Tag: Brazil stamp

Something happened funny when researching this stamp. Searching for International tourism year 1967 got me to one of my own articles. That has never happened before. So as you read todays offering, imagine me delivering it with a smile. 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.

Many countries issued stamps for International Tourism Year. Brazil’s is among the most whimsical. In the 1940s a grand new Avenue in Rio, Avenida Presidente Vargas, was made the new home for Carnival and showed off the best of Brazil old and new. The idea of international tourism year was to encourage people to travel more far and wide. There was a secondary goal of teaching the new recipients of tourists that it was their duty to be friendly and protective hosts. Brazil showed they were ahead of the pack in that game.

Todays stamp is issue A564, a 10 Centavo stamp issued by Brazil on November 22nd, 1967. It was a single stamp issue for International Tourism Year in 1967. The stamp was also available imbedded in a souvenir sheet with the same design imperforate. According to the Scott catalog, the stamp is worth 25 cents. The souvenir sheet is worth $13.

Carnival was introduced to Brazil by the Portuguese in the 1640s with the first official one in 1723. Though Portugal and indeed Brazil were Catholic, the early feasts and celebration were in thanks for the grape harvest to the ancient God of the grape harvest Dionysus. Over time the celebrations began to include parades of Samba schools. These were neighborhood clubs of Africans drumming, marching, and dancing. They are called schools not because they offered instruction, but instead because they often met in school yards after hours. The fusion of the feast to Dionysus and the Samba parades first happened in Praca Onze, which is sometimes called Big Africa.

The new grand avenue named and designed by President Vargas was opened 1n 1944. This was the opportunity to translate the Carnival into something safer that could be then marketed as reflective of the diverse background of Brazilians. Great move.

Tourism in Brazil is big business. In 2019, the country admitted over 6 million tourists, that was three times the number from 25 years ago. Sorry I could not find the 1960s numbers. Over time the tourist who come have changed. There have been a drop in the numbers from the USA and Europe and the big growth has been people coming from elsewhere in Latin America. Especially hard hit was tourism from Portugal. I will leave it up to the reader if that means the countries are too long apart or not long enough.

Well my drink is empty and I will pour another to toast myself for coming up in the search. I would double toast myself if the article that came up was more pertinent to what I wrote today. Come again soon for another story that can be learned from stamp collecting. First published in 2020.

South America was not exactly a hotbed theater of World War II. On the other hand, what if the USA offered to build you a steel industry and buy whatever you make. That might be worth a meaningless war declaration. After all, as was said in Brazil at the time, snakes will start smoking before the Brazilian army will fight the Germans. Spoiler alert, the snakes smoked. So fill your own pipe and sit back in your most comfortable chair. Welcome to todays offering from The Philatelist.

The poor printing and cheap paper let this stamp a little. They were however printing the stamp themselves. Also doing for themselves, Brazil was repatriating their dead from Italy and re-interring them at home with a proper memorial. That should count for something, quite a bit in my book.

Todays stamp is airmail C104, a 3.30 Cruzeiro stamp issued by Brazil on December 22nd, 1960. It was a single stamp issue. According to the Scott catalog, the stamp is worth 25 cents whether used or unused.

There was a lot of pressure on Brazil to join the war against the axis. One thing against was the sentiment of the elites. They worried a fascist defeat would have the winning force coming for them postwar. USA then dangled the offer of a steel mill and to pay in full for the training and equipping of an expanded Brazil military. First the USA was allowed to station at Brazilian bases. Germany responded by allowing their U boat submarines to target Brazilian shipping. 36 Brazilian flagged merchant ships were sunk with a loss of life of 1691 Brazilian sailors. War was declared. The USA then supplied 3 destroyers and eight frigates to help Brazil combat the U boats. With much American training 6 U boats were sunk near Brazilian waters.

