that over time the economic benefits (there must have been some right) will more accrue to the locals. When the GDP per capita is less than $100 a year at independence, independent Malagasy reached out to France, hoping for as much help as possible. 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 issue of stamps shows the new coats of arms of various cities around Madagascar, in this case Antsirabe. If you have ever wondered what the coat of arms should look like for a place that started as a leper colony, well now you know.

Todays stamp is issue A50, a 1.5 Franc stamp issued by Malagasy in 1964. It was a seven stamp issue in various denominations. According to the Scott catalog, the stamp is worth 25 cents whether it was mint or used.

The people of Madagascar are diverse. The coastal areas house a different people than those that reside in the central highlands. This was finessed prior to colonial status by having a Queen from the highlands marry a coastal chief who then acts as her Prime Minister. When the French came, the last Queen thought she was going to have to marry the French General who had conquered the place. Instead she left and moved to Paris, see https://the-philatelist.com/2018/02/27/madagascar-the-french-exile-the-last-queen-by-sedan-chair/ . After independence, it might have been expected to break down along tribal lines. Instead the divisions were based on the decision to stay close to France. Left leaners in the Capital and other big cities sought a firmer break with France and a more aggressive pursuit of socialism.

Highland President Philbert Tsiranana tried instead to get ever more aid from France. 5 years after independence, 75 % of the government budget was aid from France. During his 12 years as President, it amounted to 400 million dollars with another 150 million from the EEC. The aid was not well spent and the welfare of the people stayed low. They were not however starving as the country contained more cows than people. President Tsiranana began to spend ever more time in the south of France, unfortunately not an option open to the majority of the people. Has opposition grew, he had rebellious people banished to the island of Novo Lava. At the ten year point or independence a status report on how things were going was published. It criticized the government for mismanagement and it’s authors were then arrested. The French government lost faith in Tsiranana and thought he was becoming senile. When protest grew to being out of control, The French army refused to intervene and Tsirnana turned over power to the army. Now it was the leftist turn to mess things up.

Antsirabe is one of the cooler places in the highlands and has sources of fresh water and thermal springs. The town was founded in 1874 as a religious retreat by Norwegian Lutheran Missionaries. They then added a hospital to treat lepers and a leper colony quickly developed. The French administration and the Catholic Church discovered the cool weather and the area became an administrative center. The place is now more known for it’s intact colonial core and the pouse-pouse human pulled rickshaws used to get around than any remaining lepers.

Pouse-Pouse, the preferred method of travel in Antsirabe. Please make a U-turn at the leper colony

Well, my drink is empty and if I arrange a pouse-pouse to get me home, I may have another. Come again tomorrow for another story that can be learned from stamp collecting.

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India 1965, a growing India needs electricity, so how about nuclear power?

When India imagined independence from Great Britain, it hoped to include Pakistan, Bangladesh, Sri lanka and Burma. A superpower, albeit requiring much development. The smaller India that emerged still had great ambitions and big rivals, so why not forsake some needed development to play big power games. Bizarrely, the West was ready to help. Well at least until Buddha smiled. So slip on your smoking jacket, fill your pipe, take your first sip of your adult beverage, and sit back in your most comfortable chair. Welcome to todays offering from The Philatelist.

This stamp shows the Atomic Research Center in the Trombay section of Bombay. It is from the same set of stamps as the Gnat airplane stamp I covered here, https://the-philatelist.com/2018/07/20/a-gnat-sting-slays-a-sabre-over-bangladesh/      . As with the Gnat, the stamp is long on the Indian achievement aspect, with no mention of the outside help that made it possible. Ah, superpower dreams….

Todays stamp is issue A205, a 10 Rupee stamp issued by India in 1965. It was an 18 stamp issue in various denominations. The 10 Rupee stamp, a high denomination then, was the highest indicating where India ranked the achievement of the nuclear center. According to the Scott catalog, the stamp is worth 50 cents used. Unmailed the stamps value goes up 30 times.

India’s work on nuclear energy began even before independence. The Tata organization, see also https://the-philatelist.com/2019/11/21/india-1958-independant-india-will-be-great-building-on-the-success-of-people-like-j-n-tata/    , was a big believer in Swadeshi, which is India doing for itself. In this case that means sending fellow Parsi Homi Bhabha to Cambridge to study and then fund his nuclear research center once back in India. The Parsi were Persians that British India took in as they were no longer welcome in Islamic Persia due to their Zoroastrian religious beliefs. Interesting that is was from these people the idea of Swadeshi got it’s backing.

