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Wish Rondon was still here to accomplish another great project

Welcome readers to todays offering from The Philatelist. 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. We have an interesting story to tell about how the energy behind big progressive projects can sap away.

Todays stamp is from Brazil from perhaps the pinnacle of Brazilian postage in the early seventies. Almost every stamp was about a new dam, a new industry, and in this case the Rondon project, a new project to provide water to the interior regions of Brazil. Almost every stamp in Brazil today is the 200th anniversary of this or that. Still interesting, but lacking a certain optimism about the future. The early seventies also saw an improvement in the color and quality of printing of Brazil’s stamps. All in all, The-Philatelist declares the seventies the golden era of Brazilian stamps, at least to date.

The stamp today is issue A638 a 50 centavo stamp issued by Brazil on May 5th, 1970. It was a single stamp issue with a map of Brazil stylized to emphasize water resources. According to the Scott catalog, it is worth $3.00 cancelled.

Marshal Rondon was tasked in the Brazilian army with laying telegraph lines in the interior of Brazil around the turn of the 20th century. This involved a lot of map making and first contact with Indian tribes in the interior. That the contact with the Indians went well was a major boon to the project, although Marshal Rondon was once caught with a poisoned arrow. Rondon was a member of a small religion called Positivist that came out of the teachings of the French philosopher Comte. They believed that human progress would gradually transform the earth into a paradise without anything supernatural involved. In later years Rondon took up projects to advance the conditions of Indians even leading to Brazil’s first Indian reservation. He was recognized as a hero leading him to be awarded the rarely granted army rank of Marshal.

After his death, Rondon was named in many memorials. There are also the Rondon projects of which I came across several. Brazil invokes his name on big projects that involve raising the standards in rural areas. In the case of todays stamp, it was a project to provide water for agriculture in rural areas. This would be very controversial today as the cost in terms of deforestation and loss of natural habitats is more seriously cosidered. There is little mention of this project today so I think it is safe to assume it was not successful. There was another Rondon project that involved setting up educational academies in rural areas to bring up the standards of education. Much online about this is forming alumni groups of graduates of the academies. From this it is reasonable to assume that some education actually took place. One does get a sense though that men like Rondon  are missed because the system that put together todays great projects never seem to have measurable results, just big bills. In Rondon’s day, the telegraph messages had to get through before he was celebrated.

Well my drink is empty so it time to open up the discussion in the below comment section. Could Rondon have made his later namesake projects work if he had been around to lead them? Come again tomorrow for another story that can be learned from stamp collecting.

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A trading post in the land of good people, what could go wrong

Welcome readers to todays offering from The Philatelists. 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. Today we wrestle with when a trading post stops benefiting everybody.

The stamp is an issue of Portuguese Africa. The individual colony, in this case Inhambane, is then printed on. Then there is a further overprint which announces republica. In 1910 A republic was declared in Portugal. Then an overprint of a new currency from 1913. The strange part of this is that the underlying stamp celebrates an anniversary from 1898. The post office in Inhambane must have had slow sales to be still pushing the same stamp 15 years after the original issue. Inhambane is located in present day Mozambique which did something similar. In 1975, independence was declared and the new post office sold issues of the colony dating back to 1953 with a new overprint celebrating the independent republic. Perhaps they were new printings but I suspect the post office just had a huge, old inventory.

The stamp today is issue CD25, a seven and one half centavo overprint for Inhambane in 1913 of a Portuguese Africa stamp from 1898.  The original denomination of the stamp was 75 Reis, the earlier currency. The stamp celebrates the 400th anniversary of the voyage of the explorer Vasco de Gama. This was part of an eight stamp issue. According to the Scott catalog, the stamp is worth $2.00 mint. The stamp to look for in the set is the one with the inverted overprint of the new denomination. It is worth $35. There are also versions or this issue with the Inhambane overprint on stamps of Macao and Timor. other Portuguese colonies that got the Vasco de Gama issue.

Inhambane was discovered by Vasco de Gamma in 1498 as it says on the stamp. de Gama landed seeking supplies and labeled the area a “Land of good people.” This catch phrase is still used for the area today. It was already an active trading post with Arab and Persian traders arriving in the 11th century. Trade routes had developed from the interior routing ivory, gold and slaves to the trading post. For the most part the traders, including the Portuguese did not venture much in to the interior. Instead tribute was paid to local chiefs.  Over time, many of the traders were ethnic Indians and Chinese from the Asian Portuguese colonies. Portugal did not feel the need to formalize the colony of Mozambique with protected borders until Britain occupied neighboring Rhodesia. By then the present day capital/port of Maputo had greater economic and administrative importance. The last Inhambane stamp was from 1917 although the city and province retain the name today.

