Categories
Uncategorized

New Zealand 1997, As we near the end, a “wacky” mailbox

I have been wanting to talk about Iceland’s decision to pull the plug on stamp issuance. When I spotted this New Zealand stamp, I had found the vehicle. 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 was the best of times it was the worst of times. The printing and use of color on this stamp is magnificent. In the sixties the mostly fake dune stamps from UAE and Finbar Kenny showed how far things could go, see https://the-philatelist.com/2019/04/10/sharjah-lets-you-enjoy-modern-art-thanks-to-finbar-kenny/  . Real country postal authorities took up the challenge and pushed even Mr. Kenny’s boundaries. Stamps that smell or change color, you name it. The dune stamps were aimed at child collectors and so it seems are real country stamps like this. Making this time the worst of times. Instead of presenting a countries situation, it’s past, it’s present, it’s hopes in a serious way and from their point of view so a collector can learn and perhaps think of things in a different way. Here we get wacky mailboxes. Makes you wonder if stamps deserve to die?

Todays stamp is issue A422, a 40 cent stamp issued by New Zealand on March 19th, 1997. It was a 10 stamp issue that came as either a booklet or a self adhesive sheet. According to the Scott catalog, the stamp is worth 55 cents whether used or unused. An unused booklet of 10 still together is worth $7 while the same 10 stamps as a sheet is $18.

A few weeks ago Iceland announced that they are discontinuing the issuance of new stamps and closing down their website aimed at the worldwide collector. 50 people are losing their jobs from the operation that has been in the red for a while. Post offices in Iceland believe they have adequate stocks of stamps till the last postcard is sent. To me that is the scariest statement of all.  I remember when Mozambique got independence in 1974, the new post office offered to sell collectors any stamp issued by Portugal for them in the previous 20 years with an independence overstamp. What if all post offices worldwide have such never ending stocks?

I am hoping that the end of new stamp issuance might finally change the supply/demand balance in favor of the supplier and result in higher stamp values. If collectors can begin to see their collection as an asset instead of just a cost it is easier to justify new acquisitions. Collector dollars also wouldn’t be syphoned off by country collectors that automatically buy all new offerings directly from the post office. We had already had several countries issues dry up or be declared fake as they no longer had a provable post system.

So how will it end? I suspect that the deciding factor of stamps will be the country that started it, Great Britain. If they are also in the hole and pull the plug, the rest of the Commonwealth will follow. Then USA and Germany, and an hour later, everyone else with perhaps total farm out issues trying to hold out a little longer.

I don’t think this is the end of the hobby. The era from 1840 to the mid 80s saw colonialization and then a plethora of new countries with different people expressing themselves with stamps. We saw ideologies rise and fall and monarchies fall or somehow stay around. All expressed as the countries themselves wanted it presented. On the stamps we also saw art, natural beauty, and technological achievement being presented. On tiny slips of gummed paper that seemingly has immense abilities to survive. I think the hobby can survive, and I intend to keep telling the stories that can be learned from stamp collecting.

Categories
Uncategorized

Papua New Guinea 1973, Australia spends up to at least have something they can take a picture of

Australia did their best with PNG. After independence over half the national budget was provided by Australia. Yet the country failed to achieve. Most of the money was wasted or stolen. Hence the attraction of tangible projects that pictures can be taken of. Life expectancy was under 50, illiteracy was rampant, but check out our satellite dishes. Crazy. 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 was a big aid project, bringing modern telecommunications to PNG. It took over four years. So the stamps showing it off went all out. This stamp was one corner of a four stamp bloc. The stamps show satellite dishes, relay stations and helicopters slinging heavy loads up Mt. Tomavatur. If natives ever sent a letter, they must have thought the colonials nuts. They surely were allowed nowhere near it.

Todays stamp is issue A81, a seven cent stamp issued by Papua New Guinea on January 21st, 1973 ahen it was still a colony of Australia. It was  a six stamp issue, four in the block and two others. According to the Scott catalog, the stamp is worth 25 cents used. Keeping the block of four stamps together would have increased the value 40% all the way up to $1.40.

