Tag: Czechoslovakia stamp

Everything seemed to come  years late to communist Czechoslovakia. Here we have a 1961 five year plan to get industry beyond war rebuilding and on toward previous powerhouse status. Gee, shouldn’t that have come in 1951? Well not when it took Stalin until 3 years after his death to have his team in place. 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 rolling mill bridge as part of a high tech textile plant. That this function is ever more automated shows the challenge facing the countries leadership. At the top of communist organizations there is often a quarrel between those up from the local trade union movement and the more intelectual, internationally aware aspects of the movement. Think Stalin versus Trotsky. Stalin would be looking at output and employment levels, while Trotsky might more be looking at showing off sophistication by say a trophy automated textile mill.

Todays stamp is issue A400, a 20 Haleru stamp issued by Czechoslovakia on January 20th, 1961. It was a three stamp issue in various denominations issued as part of the kickoff of the third 5 year plan to do with industrial development. This was the last stamp issue in connection with a five year plan initiation. Even the powers that be did no longer have their heart in it. According to the Scott catalog, the stamp is worth 25 cents used. This stamp was locally printed and not part of the farmed out for the international child collector so common at the time.

The area of Czechia had industrialized quite early and was considered the industrial heartland of the old Austria-Hungarian Empire. When it was down to just the ethnic German rumpstate of Austria in 1919, there were questions of joining Germany as the state would not be viable alone. See https://the-philatelist.com/2019/07/19/gerrman-austria-1919-the-rump-state-no-one-wanted/ . Such an industrial powerhouse was then integrated heavily with the German industrial war effort of World War II. See https://the-philatelist.com/2019/07/26/bohemia-and-moravia-1939-showing-off-batas-skyscraper-in-zlins-urban-utopia/ . The circumstances of how the Czechs fell to Germany in 1938-39 meant that the communist takeover post war was not so immediate as the prewar government in exile had more legitimacy. It took until 1948-49 for the communists to get a firm grip on things. Even here there was trouble as the same sort of phases happened. The first communists leaders were the old exiled fellows that were part of the 1920s Internationale movement. These were mainly Jewish intellectuals that were at odds  with Stalin’s industry first goals. Such people in the Soviet Union were purged in the 1930s but their fellow travelers managed to get in power in eastern Europe post war.  That the communist takeover was a few years late meant reindustrialization was begun off track. Stalin quickly got such leaders purged from eastern Europe, see https://the-philatelist.com/2019/04/03/romania-1955-promoting-female-empowerment-or-just-stalin-in-a-skirt/   . Things again were behind schedule in Czechoslovakia and it was not until 1955, when Antonin Novotny a communist from the trade union movement was in power. By now however Stalin was himself dead and the Soviet Union was itself rethinking it’s industry first strategy.

The relative performance of the Czech five year plans show understandably poor performance compared to what might have been posible. Between 1948 and 1957 industrial output rose 170 percent. That sounds high but it must be remembered how low output was at the end of the war. To compare with actual industrial powerhouses, Germany and Japan were up about 300 percent in the same timeframe. Suddenly you no longer thought of the area as an industrial heartland. After the communists fell, more factories closed and the ones that stayed open were back to German ownership and the expertise being sought out in Czechia was the willingness to take less than western pay rates.

The lack of industry growth did not lead to total devastation as the country fell behind indusrially. The lefty internationalist intellectuals set up a film industry that was an important part of the New Wave Film movement that was also in France and Italy in the 1960s. Since in Czechoslovakia the films were part of official approved output, they benefited from higher budgets and professional studios more so than in the west. The uprisings of 1968 saw many of this group go into western exile. Simple industrial workers might be forgiven for feeling left out.

Well my drink is empty and I may pour another to throw at Antonin Novotny. He was pensioned off during the 1968 troubles after a more than a decade chance to turn around the difficult hand he was dealt. He forgot perhaps that the idea of the five year plan was that at the end you could measure results against goals. Come again soon for another story that can be learned from stamp collecting. First published in 2019.

A long time ago people knew how to make things. So after World War I ended, arms maker Frantisek Janecek had to fill his hand grenade and bazooka factory. How about motorcycles, young men that should be in the army pass their time on them. 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.