In theory the idea of these sort of international cities/trading posts make a lot of sense. Trading after all benefits all and allows the interior lands to be left to there own to develop in their own way. In old movies such places seem such romantic oasis’s of spies, quick money, and intrigue. To look at the list of what was traded requires one to give additional thought.  Some of this is just modern eyes looking back criticaly, but the trade going on would seem to dirty many hands.

Well my drink is empty and so it is time to open the conversation in the below comment section. Often the incorporation of trading post cities in to the surrounding country leads to their decline. This is the case with present day Inhambane. Should they have been kept international? Come again tomorrow for another story that can be learned from stamp collecting.

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A long ago symbol of a Great Poland, in a new Poland, before Germany knocks it down

Welcome readers to todays offering from The Philatelist. 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. We have an interesting story to tell of an old column lifting high a statue of a king of a defunct empire, now important in a new country. So important that the Nazis knocked it down.

Poland was a new country in the 1920s. Their early stamp offerings are not particularly impressive to the international collector. The paper is cheap and the drawings are undistinguished. The column on this stamp changed with a fountain and fence removed soon after the stamp but the drawing is so bad, I can’t tell the difference.

The stamp today is issue A40, a 10 Groszy stamp issued in 1925-1927 by Poland. It is part of an 11 stamp issue that show various monuments around Poland. This stamp shows the Sigismund Column in Warsaw. The stamp is worth 25 cents cancelled according to the Scott catalog.

After the reformation of Poland as a result of the Versailles Treaty there was much fighting. The Soviets wanted to dominate Poland in the hopes that Lenin could then link up with Communists in Germany as part of a worldwide revolution. Ukraine wanted to solidify independence from the Soviets and Poland wanted greater territory at the expense of Ukraine and Lithuania. The Poles had some success militarily against the Soviets and the peace treaty partitioned Ukraine and angered the Ukrainians and Lithuanians.

The victory left the Poles proud but poor and it is understandable why old symbols of an ancient and great Poland became so important. The King on the Column, Sigismund II, had ruled Poland, Lithuania, Sweden and fought wars for the Catholic Church hoping to convert the Duchy of Moscow  from Orthodox and succeeding in pushing the Ottomans from Moldavia. The statue and column were erected 1n 1644 by Sigismund’s son King Wladyslaw IV to celebrate the moving of the Polish empires capital to Warsaw from Krakow. It was cast by Italians in the style of several similar monuments in Italy. This was a time of greater travel and the Polish King had experienced the artistic explosion of Italy while studying there in his youth.

During World War II, Poland was invaded by Germany and Russia, partitioned with Warsaw under German control. The column survived the 1939 destruction around it. In 1944 as the Russian army approached Warsaw, there was a rebellion by a mostly Jewish group that was brutally repressed by the Germans. The group of rebels was not controlled by the Polish government in exile, nor the communists that the Soviets intended to install. A cynical decision was made to let the Germans crush the rebellion. During this Sigismund’s Column was destroyed and the statue at the top was heavily damaged and siting on the ground. The Poles post war had a new granite column done and the statue was repaired and stands today.

Well my drink is empty and so it is time to open the conversation in the below comment section. Lately there has been a movement to be rid of older statues as they mean nothing to the current more diverse population. Are the old statues worth keeping? I won’t surprise anyone that I think so. Come again tomorrow for another story that can be learned from stamp collecting.

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Not a country long enough to get the stamp issued

Welcome readers to todays offering from The Philatelist. 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. We have an interesting story to tell of a country that did not last long enough to get it’s first issue of stamps out, but of course that does not mean that they were not sold to collectors.

The stamp looks like a cross between a Russian and an Austrian stamp. The Russian lettering show the former and the decent quality of the lithograph the later. I suspect it was printed in Vienna. The issuer was to be the People’s Republic of the Ukraine, but the countries independence ended when Ukraine became a Soviet Republic

I can’t give you an issue number as the set this stamp was a part of was never issued officially. There were 14 stamps of various denominations printed in 1920 and the entire set in mint condition is worth $5.00. There are no cancelled copies. There are apparently a lot of printer mistakes and variations with off center or even inverted central pictures. No doubt the stamp dealers of the time got extra for these but there is no stated value to them now. Scott catalog may want to do more research on this. Now that Ukraine is independent, it may be a new market for these stamps. There also may be a market in Russia and Poland, where the instability of the early days of the 1917 revolution must be an interesting time for local history buffs and philatelists.