Knowledge of how nuclear energy works is not enough, as to use it for peace or war, specialty manufacturing of intricate pieces is needed. The West and the East only developed this after slow expensive development. USA President Eisenhower then proposed the silly stunt of “atoms for Peace’. The American military industrial complex would be encouraged to build nuclear facilities in the third world in return for monitoring how they handle it and the countries’ word that the program would be peaceful. India, Pakistan, Israel, and Iran signed up and solemnly gave their word that the only intention was civilian atomic power. Canada got in on the graft from such a program by providing India another reactor. Over time, and it took a long time, India was able to reverse engineer the reactors they were given and add further reactors built locally. The process was slowed by the death of Homi Bhabha in a mysterious crash of an Air India 707 airplane in Switzerland. Conspiracy theorists blame the CIA, but planes do fly into mountains occasionally. 16 years before another Air India plane flew into the same mountain.

It will be no surprise that India lied about the peaceful intent of it’s nuclear power program. Plutonium derived from the spent nuclear fuel from the Canadian supplied reactor CIRUS at Trombay was used for India’s first nuclear bomb  tested in 1974. The secret program was called Buddha Smiles. The smiles did not extend to the western powers that had foolishly helped the program along. Pakistan sped up their bomb program that also had received help from atoms for peace, see https://the-philatelist.com/2019/05/16/pakistan-atoms-for-peace-poliferates-until-buddha-smiles/  .

Mr. Bhabha made optimistic projections of how much nuclear energy India could produce. A projection made by him in 1962 gave a number by 1980 that is a full five times what is actually produced in the India of 2020. Less than 3 percent of Indian electricity comes from nuclear power. It was of course, all about the bombs.

Well my drink is empty and I will pour another in case the power goes out. Come again tomorrow for another story that can be learned from  stamp collecting.

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Syria 1954, after 20 governments and four contitutions, seeking rebirth, Syria takes a Ba’ath

Syria had a hard time figuring who it was. After being dominated by the Ottomans and then the French, perhaps a new Syrian way forward can lead to a rebirth. Off to the Sorbonne we go. 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 Ba’athists had been heavily influenced by world socialism. That influence can be seen on this stamp. Here we have happy toilers in the field. They are not working to get ahead personally, nor to support a King, and not being exploited by capitalists or colonialists. Instead they are advancing Syrian society. Left unanswered by the stamp is the question of without any of those motivators, what is going to make them do the work. Toiling in the field is a hard life after all.

Todays stamp is issue A68, a 2 and a half Piaster stamp issued by independent Syria in 1954. It was a nine stamp issue in various denominations that hopefully showed off productivity in Syria. According to the Scott catalog, the stamp is worth 25 cents whether it is used or unused.

Syria got it’s independence from France in 1946. In the 8 years that followed Syria suffered an embarrassing defeat by Israel, uprisings from it’s Druze minority and 20 governments working under 4 different constitutions. Hashemite Kingdoms around them were scheming to bring Syria into their fold and the new government in Egypt was promoting their leadership for a united Arab super power. Wasn’t there anything natively Syrian that could turn things around.

Michel Aflaq was a Syrian thinker working on this. While studying at the Sorbonne in France he happened upon some fellow Syrian travelers who were immersing themselves in the work of French philosopher Henri Bergson and German philosopher Karl Marx. Aflaq was an Orthadox Christian Arab who tried to convert what he was learning into something useful for a non industrial and majority Islamic country. So in Aflaq’s telling Arabs are processed of a magic that will arise, as it did in the days of Mohammad, into a unity of purpose that will be a rebirth and then a renascence for the people. To achieve this a single political party can guide and be guided by the people, the Ba’athist Party. By subtly shifting the focus from Islam to being Arab, Aflaq has made a place for himself as a Christian, and a place for Bergson and Marx, who perhaps are not the type of thinkers an Islamist would normally seek out. In addition to Syria, Ba’athist political parties were formed in many Arab nations and had a long rule in Iraq.

Michel Aflaq in his French student days. Interesting how all those folks colonials sent to study came back leftists.

Aflaq wrote inspiringly about a Ba’athist future but was less good on how to manage a transition to the world he imagined. He was eventually pushed aside as an outsider in Syria and sent into exile. In Ba’athist Iraq, where he wasn’t personally vying for political position, he was welcomed as a great Arab scholar and philosopher. The last Iraqi Ba’athist leader, Saddam Hussein even claimed that Aflaq had a late in life conversion to Islam. Whether it is true or not, the importance placed on it shows how impossible the task of bringing Arabs together without a dictatorship.

Well my drink is empty and Syria still finds itself ruled by a Ba’athist who is pressured by all sides, yet survives. Still struggling to create that promised united Syrian rebirth, but all life is a struggle. Come again tomorrow for another story that can be learned from stamp collecting.

