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Sudan 1951, As the Egyptian/British co dominion fades the Hadendoa fuzzy-wuzzies briefly rise

The Egyptian Kingdom replaced the Ottomans in northern Sudan. Of course the British were also there but in the background. After the war, where Sudanese including the Hadendoa fuzzy wuzzies had helped fight off the Italians and Egypt was especially weak, it was a good time for the native Sudanese to make their case for a nation. 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.

Naturally during the co dominion period, the postal service was left to the British. A dominion on the way to independence will show more of the local flavor of the place but still with a colonial perspective. So here we have a member of the Hadendoa tribe appearing on a stamp. The Hadendoa tribe is a mixed group with black African and Arab heritage. The wild hair that they process was what stood out about them to the British and what appears on this later stamp. The Hadendoa were the subject of the term Fuzzy-Wuzzies that Rudyard Kipling made famous. The Hadendoa do not feature on more modern Sudanese stamps. They did not win the power struggle post independence.

Todays stamp is issue A11, a 10 Milliemes/1 Piaster stamp issued by Sudan in 1951. This was while it was still under the co dominion of Egypt and Britain. It was a 17 stamp issue in various denominations. According to the Scott catalog, the stamp is worth 25 cents.

The Hadendoa (lion clan) was a nomadic tribe that were part of the old Christian Kingdom of Axum in eastern Sudan and Ethiopia. The tribe was gradually  converted to Muslim mainly by intermarriage. The Muslims of Sudan thought that the Ottomans to the north were too lax in upholding Islam while the British to the south were preventing the conversion of Africans in southern Sudan. The Sudanese united under a Muslim cleric named Mohamad Ahmad who had proclaimed himself Mahdi. A Mahdi is a redeemer of the Islamic world. The uprising lasted 18 years before the British finally won. That is of course if you accept that winning in Sudan is being allowed to stay there.

Mahdi Muhamad Ahmad. from artist conception as there are no photos

After World War II, the group put down in the Mahdi uprising were elevated briefly by the British. The British were looking to leave Sudan while the Egyptians desired to stay and formally annex it. British efforts toward nation building included a plebiscite on the future of Sudan that supporters of Egypt boycotted. Thus the late days colonial government perhaps over represented the Hadendoa. The British had built a dam on the Nile river that had greatly increased the area of cultivated land and this was used to raise cotton for use in the then British textile industry. During this period the Monarchy in Egypt fell and the new government renewed efforts to influence Sudan with an eye toward merging the countries. When there was a second election to chose the post independence government, the pro Egyptian party won and became the dominant force in early post independence Sudan.

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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Great Britain 1936, Edward VIII the past as precursor

With another English Prince abdicating his duties and losing his title to placate the unroyal woman he loves, it is a good time to review what happened with Edward VIII. Time will tell if the past is precursor.  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.

Edward did not have enough time on the Throne to have a full set of stamps done for him. There was just this rather austere bulk issue where it turned out very appropriately Edward is not wearing a Crown. The stamps showing Edward were not demonetized or overprinted to cancel out his image after abdication. Their short time status is reflected in stamp value today. The next issue same value stamp displaying new King George VI are worth one third the value.

Todays stamp is issue A99, a 2 and a half Pence stamp issued by Great Britain in 1936. It was a four stamp issue in various denominations. According to the Scott Catalog, the stamp is worth 75 cents used.

King Edward VIII was on the Throne for 10 months. He desired to marry an American socialite Wallis Simpson who was divorcing her second husband. Prime Minister Baldwin  advised that it was not an appropriate marriage as he was the symbolic head of the Church of England and that the British people would not accept Wallis as Queen Consort. Under the Westminster Statue Law of 1931 the Parliaments of the Dominions had to give assent to the choice. Prime Minister Baldwin also implied that if Edward married anyway, the government would resign. Edward then proposed a morganatic marriage to Wallis where she would not become Queen Consort and any offspring would not be in the line of succession. This was all rejected and Edward abdicated in December 1936.