Ukraine petitioned the last white Russian government for self rule and this was granted and a peoples republic was declared under Ukrainian historian Hrushevsky. This was a coalition government of Communists, Poles, Jews, and White Russians. Events overtook this government when the Communists came to power and sued for peace with the Kaiser’s Germany. The peace treaty accepted Ukraine’s independence and the Germans/Austrians set up a  Hetman, head of state, royal government with a Czarist general PP Shoropadsky as the new king/ hetman. The German/Austrian surrender in November 1918 was the end of him and he went into exile in Germany.

A new peoples republic was declared but by now chaos and foreign intervention was the rule of the day. Soviets were invading to bring Ukraine into the Soviet Union. organized anarchists were mostly on there side. There was a Ukraine army which fought to stay independent aided by White Russians, French, and Americans. The American interest was in a weaker Soviet Union and in the plight of the Jews in the Ukraine. Also newly independent Poland invaded to try to bring Ukraine into Poland so a bigger country could better withstand being between Soviet Union and Germany. Kiev, the capital of the Ukraine, changed hands 5 times during a one year period. The chaos became so great that people left the cities for the countryside looking for food.

The Soviets had won this war by late 1920 and signed a treaty with Poland dividing Ukraine with Poland. The Soviet part becoming The Soviet republic of Ukraine. This lasted till 1992. Interestingly though this stamp was not issued the former Ukraine government went into exile in Warsaw, Poland and planned to reinvade. Part of that planning was a new stamp issue to issue once back in Ukraine. The invasion plans amounted to nothing, but this issue of stamps from 1923 also of course made it to collectors. Amazing how that works.

Well my drink is empty and so it is time to open up the conversation in the below comment section. Does anybody recognize the statue on the stamp? It does not appear to be the famous Ukrainian statue with the swords or the later Cubist statue of the early Communist that was also on a hillside. I am stumpted. Come again tomorrow for another story that can be learned from stamp collecting.

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Hey this is a historic site, when we get around to it, we should fix it up

Welcome readers to todays offering from The Philatelist. 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. We have an interesting story to tell of when a country, through it’s stamps, signals a future desire.

The stamp today is from Latin America and it shows very strongly on this stamp. Dominican Republic after all sits on Hispaniola, Spain’s Island. Christopher Columbus himself gave it that name. But there is more to the country than Spain and perhaps that explains why the historic site on the stamp was in ruins.

The stamp today is issue A29, a one half centavo stamp issued in 1928. It displays the ruins of the Alcazar de Colon. This was an 8 stamp issue in various denominations and colors all displaying the same view. The stamp is worth 35 cents used. The stamp in this issue to look out for is the mint 1 peso, which is worth $35.

Christopher Columbus landed on Hispaniola in 1492 claiming the island for Spain. There were some Indians already there but life was very difficult in the new colony and few Indians survived the early days. The tobacco and sugar production required much labor and the King of Spain authorized the importation of large numbers of black slaves to be imported from Africa. This was also being done by the French settlements on the western half of the island. Soon Blacks and those of mixed race were the majority in the whole island. The decline of empire lead to Spain and France to give up trying to hold on to colonies in Hispaniola in the early 19th century. The newly freed French speaking back Haitians conquered the Spanish settlements and for 20 years ruled the whole island. This did not work well, the Haitian constitution did not allow white people to own land and the government tried to force the growing of only export cash crops that tanked the economy. Spanish settlers rebelled and were able to regain the eastern half of the island then known mainly as Santo Domingo. They tried to obtain protectorate status from the USA, Spain, Great Britain, and France. They were offering a natural port in return for the protection.

Spain agreed to this in the 1860s during the American civil war but this did not go well either. They announced the intention to reintroduce slavery which to say the least did not go over well with the majority black population. The rejuvenated Catholic Church also tried to stamp out the rampant out of wedlock relationships. Spanish rule was short lived. What followed were a string of strongman leaders,  most of Spanish decent that ruled with increasing help of the USA. The white population grew as new arrivals from Cuba and the Canary Islands came in. The blacks and the mixed race peoples are divided by those of Spanish, French, and English, with some of the latter arriving from British islands nearby to work on ships, railroads and sugar mills. The economy today is mainly tourism and remittances from the many Dominicans in the USA.