Australia at it’s closest point is only 4km from the island of New Guinea. So during World War I, they cleared the area of the former German colony. In World War II, the Japanese landed and it was a much harder slog to clear the Japanese from the island. The campaign cost over 8000 Australian deaths. Natives were uninvolved in either war. Post war Australia rethought it’s defense strategy abandoning fortifications on islands like New Guinea and acquiring aircraft carriers and long range bombers for forward defense.

Still a grave mistake was made on New Guinea. Instead of leaving, Australia turned the place into a colony. Post war this was a new style colony that sought to bring the people up. The World Bank was brought in to design the program. It all this sounds expensive it was and unsuccessful. Hence the lure of silliness like satellite dishes that at least give you something to show for the money spent.

Papua New Guinea became independent in 1975, but Australian aid was still the bulk of the economy. They lucked out in acquiring the services of Prime Minister Sonome. He designed PNG’s development plan because after all driving a car gets you no where if you do not know the destination. Economic activity did not actually get going so in 2011 PNG developed a new growth roadmap. It quoted liberally the failed 1975 plan and still had Prime Minister Sonome to implement it. You can read it here, http://www.treasury.gov.pg/html/publications/files/pub_files/2011/2011.png.vision.2050.pdf   . PNG had acquired a leader for life, Africa Style. Australia has finally started scaling back the aid, now “only” 500 million a year. PNG noticed that Australian government spending on Australians have gone up recently and they are annoyed. They recently asked for 600 million in emergency aid from Australia, the new Prime Minister is apparently having trouble fulfilling his campaign promise of making PNG the richest black nation on Earth. When will leaders learn to under promise? He thinks the aid would work better if it was redirected straight to the government. Ha.

Telephones in PNG are not originally a Australian idea. The first phone lines were laid by the Germans in 1905. They connected the 18 phones in the colony. Mount Tornavatur is still home to the satellite dishes and now also hosts cell phone towers. Life expentancy now has made it to 57 and literacy to 70%.

Well my drink is empty and I may have a few more while I contemplate the Australian failure on PNG. Come again tomorrow for another story that can be learned from stamp collecting.

Categories
Uncategorized

Sierra Leone 1972, Sierra Leone’s decent into darkness

As with The USA and Liberia, Great Britain tried to take extra care with the freed slave state of Sierra Leone. Sometimes, you can’t save people from themselves. So slip on your smoking jacket, fill your pipe, take tour first sip of your adult beverage, and sit back in your most comfortable chair. Welcome to todays offering from The Philatelist.

Is it always a bad sign when a President shows up on a current stamp? It does seem to imply a ruler rather than elected representative. He looks to be a friendly enough sort on the stamp, but where was he when the lights went out.

Todays stamp is issue A55, a 15 cent stamp issued by independent Sierra Leone in 1972. It was a 14 stamp issue in various denominations showing then President Siaka Stevens. According to the Scott catalog, the stamp is worth 25 cents.

Sierra Leone got it’s independence in 1961. A deal had been struck with native but English trained doctor and head of government Milton Margai. Dr. Margai had gained some respect internationally by bringing modern health knowledge to African tribal midwives, which had a positive effect on infant mortality. The deal that was struck was that Sierra Leone would stay in the Commonwealth and the Army would retain a British commander. The British system of handing out spoils to the various tribes was continued. There was some argument about this, Future President Stevens believed elections had to be held before independence to be fair and that the defense forces should cut ties to Britain. He broke away from Dr. Margai’s party and started a new one with money from East Germany and China.

The Royal Sierra Leone Army had begun as the Sierra Leone Regiment of the Royal West Africa Frontier Force. The force had British Officers and local black soldiers. It fought in Burma in World War II. Around 1960, the force disbanded and the country based forces became the nucleus of the newly independent armies.