In theory Edward would have reverted to the Prince title but new King George VI quickly bestowed the title of Duke of Windsor with an accompanying His Royal Highness. This happened before the marriage so HRH did not go to Wallis. Giving Edward this title made him a peer and disallowed him  discussing politics or running for the seat in the House of Commons, a big fear. There was also much ado about money. Bank accounts controlled by the King were cleaned out during Edward’s last days on the Throne. Leaving meant that Edward was no longer on the civil list for government funds but George gave Edward a large stipend in return for not coming back to Britain. He also demanded payment for Sandringham House and Balmoral Castle. Telephone calls demanding money from Edward became so frequent that King George VI and the Queen Mother Mary stopped taking his calls.

The Church of England refused to marry but a renegade priest Robert Jardine conducted the ceremony in Paris. The priest claimed that the Bishop’s instruction not perform the marriage did not apply outside of Britain. Jardine was forced to resign the priesthood afterward and move to the USA where he cashed in by writing a book.

As we can expect from Harry, the stipend from the Monarch however generous it would seem to any even well off person, was not enough for the jet set lifestyle. Edward began monetizing his notoriety by being paid to be interviewed and accepting junkets offered by iffy people.

Among those iffy people was Nazi era Germans. Wallis had an affair with German Foreign Minister Joachim von Ribbentrop from the time he was German Ambassador in London in 1936. They remained in contact and everyone was worried that Edward would reclaim the Throne with German backing, in the dark days after the fall of France. Edward played into that fear by traveling from France to Nazi sympathizing Spain And Portugal. In July 1940, Edward was appointed Governor of far off Bahamas to keep Edward out of Germany’s reach. There was much relief when he boarded the ship to leave Lisbon for his new assignment.

Edward after the war concocted a plot to return to England. He considered buying a country house near London as George VI’s health declined. He wanted to be in place in case there was an opportunity to serve as Regent. This did not pan out and he received no new assignments from Queen Elizabeth II. One bone she threw at her uncle was allowing him and Wallis! to be buried at the Royal burial ground at Frogmore castle. The previous plan would have seen the couple buried in Baltimore, Maryland next to Wallis’s father. The cemetery in Baltimore is also the place of rest for John Wilkes Booth.

Well my drink is empty and I will pour another to toast King George VI. It must have been a Herculean task to keep things going through all the craziness. Come again tomorrow for another story that can be learned from stamp collecting.

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Reunion 1933, Reuniting with mutineers

Reunion was not occupied before the French came. So perhaps the clean slate would mean less colonial baggage. Perhaps not though when the first residents who create the island’s heritage are mutineers. 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 French were wonderful for showing the exotic aspects of empire on their stamps. So a tall waterfall cascading down the wet side of a volcanic mountain can get the juices flowing of a stamp collector cooped up in a French city. To be more modern after the war, outposts like Reunion were made overseas departments of France. By extension then they are now far off outposts of the European Union. To bad the EU does not do postage stamps for their empire.

Todays stamp is issue A22, a one Centime stamp issued by the French colony of Reunion in 1933. It was part of a 41 stamp issue in various denominations, this one showing the Salazie waterfall. According to the Scott catalog, the stamp is worth 25 cents unused. A version of this stamp without the RF means it was from the Vichy government of France during the wartime German occupation. They are not real as they did not actually make it to the island for use in postage, getting them to stamp dealers was the priority.

Reunion is a volcanic island in the Indian ocean  east of Madagascar. There were no natives however the islands over time had been spotted by ancient mariners from Indonesia, Arabie, and Portugal. France was the first to leave people there in 1642 when 12 mutineers were left there after being part of a failed mutiny in Madagascar. French King Charles IV had dreams of France prospering off the India trade, and personally provided 20% of the equity for the French East India Company. The company planned trading posts in India as well as Reunion, Mauritius, and Madagascar. Reunion was not yet called that. The French East India Company replaced the Portuguese given name of Saint Apollonia with the name Bourbon after the French Royal House and in honor of Charles IV’s money. The Company was not able to bring in the hoped for profits with several outposts failing and several recapitalizations.

The French Revolution then intruded. First the new name Reunion after the joining of revolutionaries from Marseilles with the National Guard in Paris in 1792. More importantly, the revolutionary government in France ended the monopoly of French trade with the east and soon the French East India Company was bankrupt with the assets reverting to the state. Napoleon tried to change the name of the island to Bonaparte but that did not stick with the Bourbon name coming back during a brief wartime British occupation. The troubles of 1848 then brought back the name Reunion which has stuck.