On this stamp issue remembering Czech motorcycles, two of the stamps honored Jawa motorcycles. Given the era, (1975) they chose two models that had a  worker bent. This stamp showed the Jawa 175 from 1935, a new smaller and cheaper bike that tripled production. Then they showed a Jawa 250 from 1945, when the country was able to get back to motorcycles, this time without outside help or even it’s founder.

Todays stamp is issue A172 a 60 Haleru stamp issued by Czechoslovakia on September 25,1975. It was a six stamp issue in various denominations. According to the Scott catalog, the stamp is worth 25 cents whether mint of used.

Frantisek Janecek was born in Bohemia in 1878. After engineering training in Berlin, he was employed by industrialist Emil Kolben first in Prague and later as a plant manager in the Netherlands. When bicycling to work, Dutch style, he was hit by a car and was rendered first aid by his future wife, a passenger in the car. Army Service for Austria Hungary on the Italian front during World War I turned his attention to arms. Soon he was running his own factory making his designs for hand grenades, bazookas, and a devise that allowed cannons a longer time between servicing.

The changes of the 1920s saw the factory well below capacity. There was also opportunity. The motorcycle arm of German maker Wanderer was in receivership and Janecek was able to acquire a license to manufacture their design. He called the new operation Jawa from the first two letters of Janecek and Wanderer. He recruited a British motorcycle racer and later arms designer George Patchett. The line was successful and widely exported especially after the cheaper Jawa 175 from the stamp was introduced. It had a 5.4 horsepower two stroke engine and a top speed of 50 miles per hour.

The Nazi takeover saw George Patchett depart and Janecek turn his attention back to arms manufacturing. Janecek died in 1942. He left behind a design for a new motorcycle the Jawa 250, which went into production post war. This era saw Jawa’s greatest success, and they boasted being sold everywhere from California to New Zealand. Jawa became the first motorcycle maker to offer an automatic clutch. This device was quickly copied by Honda and Jawa quickly started a successful lawsuit to assure license fees from the giant Honda.

It seems that every stamp industry story ends the same way. In the 1990s Jawa motorcycle production slowed to a trickle and the firm became a tiny subsidiary of a larger Czech conglomerate. In 2018, Mahindra in India introduced a line of motorcycle that resemble the Jawa motorcycles made in India from the 1950s-1990s. Remember Mahinda also continues to make Jeeps that resemble the 1940s Willys Jeep.

Well my drink is empty but I get to have more when I toast Mr. Janesek and Mr. Patchett. Motorcycles and bazookas seem an unlikely combination that they both shared. Come again soon for another story that can be learned from stamp collecting.

An 1802 Japanese woodblock print of the Ukiyo-e style might seem a strange choice for a Czech stamp from 1991. Perhaps not if you think about it in terms of democratizing art from aristocratic collections and presenting them to a wider group of people. 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.

I did a double take in seeing the date on this stamp as 1991, As it looks like something from about 1970. Sure enough it was just the latest of a group of stamps in the style since 1966 showing off art in the collections of public galleries in Czechoslovakia. The later Czech Republic continued the set with a new group of issues in 1998.

Todays stamp is issue A565, a 7 Koruna stamp issued by Czechoslovakia on November 3rd, 1991. The set that year was five stamps of various denominations. According to the Scott catalog, the stamp is worth $1.25 used.

The National Museum in Prague got it’s start in 1818 when Prague was still part of the Hapsburg Kingdom. A group of aristocrats started a Society of Patriotic Friends of the Arts. This was perhaps a stopgap as after the French Revolution it was thought that fine art was owned by the people rather than Royal or aristocratic collections. Thus the Society of Patriotic Friends opening displays in converted palaces was perhaps not ideal. Around 1890, the government got into it and built a much larger building to house and control the growing collection. Though this time was still under Hapsburg rule, the museum showed itself as a hotbed of anti Royal Czech nationalism by dropping German in favor of the Czech language.

The woodblock print showed on the stamp dates from 1802 and is titled “Two Maidens” by then prominent Japanese artist Utamaro. He is most famous for prints of attractive Japanese women that he would display with long faces. He also illustrated Japanese books of insects and engaged in a style of erotica called shunga. Shunga literally means spring, but is a euphemism for sex.