In 1964, Dr. Margai died and was replaced by his half brother Albert. The wheels started to come off. Albert began promoting only people of his Mende tribe. The army lost it’s British officers so Albert could give the posts as spoils. Albert’s attempt to make a one party state failed and Albert was not reelected in 1968 as former labor leader Siaka Stevens won.

Not so fast though. Minutes after taking the oath of office there was a coup that left Prime Minister Stevens under house arrest. The army, no longer Royal, now had many ambitious leaders and there were a total of three coups before Stevens was allowed to take office. Even after there were many further coup plots and many Generals were tried and hung for treason, including the General that handed power belatedly to Stevens. Prime Minister Stevens, surprising only those who didn’t expect him to be a hypocrite, then passed a new constitution making him President in a one party state. Remember this was what he was fighting before independence. He had since come to the feeling that a one political party state was traditionally African.

Stevens ruled ever more despotically for 17 years until 1985. Late in his term the public education system shut and Freetown suffered a months long electricity blackout because nobody had bothered to import any fuel oil. Somehow such incompetence did not stop President Stevens to be named the Chairman of the Organization of African Unity. In terms of African unity he did manage to form an economic union with Liberia, and later Guinea and the Ivory Coast. This was called the group of total losers, excuse me, the Manu River Union. In 2016 the group announced a multi nation parliament to coordinate law making. Watch out EU!

Well my drink is empty and I think I will have another to celebrate that I live nowhere near the Manu River. Come again tomorrow for another story that can be learned from stamp collecting

Categories
Uncategorized

Peru 1961, Peru looks east and returns to Japan their last Samarai

During Spanish colonial times, trade with Spain had to pass through Lima. By the mid 20th century, Peru had acquired a large Japanese community and was looking to Japan to now export their economic miracle. That didn’t happen but Peru did manage to export it’s first Japanese President, the “Last Samarai”, back to Japan. So slip on your smoking jacket, fill your pipe, take your first sip of your adult beverage, and sit back in your most comfortable chair. Welcome to todays offering from The Philatelist.

Todays stamp celebrates the 2nd International Pacific Fair held in Lima in 1961. Both Japan and the USA had large displays to promote closer economic ties with a then growing Peru. It must have been nice to be the object of so much competition.

Todays stamp is issue C174, a 1 Sol airmail stamp issued by Peru in January 1962, three months or 90 manianas after the Fair. It was a single stamp issue. According to the Scott catalog, the stamp is worth 25 cents.

The first Japanese immigrants came to Peru in 1899. They were virtually all male and were to work in agriculture for a usually 3 year period. Their contact salary was twice what a similar worker made in Japan. Most did not stay in agriculture and moved to Lima to start shops. The numbers went up fast after the USA banned immigration from Japan in 1924. Early on there was some resentment toward the new arrivals. A law was passed that required shops to have a percentage of native Peruvian employees. In 1938, Peru also stopped accepting new Japanese immigrants. After an earthquake in Peru in 1940, the Japanese were especially targeted in the third world style looting that followed. During the war about 10% of the Japanese Peruvian community was sent to internment in the USA. Peru had stated none could return post war, but some did. Most stayed in the USA.

This might have chased off the Japanese in Peru but instead the opposite happened. The economic power of Peruvian Japanese grew and ties with post war Japan grew ever closer. In 1990, Alberto Fujimori was elected as the first Asian leader of a country outside Asia. He opened up much of the economy and sold off many state owned enterprises. You can guess who was doing the buying. The influx of investment did get the economy moving again. However there was also corruption. When a corruption scandal was about to break in 1996, Fujimori escaped to Japan. From there he faxed his resignation from the Peruvian Presidency, a first. I wonder which corrupt politician will be the first to text a resignation?