The ruins on the stamp, Alcazar de Colon, are quite historic. It was constructed under the son of Christopher Columbus as the colonial governor’s mansion. The architecture of Spain at that time had a strong flavor of the Moors in Spain and that was reflected in the stone structure. The mansion was sacked by Francis Drake in 1586 and the place was under slow decline until by the early 20th century it was a ruin. This is what is depicted on the stamp. In the late 1950s, a particularly long lasting strong man named Trujillo, got to work restoring the site. The reconstruction was only about half the size of the original but a collection of European art and tapestries were acquired to display in it. It is now a UNESCO historic site and the busiest museum in Santo Domingo.

Well my drink is empty and so it is time to open up the conversation in the below comment section. The struggle between the peoples of various ethnic heritages over centuries in the Dominican Republic shows the banality of the original decision by the Spanish King Ferdinand to import slaves into the colonies. I doubt he considered it a big decision at the time. Come again tomorrow for another story that can be learned from stamp collecting.

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Queen Victoria, India, philatelic definately, stamp not exactly

Welcome readers to todays offering from The Philatelist. 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 We have an interesting story to tell of excitement, disappointment, and redemption when we consider the definition of philatelic.

I was very excited when I spotted this stamp. Queen Victoria is such a long ago figure that to see her on a stamp raises my interest. On the throne for so many years and at the height of Empire. I may get some push back on that with the American colonies breaking away 1776-1781. In 1857, however there was a rebellion among the soldiers hired by the British East India Company that caused present day India, Pakistan, and Bangladesh to be brought more directly under British rule, the Raj. The population and economic clout that this brought in was beyond the relative few Colonials and Native Americans lost in North America.

During the period of the British Raj, there was a lot of institution building. Educational, judicial, economic, and military institutions were constructed closely following the British model. These were lead by British appointees, but over time  local Indians began to fill out the ranks of the systems. A large railway system and public works projects were also funded.

As you can imagine, this worked well for people with connections, but the vast majority of the large peasant population was still very poor. There were periodic deadly famines as late as 1943 only a few years before independence.  The taxes imposed by colonial masters required forced labor to satisfy.

There became a feeling in the population of what they called swaraj. The desire for self rule. There were divisions as to whether the British founded institutions should be continued or whether anything not local should be discarded. There was also divisions between the Hindu majority, and the Muslim minority. For the most part, the British institutions were retained but with less and then no British involvement and Pakistan broke away taking many of the Muslims. Today India is the worlds largest democracy and is very close to the worlds largest population with well over a billion people.

That brings us back to this stamp. I was excited by the high denomination in the hopes that it would be an expensive stamp. 2 Rupees 8 annas was quite a bit of money under Victoria, much more than to mail a letter. On closer inspection, this stamp does not appear to involve postage in India. Rather I believe it signifies the paying of a government fee. Perhaps on a legal document or even on a bottle of alcohol. Probably not worth much. But still philately. Remember the root of the word that was taken to mean stamp collecting in the 19th century. Going back to the ancient Greek, they constructed a word that means the lover of prepaid government fees. Well I count myself as such a lover, so how can I resist Queen Victoria and the chance to debate the merits of the British Raj.

Post script. I reached out to Mr. Sandeep Jaiswal from stampsinc.com to see if he had any idea what I was looking at. He proved his expertise by quickly identifying the stamp as a telegraph stamp Stanley Gibbons Type T19 or T25 depending on watermark. The straight cut line at the bottom is because the stamp is placed on the telegram so the top half stays with the sender and the bottom half goes to the receiver. The high cost of sending a telegram is reflected in the denomination which in this issue could go as high as 50 rupees. The issue dated from 1868-1882 and as such is the oldest stamp I have covered to date. Alas it is not uncommon, people hold on to telegrams. The Stanley Gibbons catalog puts the value between 1.75 and 2.00 pounds depending on the watermark. Thanks again Sandeep!

Well my drink is empty and so it is time to open up the discussion in the below comment section. Come again tomorrow for another story that can be learned from stamp collecting.