The Brazilian government then set a goal of recruiting, training and equipping 100,000 soldiers to fight in Europe. This became sort of a joke in Brazil. Similar to the American expression “when pigs fly” the expression “when snakes smoke” became common on the idea that Brazil could field a competent force overseas.

The jokes failed to grasp the money and pressure behind the Brazil Expeditionary Force. Two years later, when the outcome of the war was no longer in doubt, 25,000 untrained and unequipped soldiers began landing in already Allied occupied Naples, Italy. At first they had to camp on the docks as no barracks were provided. Further months were required for training but eventually there were Brazilians present in some of the final Italian theater battles. There great success was in accepting German surrenders, over 90,000 including two complete divisions. Regular readers might remember the Trieste stamp from last week of the problems the Germans had surrendering in Italy. I can find no record of a similar double cross by Brazilians to what New Zealand did at Trieste.

There was a huge cost in lives in sending the expeditionary force to Italy. 948 deaths. So did the Allies come for the Brazilian leaders post war as was feared. Well no but ultimately yes. Unelected President Vargas had a 15 year run as dictator from 1930-1945. Elections were then forced on Brazil by the USA. In 1952, Vargas ran on his record of industrialization and being the self proclaimed father of the poor. He won office legitimately in 1952, but as in modern times, the advocates of democracy have a certain outcome in mind, and that wasn’t President Vargas. The USA paid for Brazilian Army forced President Vargas to resign. He signed the paper put before him but later in the day shot himself. Perhaps Brazil should not have accepted the candy and got in the white van with the tear stained mattress..

Well my pipe burned out. Come again for another story that can be learned from stamp collecting.

There has long been an ideal that if there was a common language that all spoke, it would go a long way toward different people solving disputes. Already as a schoolboy L. L. Zamenhof developed what he hoped could be an international language based on his native Yiddish but with a Latin script. He promoted his idea under the pseudonym Dr. Esperanto, which is Russian for doctor who hopes. So slip on your smoking jacket, fill your pipe, take your first sip of your adult beverage, and sit back in your most comfortable chair. Welcome to todays offering from The Philatelist.

It is a little surprising that Brazil decided to honor Dr. Zamenhof with a stamp. The practice of Esperanto in Brazil is centered around an off chute of Catholics called spiritism. This is a little off track from the task of improving the situation of Jewish minorities in eastern Europe. A stamp honoring Esperanto in the Brazil context might be better served by a spiritist such as Chico Xavier.

Todays stamp is issue A434, a 6.5 Cruzeiro stamp isued by Brazil on March 10th, 1960. It was a single stamp issue that came out a year late to properly celebrate the birth century of Dr. Zamenhof. According to the Scott catalog, the stamp is worth 35 cents unused.

Levi Zamenhoff was born in a mainly Jewish city in what was then Russia but is now eastern Poland. In his town were also Russians, Poles, Germans, and Lithuanians that all spoke different languages. Levi saw how many petty disputes escalated because people couldn’t communicate. Levi already as a school boy was a ready scholar of languages and thought he could solve it by making a simplified Yiddish but with a Latin script could be taught to all. This of course would be advantageous to Jews who were usually a minority but were well represented among merchants and professionals who deal with all. They couldn’t be all expected to learn the multiple native tongues. It also, he believed, fit with his pacifist politics. Amazingly, Levi finished his proposal for a common language at age 17.

Levi being too young to get his work published studied to become an eye doctor. He practiced his profession in Lithuania, Austria, and Russia and that reminded him of the common language need. When he married a well off girl named Wanda, Levi was able to convince his new father in law to back the publishing and promotion of his common language. He published under the pseudonym Dr. Esperanto that was quickly taken up as the name for the language. The language quickly found favor with utopian pacifist worldwide that had more than their share of  Yiddish speakers. This fit with Levi'[s political views. He even rebelled against Zionism as he believed nationalism was a disease to be avoided even among oppressed minorities.