President Fujimori when he still wore the Peruvian sash

Peru wanted Fujimori to face criminal charges but Japan found enough red tape to prevent extradition. Fujimori in 2005 traveled to Chile to plot a Peruvian comeback. The Chileans put him under house arrest  and started the long process of extradition. From Chile, Fujimori tried to boost his position in Japan by running for a seat in the upper house of the Japanese Diet. He ran on a populist message as the “Last Samurai” He lost that election and was soon in jail in Peru. He was later pardoned for old age and ill health. When he didn’t die fast enough the pardon was overturned and this year, at age 80, Fujimori returned to jail. Peru sounds fun.

Well my drink is empty and I will pour another to toast the native Peruvians who got jobs at Japanese owned enterprises. The many?, some?, anybody?. Anyway, come again tomorrow for another story that can be learned from stamp collecting.

Categories
Uncategorized

Soviet Union 1980, 20 years of cosmonaut training at the Yuri Gagarin Center

Sometimes it is nice to reflect on the dangerous work involving space flight. This stamp honors the Gagarin center for twenty years of training. Next year it will be 60 years and the center is still training cosmonauts, now under the auspices of Roskosmos, Russia’s civilian space corporation. So slip on your smoking jacket, fill your pipe, take your first sip of your adult beverage, and sit back in your most comfortable chair. Welcome to todays offering from The Philatelist.

When I spotted this stamp, I assumed I would be learning about Russian science fiction from the Soviet era. This mistake is reflective of the stamps design intention to inspire interest in the space program from the young. I am no longer young, but consider me inspired.

Todays stamp is issue A2302, a 6 Kopek stamp issued by the Soviet Union on September 15th, 1980. It depicts flight training. The Soviets issued 7 stamps that day, both for the Gagarin Center anniversary and also training going on at the time of potential cosmonauts from Cuba. According to the Scott catalog, the stamp is worth 25 cents unused.

The Gagarin Cosmonaut Center was set up in secret near Moscow as military unit 26266. It contained 250 personnel under a military doctor with the purpose of training military pilots for space travel. In addition to flight training, the cosmonaut candidates had to be taught to handle g forces and to operate in a weightless environment. Equipment included simulators of the mission vessels, a centrifuge to spin the cosmonaut so his body would adjust to high g forces. There were also airplanes that could replicate weighlessness, nicknamed the vomit comet.

Yuri Gagarin became the first human to orbit the Earth in 1961. He was made a hero of the Soviet Union and traveled the world promoting the Soviet achievement. He was young, friendly, and approachable and did much to further the Soviet Space program. President Kennedy banned Gagarin from the USA however. This snub did not extend to American Apollo astronauts who were happy to meet with him at the 1965 Paris Air Show. In 1967, Gagarin was the backup pilot for the Soyuz 1 mission. That mission was ill fated and when the rocket crashed on reentry when the parachute failed to deploy, Gagarin’s cosmonaut future was reconsidered. He was banned from future missions to space but unfortunately still allowed to fly. 4 weeks later, Gagarin was killed in a training flight of a Mig 15UTI trainer when it got in a fatal spin in bad weather.

The launch of Vostok 1, Yuri Gagarin’s first human mission to space

There have been many remembrances of Gagarin after his death. American astronaut Neil Armstrong left a satchel on the moon surface containing some of Gagarin’s medals. In 2011, on the 50th anniversary of Gagarin’s space orbit, the Russian, Italian, and American crew of the International Space Station wore T shirt’s with Gagarin’s image in honor of “Yuri’s Night”. A recently put up statue of Gagarin was taken down in Belgrade, Serbia when the carver gave him a head that was insultingly small. We just don’t do good statues anymore. Gagarin’s cremated remains are forever interred in the walls of the Kremlin.

Well my drink is empty and I will pour another to toast Yuri Gagarin and all his fellow Cosmonauts that have come through Gagarin’s Space Center. Come again tomorrow for another story that can be learned from stamp collecting.