The island during the war affiliated with Vichy France. The Free French had other ideas. The elderly French destroyer Leopard had escaped to Portsmouth in England during the fall of France. After convoy escort duty, it was modified in South Africa for Free French colonial duty. An engine and a gun were removed so extra fuel and 80 French marines could be carried. The Leopard was resisted by the Shore Battery and it took several days of fighting before the Vichy administration gave up. The ship later was written off after it ran aground in Libya in confusion after a German attack.

The rebellious spirit of the island was shown again recently. The problem of childhood poverty on Reunion was addressed when 1630 children were moved to France and made available for adoption. As adults the adopted children filed repeated lawsuits that the movement to France was against their will and not adequate screening of adoptive families was done. The lawsuits were all thrown out of court but it is a twist to have immigrants claiming ill will in bringing them to an advanced country.

Well my drink is empty and I will pour another to toast the adoptive parents of the children from Reunion. The grown up children may romanticize what their life would have been like in the tropical paradise as shown on the stamps, but they were saved from a life of deprivation. Come again tomorrow for another story that can be learned from stamp collecting.

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Austria 2008, Vienna hosts the WIPA stamp convention, over and over

There is a debate as to where is the center of the stamp collecting world. As an American philatelist, London and New York come to mind. That does not take into account the preponderance of stamp collecting in central Europe. Okay then Berlin but that was divided for many years and perhaps never recovered from the departure of the many Jews that were and are so prominent in the trading of stamps. This stamp makes the case for Vienna. 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 an era of plentiful souvenir stamp issues, this one is a pretty mundane issue for a stamp show. New Zealand did a much better souvenir sheet for this show. Vienna is of course a beautiful city but is not known for it’s skyline. The skyline view on this stamp is also out of date as Vienna’s tallest building. the DC Tower 1 completed in 2013.

Todays stamp is issue A1307, a 55 cent stamp issued by Austria on September 2nd, 2008. It was a single stamp issue celebrating the WIPA stamp convention that year in Vienna. According to the Scott catalog, the stamp is worth $1.60 used.

Austria was issuing stamps starting in 1850, with quickly improving quality. Vienna was also the home of several prominent philatelists. Among them was Edwin Mueller who in addition to collecting wrote a widely circulated stamp magazine called, “Die Postmarke”. In 1933 he was tasked by the Austrian government in bring back the WIPA convention to Vienna after a 50 year lapse. The show was larger than ever and Mueller was honored both by his country and made President of the International Stamp Press Assosiation. Are there still such things?

In 1938, Mueller was forced to flee to New York City after the union with Nazi era Germany. In New York, Mueller started the Mercury Stamp Company and became a stamp dealer and auctioneer. He helped handle sales from the collection of the Rothschilds. He still wrote for philatelic journals.

Austria had hosted the WIPA convention 6 times by the 2008 show. The were over 300 exibiters. Conventions are very big business in Vienna which perhaps is why the stamp on the subject is so mundane. Ove 6 million people visit Vienna each year to go to conventions. So in general they know how to play host and have an elegant old city to show off. Stamps will seem small time in comparison.

Well my drink is empty and I can look forward to a night of drinking in Vienna after a stamp convention. I wonder how one obtains a stamp press credential. Come again tomorrow for another story that can be learned from stamp collecting.

 

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Nyasaland 1937, Siding with the Maravi over the Achawa over who lives by the lake

The area of modern Malawi received many invasions from different tribes as it was on a lucrative trade routes. So the local Maravi faced attacks from the Achawa friends of Arab traders from the north and refugees from the Zulus from the South. The British sided with the Maravi but to them they were all just natives. It was only the missionairies that could figure it out or make it worse. 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 was a common design type that was issued throughout the British Empire in celebration of the Coronation of George VI. Nyasaland was a Protectorate rather than a Colony but natives can be forgiven for wondering what a stamp like this has to do with them.

Todays stamp is issue CD302, a half penny stamp issued by the Protectorate of Nyasaland on May 12, 1937. It was a three stamp issue in various denominations. According to the Scott catalog, the stamp is worth 25 cents unused.