One might have expected the language of Esperanto to thrive among international political movements that so dominated the 20th century such as Communism and Fascism. Instead Nazi era Germany banned the teaching of Esperanto despite the many linguistic connections of German and Yiddish. In fact the Nazis executed Levi’s Warsaw based eye doctor son Adam during the Palmiri massacre of prominent Jews and Poles. Soviet leader Stalin decreed a more complete banning of Esperanto declaring it the language of spies and traitors.

Well my drink is empty and I will pour another to toast Levi Zamenhof and all those who did their best work in high school. Come again tomorrow when there will be another story to be learned from stamp collecting.

Power centers can shift in a large country with internal migration and economic change. During this time Sao Paulo was in open rebellion after it’s monopoly on power was removed. 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 celebrates the first century of the small city of Vassouras near Rio. One century sounds like a short time but Vassouras was an older city that harkened back to the days of Empire, before Sao Paulo took center stage.

Todays stamp is issue A112, a 200 Reis stamp issued by the Central government of Brazil on January 15, 1933. That year the rebels in Sao Paulo had their own stamps which were weirdly declared real Brazil stamps after the uprising was put down. This was a single stamp issue. According to the Scott catalog, the stamp is worth 60 cents used.

In the 1880s slavery was abolished and there was a large migration of the newly freed to the south. The economy was also shifting with less emphasis on the sugar cane agriculture up north to coffee production in the south. The Monarchy was also fizzling out with no realistic heir and what replaced it was the new coffee and cream politics centered on fast growing Sao Paulo. Between 1890 and 1930 an informal arrangement was made between the comparatively rich and populous southern states of Sao Paulo and Minas Gerais that former governors of the two states would rotate as President of Brazil. The style of ruling was called coffee and cream politics because of the backing of gentry coffee planters and the creamy whiteness of the politicians.

Change is constant and the early 20th century began to see a growth of a middle class and industry in the cities. These people were to the left of the coffee and creamers that had an electoral lock on the Presidency. In 1930 a new coffee and cream guy was elected but the state refused to inaugurate him. Instead the army appointed former general Getulio Vargas as interim President and suspended the constitution. In 1932 Sao Paulo rebelled demanding a reinstatement of the Constitution and the seating of elected in 1930 coffee and creme guy. In control in Sau Paulo, the Paulites began to march toward the capital then still in Rio.

The Army proved loyal to Vargus and successfully blocked the path to Rio. The Brazilian Navy then began to blockade Sao Paulo preventing the arming of the army the coffee planters had raised with imported heavy weapons. The fight than seemed to shift to the idea of Sao Paulo  breaking away to become independent of Brazil. However the Paulista rebels were badly outnumbered and gave up before the national army reached Sao Paulo.

In 1934, Vargas was elected as President and ruled off and on into the 1950s. His opposition increasingly became hard leftists and facists. This took the form of coup scheme called the Cohen plan. Then there was a Nazi Intregalist coup attempt. Despite surviving all this and being one of Brazil’s longest rulers, Vargas got tired of the fight and killed himself while in office in 1954.

Well my drink is empty and I am now convinced that it is no fun being the President of Brazil. Come again tomorrow for another story that can be learned from stamp collecting.

Brazil was run by a political and military elite from a few coastal cities. The political left saw the masses inland as a potential basis of support and a work around for those entrenched. In the 1950s a visionary leftist President Juscelino Kubitschek, JK, put into practice his gypsy heritage to design a new inland capital Brasilia. more in the image of the Brazil he imagined and where he could control who was there. 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 clever way to get yourself on a stamp. A stamp from your own country while in office makes you look like a dictator. Panama put out a series of stamps showing Western Hemisphere leaders at a Pan American conference in Panama City. Why not pretend the conference was more than a debating society and have Brazil honor the important meeting and it’s gracious Panamanian hosts and their brilliant stamp designers. That way JK gets a stamp during his term. If not for this stamp, JK would have to wait for the new lefty government in 1986 to get another stamp, 10 years after his death.