Categories
Uncategorized

Sweden 1977, Evert Taube, a visa to the love of travel inspired musical poetry

It was very common in the 19th century for poets to put their work to music in a sing along fashion to bring their work to a wider audience. In Sweden such people were known as visas. In the 20th century, Swedes became again well traveled, and Evert Taube was able to build on the old traditions by adding a wider view of the world including the seeds of social protest that so took over the tradition. Sounds like a man who should collect postage stamps. So slip on your smoking jacket, fill your pipe, take your first sip of your adult beverage, and plug in your guitar. Welcome to todays offering from The Philatelist.

This stamp issue is trying to do too much. Taube’s songs had romanticized views of areas that might suggest that people might want to visit. One can imagine that a stamp issue by a government may subvert Taube’s stamps to promote tourism to the places he loved, at least the ones in Sweden. Taube probably wouldn’t have minded. He should have minded the Swedish postal tradition of drab coloring and uninspired presentation.

Todays stamp was issue A337, a 95 Ore stamp issued by Sweden on May 2nd, 1977. It was a 5 stamp issue in various denominations honoring visa Evert Taube a year after his death. According to the Scott Catalog, the stamp is worth 45 cents whether used or unused.

Evert Taube was born in 1890 to a wealthy noble family. His father was a ship captain and Taube himself sailed far and wide in the Mediterranean and to Ceylon and Argentina. His style of singing could be done with the accompaniment of a full orchestra or stripped down to just a guitar and accordion. The songs were several verses of poetry that invited singing along to. His time in Argentina brought Sweden it’s first taste of the tango and Taube often sung with the affectations of the Gaucho. You can watch a sample of his singing in 1966 here https://www.bing.com/videos/search?q=evert+taube&view=detail&mid=1ACDC6987DC5F19E92A71ACDC6987DC5F19E92A7&FORM=VIRE.

Over time the music became more political. Taub had witnessed Italian colonial wars in Africa and became an ardently anti war and anti fascist. That was no doubt a popular view in neutral Sweden. His musical poetry on the beauty of nature also appealed to the rising ecology movement. Throwing in this political stuff will tend to chase off people like me but often has the opposite effect on those into the politics. It becomes a gateway to letting them more fully explore the tradition that the music comes from. All too often, in my opinion, the artistry and poetry get pushed aside by more modern practitioners who would rather get straight to the politics. Imagine all the… yuk.

I mentioned that Taube’s work found a new audience in his old age from the new protest movement. This didn’t work well for Taube personally. In 1969, at age 79, Taube’s vacation home was burned down by a 37 year old women named Mona. She was diagnosed as a schizophrenic and institutionalized. Her story was that he promised marriage and delivered a psyche ward. Taube had been married since 1925 and remained so till his death. Mona became famous as an early celebrity stalker.

Taube’s burning vacation home

Well my drink is empty but I will always have time to pour another to toast a great troubadour er visa. Come again tomorrow for another story that can be learned from stamp collecting

Categories
Uncategorized

Italy 1965, Remembering Dante as part of the Italian Centennial

Remembering Dante Alighieri was something that happen a lot under the Monarchy of the first 80 years of a united Italian state. To a large extent this dropped away after the King was forced to abdicate. At the 100 year mark, it was perhaps time to lay claim on all history as part of the whole. So here we have Dante and the same year there was a reappearance of King Victor Emanuel on a stamp cleverly couched in terms of veterans. The times they were a changing. 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.

A Centennial is a good time to come together. The Monarchy had promoted Italian unity and a distinct post Roman Italian culture. That was why Dante was so promoted during the Monarchy. He provided part of the historical cultural basis for what was being done in the 19th century Yet after the war this dropped away as the Monarchy was perhaps rightly discredited by the African colonial adventures and the alliance with Germany. Yet in the 1960s there were still a lot of Italians that had participated and sacrificed in those causes while in the service of Italy. The style of the celebration was perhaps a recognition of that.