The area of modern Malawi was once the Maravi Empire. The maravi people were mainly farmers of grains on the fertile land near Lake Nyassa and also had acquired skill in ironwork. Maravi means working with flame. Nyasa means lake in local language and the British took this name for the area. Pre Europeans, the area was on Arab trading routes for ivory and slaves heading to Zanzibar. The Arabs converted the Achawa African tribe to Islam and there were then many clashes with the Maravi. The first Europeans were Scottish missionaries that brought Christianity and the end of slavery. They found a ready market from the Maravi and much less from the Achawa. Thus the signing up as a British Protectorate. There was a hope that it would then be the maravi benefiting from the trade. It did not work out that way.

Slavery was abolished and white planters acquired great plantations of tea and corn. For workers, the plantations found that guest workers from Mozambique would work for much less than local workers while locals worked much less productively on less valuable land. The Christian missions were offering some schooling to natives and these newly educated found no place in the area. In 1915, Baptist educated John Chilembwe formed a political movement and an armed uprising against the British. He had an Achawa father and his mother was an enslaved to the Achawa Maravi. His rebellion was quickly put down and Chilembwe was killed. His movement, which had been modeled on the ANC in South Africa and inspired by John Brown in the USA continued and was eventually the group  to whom the area it was turned over to upon independence. The lake became of less importance and so Malawi became a modern pronunciation of Maravi.

John Chilembwe and missionary

The British were always a tiny minority in the area but the so were the self styled “New African Men” that were the products of the western educations given in charity. The Maravi agreed to Protectorate status from the British. A strong friend who could help a people being attacked from all sides. To then bypass the tribal system and turn over power to these created by themselves, New African men like Chilembwe, because they were the only natives they could relate to shows the British falling short as protectors. Independent Malawi had a 30+ year President for life that had previously spent 30 years abroad being educated.

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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Mexico 1942, Pachamama is here with us at the conference

In the 1910s, Mexico had a revolution that left it with a one party state of the political left, the PRI. This was of course a repudiation of remnants of Spain in favor of the indigenous who the PRI would better represent. Artists could get on board with that, and a flowering of muralists brought forth political work heavily influenced by modern European art trends. So this is how something as mundane as an agricultural conference gets it’s own mural of Pachamama in her birthday suit ready to deliver her bounty to worthy PRI party Mexicans. 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 seemed nuts when I first saw it. I knew Mexico was a center of modern art in the first half of the 20th century. So I was not surprised by the style of art, but connecting it with an agricultural conference was where it lost me. Mexico was trying to connect the traditions of the pre Spanish indigenous who believed the Earth was a universal mother, a Pachamama, that provided. Thus the connection to agriculture and no doubt a lesson in Mexican culture for the attendies from the north, who probably were just there to find what foodstuffs Mexico had to sell.

Todays stamp is issue A157, a two Centavo stamp issued by Mexico on July 1st, 1942. It was a six stamp issue in various denominations, three of which were airmail. According to the Scott catalog, the stamp is worth 40 cents used.

According to Incas that recorded better the more widely held Latin American tradition, the land was considered the mother of life, the Pachamama. She was to be worshipped as it was through her that nature provided her bounty. Disruptions in that were related to her annoyance. On her Challa’s Tuesday holiday, food and candles were to be buried in her honor and priests would sacrifice llamas and guinea pigs to her. Pachamama had a husband/son called Inti that represented the sky. Their children were then sent to Earth to be the keepers of civilization. After the arrival of the Spanish and the addition of Catholic tradition, Pachamama became less vengeful and more in the image of the Virgin Mary. The Mexican muralist on this stamp was reverting away from that. Pachamama as depicted is a long way from virginity.

The modern art movement  in Mexico centered around muralists that painted murals on indigenous and class struggle subjects on public buildings in Mexico. The most famous of these was Diego Rivera. As it was being paid for by the PRI government, the subject matter was limited but the output attracted a wider following. This was especially true of left leaning Jewish art patrons of New York City. The patrons of New York paid better than the Mexican government so many of the mural artists eventually made their way there.

The lack of social and economic progress in Mexico eventually affected the muralists. In the 1950s, the rupture movement saw the output become less nationalistic and more dark and surrealist. The now deeply intrenched PRI party no longer identified with the output and stop supporting it.

Rupture era painting “Renacimiento”
I think it is a bull, but I had to look at the stamp a while to realize the landscape was a naked lady.