Todays stamp is issue A373, a 3.30 Cruzeiro stamp issued by Brazil on October 12th 1956. It was a single stamp issue showing a Panama airmail issue of July 18th. According to the Scott catalog, the stamp is worth 30 cents unused. The original Panama stamp is worth 45 cents.

Juscelino Kubitchek, known politically and here as JK), was born into a middle class family in an inland diamond mining town. He was of gypsy heritage and managed to get training as a doctor with several years of travel in Europe thrown in. He was employed as a doctor with the military police but quickly transitioned into left wing politics serving in the Chamber of Deputies, Mayor and as a Governor.

In 1955, JK ran for President under the slogan 50 years of progress in 5. This played well to sensibilities that Brazil was always on the cusp of taking off but never quite getting there. JK offered a program of massive public works combined with opening up to foreign ownership of industry. The centerpiece of the strategy was moving the capital to a newly built city in the inland. The new apartment blocks for the bureaucrats and politicos would be owned by the state and therefore the government could control who moved there and therefore who would man the Bureaucracy. Bet President Trump wishes he had thought of that, but if he can’t build a wall, he couldn’t manage a new city. In his new capital scheme, JK partnered with acclaimed local architect Oscar Niemeyer. The architect was of the shaped concrete brutalist school, but spiced it up with voluptuous shapes he said were inspired by the curves of Brazil’s women and the universe of Einstein. Not bad for a ever soon to be up and coming country.

The really amazing part is that the new capital was partially ready and the capital indeed moved during JK’s five year term. 50 years in 5 delivered. There were also many new roads and much new industry. Plans for liberal progress in healthcare an education were left undone. Naturally the national debt skyrocketed and by the end of JK’s term, 80% GNP growth was accompanied by a 43% inflation rate. One of the keys to JK’s success was avoiding the military coup by having sympathetic leftist officers in the military purge potential coup plotters before he even took office.

There have been controversies since JK left office on how he achieved so much. Time magazine once listed JK as the seventh richest man in the world and of course that lead political rivals to assume he skimmed off the big construction projects. They also point to his lavish life in self imposed exile. When JK died, only modest means were found. Similarly leftists thought that JK and another former lefty President had been assassinated by the then right wing government in 1976 in a scheme called Operation Condor. The recently departed lefty government studied the claim and determined that JK had died in a car wreck, as reported at the time.

Well my drink is empty and I will pour 2 more to toast JK and his partner in architecture Oscar Niemeyer. Oscar had also gone into self imposed exile but the later 80s leftist government funded him to return to Brasilia and design a monument to his late friend. Come again tomorrow for another story that can be learned from stamp collecting.

Brazil maintained slavery until 1889, among the last among civilized countries. With an old Emperor with no male heir, what would happen when he passed was too much for the elite to bare. Haiti seemed a scary possibility. So a coup creates a republic at least for the small minority of literate males. 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 revolution that overthrew the Emperor was just a military coup with a General calling himself President. That is not how the new stamps portrayed it. The stamps show  a liberty head that resembles the Statue of Liberty in New York City. This American symbolism was quite purposeful. Brazil wanted to be seen as a free country of people of European heritage. Like the early United States. The first name of the Brazilian Republic was the United States of Brazil.

Todays stamp is issue A39, a 100 Reis stamp issued by the United States of Brazil on May 1st, 1891. It was a single stamp issue. According to the Scott catalog, the stamp is worth $1.75 used. A stamp printed with the frame mistakenly inverted is worth $110.