It was perhaps too early for this reversion. President Kennedy’s speech in honor of the centennial emphasized the Roman Republic and explicitly Greece as the historical basis for modern Italy. No mention of the monarchy and an American style human rights come from God and not through a King reference. America kept a close eye on Italian politics post war as they were opposed to monarchists or a communist takeover by way of the ballot box.

This pushback can be seen in the stamps as well. Another honoring veteran stamp made clear it only meant veterans that fought for the Allies, a tiny minority. Another implying the Italians were prisoners of a Nazi concentration camp. They were not referring to Italy’s few Jews.

The outreach to monarchists ended suddenly by a pretender overplaying a weak hand. The Last King Umberto II had abdicated not by choice in 1946 and lived in exile in Portugal. In 1969, his estranged first born son, Victor Emanuel, declared himself unilaterally King of Italy from Switzerland. Naturally this turned any talk of Monarchy into a joke. He then married a non Royal Swiss heiress without seeking the required permission of his father. A second cousin then claimed that put him out of the line, and second cousin in. Clearly a line to nowhere.

In 1983, the last Italian King Umberto II was ailing. The then current Italian Head of State President Sandro Pertini, a socialist, requested that the post war Italian law be changed and Umberto II be allowed to come home and die. This was refused. Umberto II died abroad and no representative of the Italian government was present at the funeral. The American view of Italian history was now the vogue.

Todays stamp is issue A489, a 40 Lira stamp issued by Italy on October 21, 1965. It was a 4 stamp issue in various denominations remembering the 700th anniversary of the birth of Dante Alighieri. According to the Scott catalog, the stamp is worth 25 cents.

Well my drink is empty and so I will consult with American authorities as to who these days I am allowed to toast. I expect they will just suggest I put the bottle away, always the safe choice. Come again tomorrow for another story that can be learned from stamp collecting.

Categories
Uncategorized

Cape Verde 1980, Going it alone, first without Portugal, then without Guinea Bissau

Cape Verde was thrust into independence after the carnation revolution in Portugal. There had been no organized independence movement. That was okay, nearby Portuguese Guinea was chock full of an organized independence movement, mainly staffed by imigrants from Cape Verde. Until now independent Guinea Bissou noticed it was being run by Cape Verdeans. 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 a small cargo ship, the Boavista, that is flagged to the merchant ship fleet of Cape Verde. At the time of this stamp the ship was less than 10 years old and so definitely useful to an archepeligo of many islands. The ship still exists, still in Cape Verde, but no longer leaves port.

Todays stamp is issue A49 a 9 Escudo stamp issued by Cape Verde on November 30th, 1980. It was part of a six stamp isue in various denominations the displayed the ships of Cape Verde. According to the Scott catalog, the stamp is worth 75 cents cancelled to order.

Cape Verde had a few prosperous periods under Portuguese rule but it never lasted. First were the sugar cane plantations founded by many Portuguese Jewish expatriots that were  no longer welcome in Portugal at the time of the inquisition. This brought in many west African slaves. As with so many other places, whatever prosperity ended with the end of the slave trade in 1867. Portugal tried without much luck to get the former slaves to move to other Portuguese African colonies to continue plantation work. The location of Cape Verde in the Atlantic sea lanes made it a useful coal refueling stop for mainly British ships. This brought dockwork jobs but also soon ended. What didn’t end were the frequent drought conditions on the desert islands with the resulting famines.

Cape Verdeans were treated better than nearby Bissau. Literacy was at 25% compared with 5% in Bissau. Cape Verdians often then took some of the better jobs open to blacks. One of these was telegraph operator Aristides Pereira. Him and other Cape Verdans became central to the independence movement. The movement started peacefully with strikes but soon got violent and the leaders like  Pereira lead the armed stuggle from exile in Conarcky , former French Guinea. Cape Verde remained quiet. Portugal had to maintain an army of 30,000 in desperately poor Bissau to maintain control. This would be 80% of Portugal’s army today. Young left wing officers of the Portuguese Army overthrew the elected government of Portugal in the Carnation Revolution in 1974 and quickly granted African colonies like Bissau and Cape Verde independence. With no independence movement Bissau resident Pereira became President at age 52. He hadn’t lived in Cape Verde since he was 23. Bissau now independent, also had a Cape Verdean expatriate as President.