The USA has always done a lot of trading with Mexico but the buying mainly centers on manufactured goods and petroleum. Less than 10% are fruits and vegetables and tequila if you want to classify that as agricultural. Mexico buys from the USA corn, soybeans, and meat and agriculture is the one area with Mexico where there is a USA trade surplus.

Well my drink is empty and I will pour another to toast the muralists of Mexico. Hope is fleeting and the pressure to go north and sell out was inevitable, but that initial spark of belief and creativity created something lasting. Come again tomorrow for another story that can be learned from stamp collecting.

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Italy 1973, An Italian republic integrating with Europe remembers Mazzini, whose goal was an Italian Republic integrating with Europe

Leaders fall in and out of fashion. After Italy united as a Monarchy in the 1860s. Revolutionary leader Giuseppe Mazzini fell out of favor as the Italy he imagined was a Republic. He was too liberal for those in power but simultaneously too reactionary and religious for the new left. Fast forward 100 years though and he is exactly the type of anti Communist and also anti Monarchist and pro united Europe fellow to provide an historical basis for the current government. 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.

Mazzini has had more than a few Italian stamps. Most of them are like this one and don’t make him look very good. The best was the first one from 1921 that showed him as an old man. Less than 50 years after his death, he was perhaps still remembered as a man instead of a figure of history.

Todays stamp is issue A571, a 25 Lira stamp issued by Italy on March 10th, 1972. It was a three stamp issue in various denominations recognizing the death century of Giuseppe Mazzini, the Italian unification activist. According to the Scott catalog the stamp is worth 25 cents used. I am not alone in preferring the 1921 issue to the 1972 or the 2005 issue. The 1921 issue is worth $40, despite a 1/100th denomination.

Mazzini was born in Genoa in 1805 when it was part of the French Empire. He was from a well off family and studied the law. From an early age he was a believer in the unification of Italy. He formed a political movement called Young Italy. Cells of the movement were frequently rising up against various city states. As a result, Mazzini was often in exile and twice was even sentenced to death in absentia. In Switzerland he met fellow exiled nationalist from Germany, Poland, and Switzerland. He formed an international Young Europe group that then had subsidiaries of Young Italy, Young Germany. etc. He imagined republics based on Nationality that would then afterwards combine into a United States of Europe.

In the continent wide troubles of 1848-49, Mazzini had his chance. The Pope was forced to flee Rome and a Republic was declared. In charge was a triumpharate with Mazzini the senior figure. The Pope still had friends though not Mazzini who was religious but anti clerical. The French Army arrived three months into the Republic and Mazzini was again off to Switzerland and then on to London.

Though Mazzini was close to military independence leader Garbaldi, he was not in favor of the new united Italian Kingdom under the House of Savoy. He even attempted to start a new uprising against it in Sicily in 1870 and was briefly jailed. After dying he was celebrated by most. Independence leaders of all stripes had been reading his works for many years before the bitterness of his last years. The kind of government he wanted was finally put in place after the war in 1945. Since then Italy and Europe have made much progress, but I sense that Mazzini would have hoped the result would be more of a utopia.

Well my drink is empty and to me figures like Mazzini come up short, Like Sun Yat-sen in China he got famous traveling around complaining about the status quo, but when he was given the chance to rule, he was unable to produce any positive results. Come again tomorrow for another story that can be learned from stamp collecting.

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Maluku Selatan after 1955, Fake stamp but interesting story

As might be expected after a long Dutch colonial period, not all Indonesians were Muslims. Some were Dutch Protestants and so perhaps understandably were nervous about independence from Holland. Being in the majority in a few islands in the South Moluccas, and feeling the Indonesians had reneged on the promise of a federal state with some autonomy, rebellious veterans of the Dutch colonial army declared the Republic of Maluku Selatan. Declaration does not make reality but soon enough an enterprising stamp dealer came calling. 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.

No post office, no legitimate stamp is an understandable philately rule. The first stamps of Maluku Selatan have the best arguments for legitimacy. They were just overprints of Dutch colonial issues from the brief period that the islands were not in Indonesian control. Being overprints proved the rebels were in the old Dutch colonial post offices. Were they still delivering mail?

There is not value or issue date for this stamp. Stamp dealer Henry Stolow had printed in Vienna circa 150 stamp issues under the name Maluku Selatan between 1955 and 1971.