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Well we think we are independent, we have a constitution, a flag, and Austrian stamps

Welcome readers to todays offering from The Philatelist. 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. We have an interesting story to tell of locals seizing an opportunity and holding out just long enough for world opinion to force the hand of the colonial power.

The stamp today is a very well done virtually real stamp from 1949. An American stamp from the same year would not be nearly so well printed. While the stamp says Republik Indonesia, as of the day of issue the area was still officially the Dutch East Indies. The rebellion had contracted with printers in Vienna, note Wein in small letters on the bottom, to print stamps. They were to be mainly marketed by an American stamp dealer named Proofs. A few of the stamps made it to Indonesia and were sold for postage but cancelled copies are so rare that the Scott catalog has not enough data to set a value.

The stamp is issue C24, a 75 sen air mail stamp issued by the rebel forces in Dutch East Indies on August 17th, 1949. It is part of a 13 stamp issue in various denominations celebrating the Indian flown airplanes that were ignoring the Dutch blockade and bringing supplies to rebel held areas. The stamp shows a rebel sentry and a DC4 airliner over Lake Toba in Sumatra. According to the Scott catalog, the stamp is worth 95 cents. There are later overprints of these stamps celebrating actual independence and these are worth less.

Holland expended a great deal of effort in a failed bid to hold on to their Dutch East India colony. While the rule had become slightly less repressive with less peasant forced labor and more educational opportunities, independence movements were dealt with harshly and rebellious leaders like future president Sukarno spent much time in jail. At the time World War II broke out there were three active rebellions against the Dutch. One centered on Islam, one Communist, one centered on Indonesian nationalism lead by Sukarno. Sukarno was charismatic and spoke many indies dialects as well as Dutch, English, French, and Japanese. He had been well educated in Dutch schools When Japan invaded the Dutch East Indies they released Sukarno from jail and encouraged him to rally the people in favor of the Japanese war effort. He did so and during Japanese occupation he was allowed to head a group of Indonesians to work on the formation of an independent Indonesia. This group wrote a constitution and Japan was preparing to recognize Indonesian independence when the atomic bomb was dropped on Japan and they surrendered. Sukarno then got to work, he personally proclaimed independence and got most of the Japanese occupiers to turn over their arms to the new Indonesia. Quickly the Dutch administration reappeared from exile with a brigade of the British Indian army and took the biggest city Jakarta. They rearmed Dutch POWs held by the Japanese.

At first there was no fighting and the Indonesians helped the British and the Dutch get the surrendered Japanese soldiers home. Sukarno was at the time wooing the west. He understood there was much anticolonial sentiment in the west and he had ingratiated himself somewhat by respecting all religions in the 1945 constitution, excluding sharia law. He also without western help put down communist rebels within  his movement. The Dutch sent more troops and fighting broke out with Sukarno’s forces being pushed from much of the country. The Dutch  had many casualties however and America was against them, threatening to cut off Marshall Plan aid if independence was not granted. The Dutch yielded late in 1949 and independent Indonesia was recognized with Sukarno the first President.

I know this stamp seemed a little fake at the time of issue. This stamp so well reflects the history of the time that any resurgence of stamp collecting in Indonesia  could see a big  run up in the value of the stamp. The stamps printed in Vienna were very attractive and did a great job showing off the birth of the nation. Indonesia is a populous nation with many well off people. How could any patriotic Indonesian stamp collector not have these stamps in their collection. Get them while they are still cheap!

Well, my drink is empty and so it is time to open up the discussion in the below comment section. Come again tomorrow for another story that can be learned from stamp collecting.

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Happy Thanksgiving!

I wanted to wish everybody the best on Thanksgiving. I could not find a turkey, the animal, stamp but I thought this one fit nicely. It is issue A663 and reminds us that on Thanksgiving and every day we should be thankful of God’s bounty while remembering those less fortunate.

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Building a University to try to turn Germans French

Welcome readers to todays offering from The Philatelist. 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. We have an interesting story to tell about how France tried gently to build a barrier with Germany.

The stamp today looks like what it is. A German stamp that is under a large amount of French influence. So you see German language on a stamp with paper and currency resembling the French. The library building, in the modern mid century Euro style even gives a sense of the coming Euro integration.

This is issue A72, a 30 Saar Franc stamp issued by the Saar, now the German state of Saarland, in 1953. It is part of a 14 stamp issue depicting local architecture. This stamp features the University Library of Saarland University. According to the Scott catalog it is worth 95 cents used. The 500 franc stamp from this issue is worth $65 used, so that is one to look out for.

