The Azores are a group of volcanic islands well off Portugal, and islands in the middle of a big ocean become useful in wartime. 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 surprising thing about this stamp is how much it is treated as just another far off trading post of the Portuguese Empire. A standard empire stamp overprinted Azores. This does not represent the differences from other colonies. The main one was that the people are actually ethnically Portuguese. It was though a sparsely populated island in the middle of the Atlantic. It is understandable that the administration thus resembles a colony.
The stamp today is issue PP1, a one centavo parcel post stamp issued by Portugal for use in the Azores in 1921. It is part of a 17 stamp issue in various denominations. According to the Scott catalog, the stamp is worth 50 cents in it’s mint condition. There are mistakes of this stamp where the Azores overprint is inverted. That would make the stamp worth $6.00. My stamp has the overprint in the correct way. I must say that if I found an obscure stamp from a far off place that is nearly 100 years old with an inverted overprint, I would be very disappointed with a value of $6. In a sane world that would be the kind of stamp that should put me on easy street.
The Azores was discovered early by the Portuguese but it took a while to send colonists. There were no indigenous peoples. It became a place to go for rivals of the Portuguese government or Portuguese Jews that were fleeing the Catholic Inquisition that happened in Portugal as well as Spain.
The islands however became quite lucrative to Portugal during World War II. At first the right of center government of Salazar allowed German shipping and submarines to refuel there. During 1943, with German war fortunes on the decline, German rights in the Azores were rescinded and a new deal was struck with the British. The Americans quickly followed leasing a large piece of land and constructing an airbase. This airbase got rid of the gap where the allied Atlantic convoys had to operate without air cover. The airbase is still used by the Americans. During the cold war, it was ready to perform a similar function as during World War II. Even in the post cold war period, the base has proved useful for American aircraft transiting from the USA to the middle east.
In 1974 there was a carnation coup by young army officers that sought to end the military commitments necessary to hold on to Portuguese colonies. Azores was allowed to stay affiliated with Portugal, but was reorganized as an autonomous region. The opening of air links has allowed a great rise in tourism in the peaceful temperate islands. In recent years it has begun again to issue commemorative stamps.
The people of the Azores, while Portuguese, developed somewhat independently and became expert in fishing. Communities of fisherman Azorean immigrants can be found in Newfoundland, New England, Brazil, and even San Diego and Hawaii.
Well my drink is empty and so I will open the conversation in the below comment section. Come again tomorrow for another story that can be learned from stamp collecting.