There had been some Christian missionary work in the Dutch Indies. Many Christians were from the island of Ambon which was where the Dutch first landed in 1605. A good percentage of the males went on to serve in the Dutch colonial army. Being dark skinned, they were not held as POWs as ethnic Dutch were during the World War II Japanese occupation. The Indonesian independence movement received much of their organization during the Japanese occupation. Post war, the Maluku soldiers did not desire disbanding or transfer  to the new Indonesian Army. Claiming truthfully that the post independence Indonesian government was more centralized than what they had agreed to, several south Malluccan islands declared independence under President Christiian Soumokil. The capital was Ambon. 5 months after the declaration in 1950 the Indonesian army landed in Ambon. Guerilla resistance on the islands lasted till 1963. After fighting started the Dutch changed their tune and started offering transport to Holland for Christian Mallucans. A government of Maluku Selatan in exile set up in Holland that still exists. Christiian Sourmokil had remained behind to lead the guerilla fighters. He was eventually captured by Indonesia and executed in 1966.

From 1950, the government in exile issued a few new design postage stamps that were not recognized. In 1955 stamp dealer Henrey Stolow contracted with Vienna printers for printing stamps in the name of the Republic of Maluku Selatan. He was also working with several newly independent African nations and his authority was not questioned. Stolow was a Jew born in Riga, Latvia who started as a stamp dealer in Berlin in 1919. The Nazi regime of 1933 saw him move on to Brussels and then on to New York. In New York he bought the collections of several prominent philatelists for well publicized auctions. Among the prominent collections were Franklin Roosevelt, Cardinal Spellman, and deposed Kings Carol II of Romania and Farouk of Egypt. Normally the dealing in fake stamps is considered not reputable but it did not seem to effect Stolow’s career. He later returned to Germany and his operation continues still using his name 49 years after his death. It is currently  based in Munich. A nephew of Stolow is still active in New York.

Well my drink is empty and I will salute the Christian Missionary. When one sees the trouble caused for the small percentage of converts, one can understand why modern Christian organizations seem to concentrate solely on charity. Come again tomorrow for another story that can be learned from stamp collecting. I will have a legitimate stamp for you.

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Spain 1964, The Creator of the Peace, finds things not so peaceful

There are a lot of reasons not to like Franco, a claudillo who actually relished the term. Yet this stamp succinctly makes the case for him. He ended the bloody civil war and managed the not easy task of staying out of World War II. Franco understood the value of peace to the average citizen while his opponents constantly upsetting the peace through assassinations. Even in death, Franco cannot rest in peace. 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 a little more elaborate than the bulk mail Franco issue of the time. 10 Pasetas was high valuation and so we get more colors, a subdued military uniform and his best political slogan presented as a truth. Of course that on a stamp during a politician’s lifetime is a pretty good indicator of a dictatorship.

Today stamp is issue A302, a 10 Pesetas stamp issued by Spain on April Fools Day 1964. It was a 14 stamp issue, this the only one with Franco, celebrating 25 years since the end of the Spanish Civil War. We are now past the 50th and 75th anniversary of the end of the Civil War, No stamps, don’t want to talk of Franco. Trump will have this trouble after he is gone. According to the Scott catalog, the stamp is worth 55 cents unused.

Peace has to be the greatest achievement of Franco. Right after the end of the Civil War ended in 1939 World War II started. After France fell in 1940 to Franco’s German friends, Hitler had his eye on Gibraltar the British colony controlling access to the Mediterranean. Operation Felix was formulated that would have seen 2 German Corps pass through Spain. The plan assumed a British response of landing in Portugal followed by a German invasion of Portugal from Spain. Napoleon all over again for the Iberian peninsula. Refusing Hitler could not have been easy but saved Spain.

Lets give Franco a little more of his due. Franco could always point to assassinations carried out by the Left that disturbed the peace. Remember the Spanish Civil War started not when the left won the 1936 election. Jose Calvo Sotelo was the leader of the Right in opposition. He was assassinated leaving a void for Franco to fill and galvanizing the right.

The next assassination to talk about was then Prime Minister Luis Carrero Blanco in 1973. He was attempting to return from Mass when his car, a Dodge 3700, was car bombed. Franco was fading by then  and the Prime Minister was running things day to day. An aside, as car buffs might guess from the name, a Dodge 3700 was a license made Dodge Dart with a slant 6 225 engine. A fairly modest vehicle for a Prime Minister!