Both were left wing and both intended at some point for the two countries to join. Native Cape Verdeans were lighter colored reflecting their more mixed heritage. This soon became a problem in Bissau as the people wondered how there could be one party rule when all the higher ups were of lighter skin. In 1981 there was a coup where the Cape Verdeans were removed from power. Suddenly Pereira would be going it alone as President on Cape Verde. What else could he do, there was no longer any need for telegraph operators in Bissau. Eventually the international community forced multi party elections and the opposition won. They had no success either and the next election was decided by 12 votes. Better not add the option of none of the above. The famines are at least over as both Cape Verde and Bissau are totally dependant on world food aid. The main export is the people, with 500,000 in the USA, 150,000 in Portugal. and 30,000 in Holland. The islands themselves still contain 500,000. Unless they can get the Boavista back to sea?

Well my drink is empty so I will await tomorrow when there will be a new story that can be learned from stamp collecting.

Categories
Uncategorized

Brazil 1932, 400 years since Portugal sent de Souza to keep people away from their brazil trees

Forestry in Brazil is almost a dirty work. It brings to mind slash and burn types destroying the Amazon rain forest and by extension contributing to climate change. This image may trace back all the way back to the founding of Brazil around 1600. 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 series recognizes the 400th anniversary of the voyage of Martim Afonso de Souza who sailed from Portugal with 400 to get a more formal colony going in the previously discovered and claimed for Portugal territory of Brazil. The need to get things more formal was not a gold rush but a textile dye rush. The name Brazil should of course have given that away if I was more literate. The stamp issue shows it’s modernity in one of the stamp showing a native guide that helped the Portuguese. This was before political correctness meant that the native counts more than the explorer. A student today will hear more about Sacagawea than Lewis and Clark. She was the native wife of the cook of that expedition. I guess the discussion of indigenous people’s great explorers would be embarrassingly short. Such is life.

The stamp today is issue A102, a 200 Reis stamp issued by independent Brazil on June 3rd, 1932. It was a 5 stamp issue in various denominations displaying various aspects of the 1632 expedition. According to the Scott catalog, the stamp is worth 40 cents used.

Brazil was spotted by Portuguese explorers quite early but in 1600 the Portuguese landed and claimed the area for the King of Portugal. The first Portuguese did not establish colonial settlements but lived with and integrated with the indigenous people. This was a persistent problem for Portugal and one they eventually enlisted the Jesuits to help solve. See https://the-philatelist.com/2017/11/10/remember-the-divine-duty-of-empire/ . There was however a rush on for a dye to use in textiles. Sappanwood is common in South East Asia and was imported very expensively to Europe to make red and pink dyes. When a similar brazilwood tree was discovered by the Portuguese there was a rush on. Not all the participants in the rush were Portuguese, so the decision was taken to send a new expedition to formalize settlement and the colony. The work extracting the brazilwood extract was done by natives who then traded it to the Portuguese in exchange for things like axes and mirrors.

Brazilwood tree. Endangered, but good for red dye and violin bows. Amazing what people will rush for

Martim Afonso de Souza had 400 men and set up shop in what now is Sao Paulo. He became the first colonial governor and Brazil became the name of the colony after the tree. De Souza already held the Portuguese title of Fidalgo, a great title that means literally the Son of Someone. Bet that made him stand out. The expedition ran out of steam at the river Plate, when they suffered a ship wreck and so Argentina is not a province of Brazil. It made a difference, notice the Portuguese colonies stuck together while Spanish ones splintered. Imagine all Latin America one country, a super power or giant ….hole? Perhaps both? Hmmm.

