Tag: Costa Rica stamp

I love to write about an industry in some far off place that I knew nothing about. So today we get the story of the Costa Rica cow. So slip on your leather 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.

Putting the regal portrait of the cow on the stamp did not happen the way I implied in the title of this piece. The stamps celebrated an Agricultural exhibition and our friend the cow had to share the issue with tuna fisherman, coffee pickers, pineapples, and of course bananas.

Todays stamp is issue AP 51, a 1 centimo airmail stamp issued by Costa Rica on July 27th, 1950. It was a 14 stamp issue in various denominations. According to the Scott catalog, the stamp is worth 60 cents unused. The denomination of 1 centimo seemed low to me for an airmail stamp and boy howdy was it. A centimo is today worth .000018 of a US dollar.

Cattle Ranching in Costa Rica was introduced in Spanish times. It is not an ideal place for ranching as the grasses they graze leave the beef tough and the cows have a low fertility. The place still took off as a center of cattle ranching  thanks to America and more precisely the Peace Corps. In the 1960s the director of American aid work pitched to Montana cattle ranchers the benefits of operations in Costa Rica. The land cost of a large ranch in Costa Rica was less than half that of Montana. The real kicker was the annual cost of servicing a cow in the herd was $25 US versus $95 in Montana. The beef would then be deboned and frozen in Costa Rica for export to the USA getting the same price as Montana beef. The beef, almost all from bulls, would be ground into hamburger meat. The problem with low fertility was cured by shooting the cows up with “vitamins”.

Beef is still a big export of Costa Rica and employs 12 percent of the workforce. The cows are however 30% of the countries’ emissions. You thought I was the gasbag. There are also concerns about deforestation in Cost Rica caused by the cattle ranches. Here the government offers a solution. There is a scheme that encourages the ranchers to plant more hedges and if they do the government will sell them a certification of climate neutral beef. The scheme is called the Costa Rica Livestock NAMMA Concept. What a concept that is.

Well my drink is empty but I am left with more respect for the noble cow. He sure has to go through a lot to bring wealth to absentee American landowners in his country. Come again soon for another story that can be learned from stamp collecting. First published in 2020.

The industry stamps of small countries often tell much. Often what was important at the time of the stamp is just gone. Here we find an industry with some staying power. 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 not the easiest to picture a vegetable oil processing plant in a good light. This one even has puffing smoke stacks. De La Rue did a pretty good job though. The hilltop location give a certain monastery feel.

Todays stamp is issue C227, a 5 Centimos airmail stamp issued by Costa Rica in 1954. It was a 20 stamp issue that came out over 5 years that showed off industry of Costa Rica. According to the Scott catalog, the stamp is worth 25 cents whether used or unused.

Traditionally the biggest business in Costa Rica is agriculture. This is still the case as far as number of people employed, but in terms of gross national product it has fallen behind tourism. While being by far the most prosperous Central American country, there is still a very real issue of haves and have nots. This has been exacerbated by the influx of North American retires. Such activity looks great for GNP and also adds impetus to environmental enforcement. For example, recently Costa Rica banned commercial fishing fleets from both of their oceans but still allows sport fishing in their rivers to appease the retirees. It should not be surprising that the unemployment rate among locals is near 10 percent even before Covid.

Costa Rica has attempted to counteract this trend. They have opened free trade zones to attract foreign owned industry. Costa Rica seemed to attract a crown jewel when Intel built a chip manufacturing plant. It employed 5000 well paid employees and the output of the plant was 25 percent of exports of Costa Rica and 4.9 percent of GDP. In 2014, Intel anounced that they were ending manufacturing at the barely ten year old plant in Costa Rica and laying off over half the staff. The current largest employer in the free trade zones is Amazon.com, but most of their jobs are lower pay, lower skill, warehouse jobs.

One industry that has proved more consistent is vegetable oil. It is still locally made and owned. It sells under the brand En Su Punto in 10+ countries. I can’t confirm that they still operate out of the factory shown on the stamp. Their website, facing the same problem no doubt as the stamp designer, would rather show you their product.

Well my drink is empty, so please come back tomorrow for another story that can be learned from stamp collecting.

We have had a few stamps that allowed us to see how precarious some of the Central American countries were early on. So weak that if not for the bravery of a young Army drummer. A band of adventurers led by an American southerner  might have turned the whole area into an English speaking slave state. 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 diplays a statue of the drummer boy running with his torch during the decisive battle. Remember that there was no fighting with Spain to liberate Central America. The Filibuster War therefore serves as a worthy substitute. Here was Central America uniting to prevent a private American adventurer from changing the place forever. Sure there were only 60 Americans but they did conquer Nicaragua and how many Spaniards had it taken to defeat the earlier Indian nations.

Todays stamp is issue A30, a one Centimo stamp issued by Costa Rica in January 1901. It displays the statue of Juan Santamaria, a drummer in the Costa Rican Army during the Filibuster War in 1856. According to the Scott Catalog, the stamp is worth 30 cents used. In 1914 the Costa Rican government sold off a large batch of this stamp and others of the time for far less than face value. They were cancelled to order with a distinct cancellation and have an even lower value. Also if you see this stamp in a different color scheme, they are from a private reprint dating from 1948. Also according to the Scott Catalog, these versions have little or no value. That is a fair number of tests for my stamp to have passed only to be worth 30 cents.

William Walker was from Tennessee and spent his early career practicing medicine, the law, and has a journalist. He never married or had children but became enamored with the idea of an American manifest destiny where Central America and Mexico would be brought into the Union as English speaking slave states. The example of Texas was central to his dream. After recruiting a team of 45 adventures he crossed into Mexico and declared the Republic of Sanora. Though for a while he controlled Baja California, the Mexican Army quickly had his group on the run. On his return to the USA, Walker was tried for conducting an illegal war but the jury admired him and acquitted him.

Still filled with ambition, he traveled to Nicaragua where the local Liberal and Conservative Party were fighting a Civil War. The Liberal Party recruited Walker and his 60 mostly American adventurers to fight on their side. The Conservatives were quickly defeated and William Walker became the de facto President of Nicaragua. He legalized slavery and made English the official language and American President Franklin Pearce recognized his government. Not everyone did. American Financier Cornelias Vanderbilt and the British had visions of building a canal linking the Atlantic and the Pacific through Nicaragua and those plans did not involve Walker. So the British lobbied the Hondurans and Vanderbilt the Costa Ricans to attack and bring down Walker. The Costa Rican army invaded Nicaragua and defeated Walker’s forces in Rivas. Another force of Hondurans and Salvadorans came down from the North. The US Navy then evacuated Walker and his few remaining men. He tried to come back later by setting up shop in Trujillo Honduras where he made contact with a group of British settlers. He was then arrested by the Royal Navy and turned over to Honduran authorities and quickly executed by firing squad.

Juan Santamaria was born to a poor unwed Costa Rican mother. During the Costa Rican mobilization for the Filibuster War he joined the army and served as a drummer. The battle of Rivas was not going well as the Walker forces were emplaced in a hostel with good firing lines. The commander had the idea to sent up a single soldier with a torch to burn them out. Santamaria agreed to volunteer for the assignment if the country agreed to take care of his mother if he was killed. He was indeed mortally wounded on his approach but managed to get the hostel burning before he died. His mother later petitioned the government and was granted a special pension.

Well my drink is empty and so I will open up the conversation in the below comment section. Imagine how different the world would be today if the Filibuster War had gone the other way. Come again tomorrow for another story that can be learned from stamp collecting.