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New Zealand 1992, overly confident in an America’s Cup Challenge

New Zealand had a good run at the America’s Cup sailboat races. They won in 1995 and successfully defended the title in 2000. This stamp however is from 1992 when New Zealand’s boat was penalized for a  not allowed design and failed to make the finals. So that year it was still America’s Cup. 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 whether you win or lose, it is how you play the game. So why not put out a series of stamps to celebrate New Zealand sending a team to compete. Well how they played the game was to send a boat with design features that were not allowed. Once modified for rule compliance, the team was noncompetitive. Correction then, why not put out a series of stamps on floating rich man’s toys. Sure.

Todays stamp is issue A357, a $1 stamp issued by New Zealand on January 22nd 1992. It was a four stamp issue in various denominations. According to the Scott catalog, the stamp is worth $1.25 whether it is used or unused.

The America’s Cup sailing race was first put on in 1851. Teams are put together by yacht clubs and often lead by very rich men as vanity projects. The involvement of such wealthy men means that the boats are spared no expense to gain any small advantage. The San Diego Yacht Club team in 1992 that won  was lead by Bill Koch the little brother of the famous Koch Brothers who sold his share of his father’s petrochemical company  for 400 million dollars to his politically active brothers. This gave him the time and money to play the playboy sailor man

Australia sent a team in the 1980s that became the first foreign team to win the Cup. Australia’s Cup? This attracted the attention of New Zealander Michael Fay, partner in the NZ investment bank Fay Richwhite. He put together a team of mainly Australian sailors under skipper Peter Blake and with a boat design originating in New Zealand.

The first boat was found in violation while in semifinals against an Italian team that went on to lose to the boat America3 under Bill Koch. Skipper Peter Blake was back at the next America’s Cup in 1995 and won with a new design boat. He returned again in 2000 and became the first foreign team to successfully defend a title. By then they were no longer getting support from Michael Fay, he had moved to Geneva to be closer to what he loved, his money.

Skipper Peter Blake had an interesting sailing career in addition to the America’s Cup. He became involved with the Cousteau Society from which he bought the Seamaster ship. He engaged in expeditions designed to monitor climate change under the auspices of the United Nations. In 2001 the Seamaster was boarded by pirates while on an expedition on the Amazon River. Blake was shot and killed and the rest of the crew had their wallets and watches stolen before the pirates left the ship.

Sir Peter Blake, New Zealand America’s Cup sailor

Well my drink is empty and since I can’t afford the yacht lifestyle, I might as well have another drink. Come again tomorrow for another story that can be learned from stamp collecting.

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Hungarian “Soviet”Republic 1919, the proletariat is coming for you failed gentry, Gyorgy Dozsa style

Hungary was left an ethnic rumpstate after World War I, one that had lost 77% of it’s land. The ruling class had failed the people and deserved blame. So a new communist government was understandable, if only they could remember they work for Hungarians. A great time to invoke a previous rebellion lead by Gyorgy Dozsa against another discredited gentry. If Soviet Hungarian Republic President Sandor Garbai knew his history he would have worried. Hey wasn’t Dozsa fried and then eaten? So slip on your smoking jacket, fill your pipe, take your first sip of your adult, lock your door if you are part of the landed gentry. and sit back in your most comfortable chair. Welcome to todays offering from The Philatelist,

Hungary was only the second country to go Communist after Russia. It was a worldwide movement so they probably didn’t think too hard about the label Soviet. It wasn’t implying a Russian colony, except of course that was exactly what they were selling. The local Communists did think to appoint a gentile figurehead, President Garbai, to somewhat shield who they were. A later communist leader joked that Garbai was picked so that they would have someone to sign death warrants on the Sabbath.

Todays stamp is issue A18 a 75 Filler stamp issued by the Hungarian Soviet Republic on June 12th, 1919. It was the only issue of the Soviet Republic and consisted of five stamps in various denominations. My stamp has the later vertical watermark that did not make it into postal use before the short lived Soviet Republic ended. According to the Scott catalog, the stamp is worth $7.50 unused.

The Soviet Hungarian government came in peacefully but with a little trickery. The Hapsburg Regency ordered the center left social democrats to form a government not knowing they had merged with the still officially banned communists. The communists than ordered the Hapsburg regent and any social democrats in the government arrested. This was directly on orders from Soviet leader Lenin. The people who had such a time dealing with defeat were willing to give the communists a chance. They were desperate for anyone that could restore Hungary to its prewar status. The Reds had no trouble recruiting an army that duly marched into the old upper Hungary, then the Czech and Slovak Republic. The army made some progress but then declared a Slovak Soviet Republic in the conquered territory. This was about an ideology not restoring to Hungary it’s lost territory. The army and people rebelled and the Soviet republic fell. The Hapsburg Regency was restored and there was a “White Terror” against the Communists and the Jews who the government felt had betrayed the country. Many of the top Communists escaped the terror into exile including the top leadership and actor Bela Lugosi, who was head of the communist actors union. Lugosi went of course on to America to play a Hungarian Count from Transylvania not too unlike Gyorgy Dozsa. The rest of the leadership went on to the Soviet Union where many then fell victim to Stalin’s 1930s purges of those he suspected of being untrustworthy.