Dodge 3700 by now defunct Barreiros. It does look bigger in a Spanish setting

The third disturbing of the peace happened only last year. After Franco won the Civil War he created a “Valley of the Fallen”, to honor the fallen of both sides. As the left doesn’t want to remember a war they lost, it became a center of remembrance for the right side of politics. Indeed Franco himself was laid to rest there. During left wing administrations the complex was usually closed. The current lefty government decided to go further and have Franco’s tomb desecrated and moved by government action. People are more peaceful now, but how could that not galvanize the political right in Spain.

Valley of the Fallen

Well my drink is empty and Franco is too much a mixed bag to toast. I am still thirsty though so perhaps a toast to 25 years of peace. The next 25. Come again tomorrow for another story that can be learned from stamp collecting.

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East Germany 1981, Rosa Luxemburg wants you to learn to learn to deliver the mail

I don’t think much training is needed to deliver the mail. Apparently it was big business in East Germany. Enough to invoke DDR’s favorite martyr Rosa Luxemburg in the cause. Little do these young apprentices know they will soon be merged and then privatized. Ms. Luxemburg would not approve. 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 is the only stamp I have seen from anywhere invoking the training of postal workers. They show multiple specialties and the involvement of various institutions. The East German Post had wider communication tasks including telegraphs and telexes. Made it seem like the future.

Todays stamp is issue A653, a 20 Pfennig stamp issued by East Germany on February 10th, 1981, your author’s twelfth birthday. It was a five stamp issue in various denominations. According to the Scott catalog, the stamp is worth 25 cents whether used or unused.

Rosa Luxemburg was a Polish Jew who was the daughter of a lumber merchant in then(1871) Russian occupied Poland. She joined hard left movements in Poland but then had a break with them. They supported Polish independence from Russia and Germany while Rosa thought the more important thing was that Germany and Russia become communist. She went into exile in Switzerland where she earned a Phd and involved herself with the Socialist Internationale. She spoke German, Polish, Hebrew and Russian. She desired to be German though it was not her heritage to be part of Berlin’s hard left scene. She had a sham marriage to a German man to obtain German citizenship. She joined the left wing German SPD party and taught Marxism. When World War I broke out, the SPD rallied to the flag and supported the war effort. Rosa was distraught by this decision. She helped form a group of former SPD members who opposed the war called the Spartacus League. Spartacus had lead a slave uprising in Roman times. The League supported dodging the draft, not following orders once in the army and labor disruptions to fight the war effort. This type of activity was of course against the law and Rosa was jailed. It also lead to the charge from the other side of politics that the war effort had been “stabbed in the back” by leftist Jews.

Rosa was released in an amnesty at the end of the war. Rosa’s former student, Fredrich Ebert was the new President of Germany. By now though Rosa had completely broke with the SPD and desired Germany to be a Soviet Republic. At the beginning of 1919 she started a putsch to destroy capitalism. The SPD opposed this violence and controlled a remnant of the German Army called the Freikorps. This deployed in the streets to fight the revolution. Rosa Luxemburg was taken in the street. After a short questioning Rosa Luxemburg was shot and her body dumped in the Landwehr Canal. She was now a martyr of the left.

Rosa Luxemburg

Many years later, Rosa Luxemburg has been very controversial. The East Germans raised her high. Most of their leaders had also been part of the Internationale movement with long exiles outside Germany. On the other hand the official position of todays German government is that idolization of Rosa Luxemburg in a tradition of far left extremism. For example East German Post’s Rosa Luxemburg School of Engineering has lost her name and is now a telecommunication university. They have left standing the statue of Rosa Luxemburg visible on the stamp. Every year on the date of her death, the German left marches in a funeral parade for Rosa. The Freikorp officer that ordered the execution was taken into custody by the Soviets in the first days of the occupation of Berlin in 1945 and executed. He claimed to be following orders and had served jail time after the execution in 1919.

Well my drink is empty. Skirting Rosa, I will pour another drink to toast the young apprentices of German Post. I hope all the changes coming to the post were positive for you. Come again tomorrow for another story that can be learned from stamp collecting.