Fidalgo de Souza was not finished going far and wide for Portugal. He later went to India where he founded the city of Diu. He was named again colonial governor of Portuguese India. and the fort at Dui fought off successfully Persians and Mughals, Arabs and even Dutch. Diu eventually declined in importance relative to Bombay but the Portuguese managed to hold on to it until 1961. India then attacked it, can’t have an Indian Macau.

Forestry is still big business in Brazil but not the brazil tree, which is endangered. Now it is mainly pine. Brazil still has ample forests and most forestry is now done with sustainability in mind.

Well my drink is empty and I will pour another to toast the colonial expedition. No more of those, except maybe to Mars. Come again tomorrow for another story that can be learned from stamp collecting.

Categories
Uncategorized

Prussia 1861, Taking over Germany until Prussia gets taken over by Germany

Prussia was the German state most in charge of bringing together Germany. You see the overprint regarding decimalization of the currency for the upcoming North German Confederation. What you might not know is how Prussia was later coopted by Germany later using that old tradition of the political putsch. 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.

Prussia was not grandiose on their stamps like say Bavaria. Instead a generic German eagle. The North German Confederation replaced the Prussian stamps and dispensed with the eagle. They had several currencies on the same stamp and so their design tried to highlight which currency the stamp was in. Well at least they modernized with perforations The mechanics of coming together are often inelegant, as the EU would itself discover.

Todays stamp is issue A7, a 3 Silbergroshen stamp issued by Prussia in 1861. It was a 6 stamp issue in varios denominations and currencies. This is the early currency overprinted for use with the decimilized currency introduced in 1867. According to the Scott catalog, the stamp is worth $8.75 unused. The catalog is silent on what the overprint adds to the value, but I am going out on a limb and say not enough.

Prussia managed Germany coming together pretty fast in the 1860s. There was a war with Austria that victory allowed the coming together of the North German Confederation. The Confederation was 80% Prussian but allowed outsized representation of the smaller states in the Bundesrat in exchange for recognition of the Prussian Monarch as head of state. Southern Germany joined after success in the Franco-Prussian War of 1870 and the prospect of all the French reparations due afterwards. Key to the early success was Chancellor Bismarck, who managed to be seen as a conservative figure  who still did so much to improve the lot of the average German.

Prussia did not in fact do so well under the German state. Much land was lost to allow for the recreation of Poland after World War I. The military loss discredited the Prussian military/aristocratic system that was such a foundation  of Prussian strength. The Kaiser was in exile in Holland. Prussia was now run  by leftist Otto Braun. He had worked a strong coalition of center parties that kept communists and nazis marginalized. What he was not able to do was bring the Prussian part of Germany out of the economic hole it was in. Without that, how do you restore a sense of pride or purpose.

Otto Braun

So the system was rigged to keep Braun in but without success. The end came for Prussia came much faster than Germany coming together 70 years before. Their was a bloody Sunday in Altona in Prussia were Communists and Nazis thugs fought in the street. Prussian police shot and killed 18 of them on both sides. German Chancellor Franz von Papen then used emergency powers to have Braun removed from office and von Papen himself given the extra title of head of Prussia. This then went to court which decided that von Papen had to leave Braun’s cabinet in place but was correct to throw out Braun. Braun went off to exile in Switzerland and barely a year later von Papen was essentially exiled by the Nazis when they made him Ambassador to first Austria and then Turkey. Hermann Goring was named head or Prussia, now completely ceremonial.

Franz von Papen in his old age when he was always ready to defend his actions from all comers

Braun offered himself up to the Russians post war to restart a Prussian German state, the small sliver of old Prussia still in Germany. Braun was denied, there was to be no more Prussian state.

Well my drink is empty and I am left wondering what would have became of Prussia had it not put Germany over all. Come again tomorrow for another story that can be learned from stamp collecting.

 

ar Arabiczh-CN Chinese (Simplified)nl Dutchen Englishfr Frenchde Germanit Italianpt Portugueseru Russianes Spanish
en English