Hungarian Soviet propaganda 1919. To Arms! To Arms!

Gyorgi Dozsa was a Hungarian Count from Transylvania who lived around 1500 AD when Transylvania was part of a greater Hungary. After a meeting with the Pope the Hungarian Chancellor passed on his issuance of a Crusade against the Ottomans. Count Dozsa duly raised an army staffed by peasants to fight the Ottomans. The peasants felt the Army was not getting enough support from the Hungarian gentry that had initiated the war. The army turned against the Hungarian government while still under Count Dozsa and burned several hundred manor homes and castles and killing many of the gentry, often by Crucifixion. The King withdrew the crusade against the Ottomans and ordered the peasants back to the farms under “pain of death”. He also raised a new mercenary army to personally go after Count Dozsa. He was duly captured in battle in Tannesvar, in what is now Romania. After capture, he was mocked by being made to sit on an iron throne and wear an iron crown the had both been warmed in a fire until nearly molten. Still alive he was then cut with pliers also heated in the fire. Then fellow rebel prisoners were offered a way to avoid death by taking a bite of Count Dozsa’s flesh.

A woodcut depicting the death of the Count

The Communists of 1919 were just trying to weave a little history into their story of a glorious future. In retrospect the message is more clear, Don’t Screw with the Hungarian Gentry.

Well my drink is empty and faced with a choice of a controlled by outsider mob of peasants and a gentry that takes names and gets their revenge I will chose the gentry. At least they live better in the meantime, Come again tomorrow for another story that can be learned from stamp collecting.

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Romania 1928, celebrating the new province by crossing the Danube with the longest bridge in Europe

Romania kept getting bigger up through the first half of the 20th century. They scooped up new territory from the Ottomans, Bulgaria, and Hungary. As can be imagined, many had to move. Why not show however good stewardship by building the longest bridge in Europe. Nobody would expect to find that in Romania, and having it designed by a Romanian would show the possibilities. 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 celebrated Romania obtaining the province of Dobruja from Bulgaria 50 years before. The stamps show the port of Constanta on the Black Sea that was so important to Romania, an ancient monument to show the history, King Carol I who obtained the area, and the then King Carol Bridge in Cernavoda that was Romania’s great achievement in the area. Stamps can help a country to put their best foot forward and this issue was definitely doing that.

Todays stamp is issue A80, a 10 Lei stamp issued by the Kingdom of Romania on October 25th, 1928. It was a seven stamp issue in various denominations. According to the Scott catalog, the stamp is worth $3.25 unused.

The region of Dobruja was awarded to Russia in the Treaty of San Stefano of 1878 from Bulgaria after Russia defeated the Ottomans. They then traded the area to Romania for land in present day Moldavia. The area was about half Romanian but also contained Bulgars, Turks, Russian Tartars, Gypsies, and Germans. The port of Constanta on the Black Sea was very important and would be more so if it could be connected more directly to Bucharest.

Anghel Saligny was born in 1854 the son of a French educator who operated a boys boarding school in Focsani. He was able to continue his engineering education in Germany and was later employed designing railways in Saxony. Soon he was back in Romania designing railways and working on the facilities of the port of Constanta. A bridge over the Danube at Cernavoda was quite daunting due to the needed length and the bridge was initially bid out. Instead Romania decided to trust Saligny with the 8600 foot bridge. The bridge was built in five years and named for then King Carol.

In World War I the bridge very nearly saw its end. Bulgarians with German support were advancing through Dobruja toward Bucharest. The government considered blowing the bridge to slow the advance. Instead a new General was appointed as commander of the Romanian Second Army. He suggested that the government blow up the previous commander instead of the bridge. The bridge was made temporarily impassable but the Romanian 2nd Army was able to hold the line along the wide Danube. After the fall of the Royal Government in 1948, the bridge was renamed after Anghel Saligny.

Bridge Designer Anghel Saligny

In the 1980s a new slightly longer bridge was built nearby the Anghel Saligny Bridge. It was also designed in Romania and handled rail and road. The older bridge has not been taken down due to it’s historic signifigence. The new one may be slightly bigger but is not so handsome. The new bridge got a stamp in 1989 but that stamp is only worth 25 cents.

Well my drink is empty and I will pour another to toast Anghel Saligny. His work was considered on the same level as Gustave Eiffel, whose firm had also put in a bid on the project. Come again tomorrow for another story that can be learned from stamp collecting.