The Saar is most famous for being taken from Germany after World War I. France was desirous of a barrier with Germany and the area contained rich deposits of coal from which to pay reparations. A plebiscite in the Saar was won by the side favoring reunification with Germany and this was achieved in 1935.

After World War II, again France desired the Saar. The USA stated that after being invaded by Germany three times in 70 years they could not deny France it’s ambitions in the Saar. The area was considered separate from the French occupied zone of post war West Germany.

France set out to turn Saar French despite the people being ethnic German. French was taught in the schools and a Saar version of the French Franc replaced the German Mark. Relating directly to this stamp, a new university was founded under French leadership that would teach in both French and German. This sounds like mild stuff and West Germany agreed in 1952 that Saar could remain outside of West Germany easing toward independence and part of Franco-German industrial cooperation that was the beginning of the long project of European integration. Indeed a early version of the twelve star Euro flag had 15 stars with one representing an independent Saar.

The will of the people was again allowed to hold sway. Another election favored integration with Germany and this was accomplished in 1959. With that came the end of the Saar version of the French Franc and the end of stamps from the Saar. Saarland today is one of the smaller German states but also one of the most conservative and religious.

The Saarland University still exists and the international character of the institution has served it very well in attracting a large international student community. The library building on the stamp is still in use.

Well my drink is empty and so it is time to open up the conversation in the below comment section. Compared to some of the ethnic cleansing that seems so common in the Balkans and elsewhere, the failed French effort in the Saar seem mild and almost friendly. Come again tomorrow for another story that can be learned from stamp collecting.

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The King is back, lets buy him a yacht!

Welcome readers to todays offering from The Philatelist. 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. We have an interesting story to tell of an elected King of a new country who then has to figure out how to come back after 5 years in exile while his adopted country suffered under the Nazis.

The stamp today is Scandinavian from the 1940s. has such the picture on the stamp is formal and the green color is muted. A closer look will reveal filigree and a coat of arms. Overall not an impressive effort, but perhaps the intent was to establish presence but be inoffensive.

Today’s stamp is issue A54, a 1 Krone stamp issued on June 7th, 1946 by Norway. The stamp honors King Haakon VII. It was part of a four stamp issue in various colors and denominations. The Scott catalog lists the value of the stamp as 25 cents in it’s cancelled state. In this issue the stamp to look for is a mint copy of the henna brown 2 Krone. It is worth $60.

In 1905 Norway ended it’s union with Sweden and set out among European royals to start a new royal family of the new country. Prince Carl, the second son of the King of Denmark was approached, as his family had some ties to Norway. He also already had a male heir and his wife Maud was the youngest daughter of British King Edward VII. Before Carl agreed to take the throne, he requested an election to make sure that Norway truly wanted to be a kingdom. He easily won the election making him an unusual elected King. He took the old Norwegian name Haakon. In the 30s, he proved himself above politics by rejecting advise not to allow a communist prime minister to form a government after winning an election. He stated he was also the King of the communists.

World War II came to Norway and the Germans demanded that the King recognize Quisling, the Norwegian national socialist as prime minister. King Haakon’s brother, the King of Denmark had made a similar agreement with the Germans.  The existing government and gold supply had escaped and met to discuss what to do. The King advised that Quisling not be recognized and the government agreed. He stated that if they chose Quisling he would have abdicated. After a few months resistance and neutral Sweden refusing to take him. The British government evacuated the Norwegian government to Britain at a steep price. The aircraft carrier HMS Glorious and 2 destroyers were sunk at the loss of over 1500 British officers and men. King Haakon made speeches broadcast to Norway from exile. The Quisling government demanded the King abdicate but he refused citing the request had come from a government in distress.

King Haakon VII returned to Norway in victory soon after VE Day and reigned until his death in 1957. In celebration a voluntary subscription was taken up to purchase a new yacht for the King, an avid sailor. A British yacht was purchased, upgraded, and given the name Norge. The yacht still serves Haakon’s grandson, Harald the current King of Norway. In 2007 the Norge sailed the southern coast of Norway in company with the Danish royal yacht Dannebrog to celebrate the seventieth birthdays of the Queen of Denmark, the King of Norway and the seventieth birthday of the ship itself.

Well my drink is empty and so it is time to open the conversation in the below comment section. Come again tomorrow for another story that can be learned from stamp collecting