Brazil’s journey from being a colony of Portugal was fairly unique. The Royal family of Portugal had sailed for Brazil upon Napoleon’s invasion of Portugal and ran the extensive Portuguese worldwide empire from Rio. When they left to return to Portugal they left a son behind as Emperor of a now separate Brazilian Empire. The economy changed during this time of Brazilian Empire. In colonial times, gold and diamond mining were the bulk of the economy. The new empire however used slavery to establish large coffee and rubber plantations. This made for a much different demographic makeup with a vast majority being African but the ruling class Portuguese. The frequent slave rebellions left visions of Brazil ending like Haiti. The Haitian revolutionary government had made it illegal for whites to own land and most fled, leaving Haiti one of the most poor countries on earth. Perhaps they should have thought of that before importing them. The importation was not easy, with the British Navy blockading the slave trade and boarding all Brazilian ships to look for slaves.

In 1852, Emperor Pedro II agreed with Britain to stop the official importation  but the trade continued illicitly. The economy requiring the drug of forced labor and African tribes still being willing providers. Pedro II bowed to international pressure and freed the slaves in 1889. This made him popular with the freed slaves but by then he was an old sick man with no male heirs. He had a capable adult daughter but Brazilian society could not see itself ruled by a woman. A General deposed Pedro II in 1890 with no opposition from him who went off to retirement in Europe. Field Marshal Deodoro da Fonseca declared a Republic with the vote open to literate males, a tiny percentage. He did not reimpose slavery but opened immigration to Brazil to anyone of European heritage. The new government lacked stability, without slavery the plantation based economy faltered, but a Haitian outcome was avoided.

Well my drink is empty, and as a resident of the USA, I am wondering if this was how slavery would have ended in the South had the Confederacy been allowed to separate in 1861? Come again tomorrow for another story that can be learned from stamp collecting.

Many years after the artist Jean-Baptiste Debret is celebrated not for the fine art that he loved and taught, but for the sketching of street scenes. 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 depicts street scenes from the early days of Brazil’s independence. This of course is completely understandable. The artists mission in Brazil had been much grander but less successful and less remembered.

The stamp today is issue A626, a 30 Centavo stamp issued by Brazil on May 19th, 1970. It displays the Brazilian work of French artist Jean-Baptiste Debret. It was part of a two stamp issue. According to the Scott catalog, the stamp is worth $1.25 in its cancelled state.

Debret was born in Paris in 1768. He was trained as a neoclassical painter and trained in France and Italy. He was a Bonapartist and after Napoleon’s final defeat he took part in an artist mission to Brazil. Brazil was in the process of breaking away from Portugal and the mission of French artist were tasked with setting up school of fine arts and creating a local art scene in Rio.

The fact that Brazil early governments were Imperial lead to a different tact than one might expect in a newly independent country. Instead of training local artists to capture better the local situation, the school more saw itself as bringing European civilization to a back ward colony. The new school taught how to do portraits and how to make copies of the masters. The French teachers sought to eke out a little extra money by painting portraits of the Emperors Court.

There was really very little demand for this in Brazil and the Emperors of Brazil were very parsimonious with their support. The French in Brazil were also enemies as they resented the ties to discredited Bonapartism. Soon after the last Emperor left power, the fine art school was absorbed by the local university.

Debret was related to a better known French artist named Jacques-Louis David. He sent his relative some sketches of street scenes from Rio of the period. Many featured Africans in the days of slavery in Brazil. David encouraged Debret to paint more and passed them around the art scene in Paris. There were very few artists doing street scenes in Rio and over time they became a valuable record of everyday life at the time.

Debret eventually gave up on Brazil, returning to Paris. He was quite poor and returned to his neoclassical style. He was a member of the French Academy and published a 3 volume book of his time in Brazil. The work however was not successful and he resorted to doing lithographs of his better known relatives work.

I can see why the fine art school failed in nineteenth century Brazil. There are only a few in the upper class that appreciate it. However a more populist government in Brazil would have probably offered no support whatever for the arts. It is a very common thing for a newly independent place to try to find a local school of art. Most do not work out but as I do more stamps we may find more places where some success was achieved. Postage stamps are a great way to scout out the local art scene.

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.

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.