Two years after this painting Utamaro got in trouble with the government of Japan. Not for the shunga stuff but rather a series of woodblock prints he did depicting 200 years before Japanese military leader Toyotomi Hideyoshi. Utamaro depicted him cavorting with prostitutes and even handholding with one of his Samurai in a homosexual manner.

Utamaro was only briefly sent to jail, but by 1806 he died. His widow then married one of the students in his art school and they began putting out lower quality woodprints under the name Utamaro II.

Well my drink is empty and I am left wondering who to toast. The art nationalizers seem like upstarts to me and this Utamaro fellow seems himself a guy trying to get fame and riches by turning an art form mass market with prints of sexy slurs aimed at fools. Feeling the thirst, I come back to the Patriotic Friends of the Arts with their art filled palaces. Come again soon for another story to be learned from stamp collecting.

This high denomination stamp is for relief of orphans of Czech veterans of World War I. At least the ones that fought on the winning side. The  orphans of veterans of the losing side may be equally in need of relief, but naturally the winners have inspiration and glory on their side. 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.

In 1919, Czechoslovakia had just been formed on territory broken off from Austria Hungary. This reflects in the style of this stamp that owes more to Poland and Ukraine than Austria or Hungary. If the new country was going to work it would have to pull together and find new ways to move forward. The baby on the stamp would grow up in a different place than it’s parents.

Todays stamp is issue SP2, a 100 Haleru semi postal stamp issued by the newly independent Czech and Slovak Republic in 1919. It was a six stamp issue in various denominations that celebrated one year of independence and supported orphans of those that served in the Czechoslovak Legion. According to the Scott catalog, the stamp is worth 25 cents. This is an awfully low value for a stamp displaying so much interesting now 100+ year old history from an area where stamp collecting is so prominent. Perhaps subconsciously, it is history that offends the many philatelists of Vienna and Budapest.

In 1914 the first world war broke out and Czarist Russia found itself fighting Germany and Austria Hungary with much of the fighting going on in modern day Ukraine. The Russian Stavka authorized the formation of a battalion of troops that would fight on their side and be recruited from Czechs And Slovaks. Recruiting both peoples turned out to be very important later though in reality the force was over 90% Czech. The bulk of Czechs and Slovaks were fighting for Austria Hungary with various degrees of enthusiasm. The Battalion gave a good accounting of itself in battle and was expanded to brigade size. Independence leaders at home who imagined and independent Czechoslovakia took notice and began promoting the force as a Legion. To continue the expansion of the force recruits were sought from Austria Hungary POWs held by Russia.

The 1917 Revolutions in Russia turned the tables somewhat. The Soviets made peace with Austria Hungary leaving the not communist legion somewhat lost in the Ukraine. Czech leadership decided to evacuate the force to France to continue to fight and get out the idea that the Czechs and Slovaks could form a new nation. The hard part was going to be to get to France. A deal was struck where the Soviets were paid to allow the Legion to board the Trans Siberian Railroad for the long journey to Vladivostok to there board ships to France. This would not be easy. there was a civil war between White and Red Russians and trains were not really running. The tracks more provided a path to march east. They often had to fight their way past Soviet forces along the tracks. There was even a strange battle with Hungarian POWs they met just east of the Ural mountains. The Hungarians were marching west back toward Hungary after the end of their war with the Czechs marching east.

The bravery of the force marching and fighting their way through Siberia was heavily promoted in the West with some justification. Keeping the force together with no home country in a strange land was quite a military feat. The West lapped it up, World War I was still going on and if the Reds fell in Russia it might rejoin the war. American, French, and mainly Japanese troops landed in Vladivostok in 1918 with the goal of saving the Czechoslovak Legion. Instead they found the Czechs already there. Luckily for the Legion, the war in France was over before they could arrive. They had fought enough. Czechoslovakia was awarded a large territory at the end of the war at the expense of Hungary and Germany and the leadership was overwhelmingly Czech as the legion had been. If the Russian high command Stavka had only recruited Czechs for the legion, would there have been a united Czechoslovakia post war?

Well my drink is empty and though my sympathies might be more toward a united Austria Hungary who can not rout for these fellows marching East to  go West through Siberia. Come again tomorrow for another story that can be learned from stamp collecting.