Tag: Egypt stamp

The Nile River regularly floods it’s banks with fresh water. If this could be caught and retained, it would greatly enhance irrigation possibilities and by extension food production. Sounds like a project for a far sighted King, or at least a short sighted King looking for something to talk about. 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.

Here’s an early stamp that really calls out for more color. A desert is being turned green with beautiful blue water. Also the stock portrait of Farouk could instead have him holding blueprints to better imply he was the guiding force. The stamps of period Egypte were trying hard to show the King freeing the people of colonialism. Better designs might have been more convincing.

Todays stamp is issue A73, a 100 Millimenes stamp issued by the Kingdom of Egypt in 1939. It was an eight stamp issue in various denominations. According to the Scott catalog, the stamp is worth $1.40 unused.

The below story refers to the still existing Aswan Low Dam, the Aswan High Dam was built later.

In the 10th century AD, Egypt was ruled by the Fatimid Caliphate. The Fatimids are believed descended from Fatima, the daughter of Mohammed. The Caliph had the idea for a dam on the Nile that could retain floodwater and thus expand agriculture. The great Arab mathematician, engineer, and physicist Alhazen was summoned from Basra in Iraq to work on the project. After checking out the obvious site near Aswan were the Nile was shallow, Alhazen thought the project impossible. What scared him though was disappointing the Caliph back in Cairo when he told that it wasn’t going to happen. Instead Alhazen pretended to have a mental breakdown and confined himself to house arrest until the death of the Caliph. The time at home was not wasted. His masterpiece work, the Book of Optics was completed in this time.

In 1882, Egypt was occupied by the British Army and commercial interests were free to pursue economic projects beyond the Suez Canal. A dam at Aswan was now thought more feasible and the Dam was designed by famed British Empire civil engineer Sir William Wilcocks and constructed from 1898-1902 by the London based firm of John Aird. The dam was the largest ever constructed of bricks but was smaller than desired to protect nearby historic sites. See https://the-philatelist.com/2020/09/25/pakistan-1964-egypt-sudan-and-pakistan-well-actually-unesco-save-the-nubian-abu-simbel-temples/   .

It must have been damaging to Egyptian pride to have such a worthwhile project accomplished by interlopers. It was even worse than that. Such a massive, private project requires creative financing. The financier making the project possible was German Jew Ernst Cassel. Cassel had stints in Paris and London financing heavy industry around the world. He managed his empire from a Swiss mountain castle named Riederfurka that was only accesable by mule. When the nearby village offered to improve the path to the castle, Cassel told them he would move away if they did. It will be a long wait before Egypt does a stamp honoring Cassel’s role in the project.

In the first years of the dam, there was no provision for electricity generation, though this was added later. There were also two additions making the dam taller. These later jobs had to be done without the firm of John Aird. It had been closed in 1911 after mucking up an extension of Singapore’s port facilities.

Well my drink is empty and there are so many people here worthy of a toast, all the way back to Alhazen, I worry of a hangover. To bad the group doesn’t include King Farouk. Come again soon for another story that can be learned from stamp collecting. First published in 2021.

King Farouk had to abdicate and sail away on his yacht in 1952. In Egypt, he was rudely crossed out on the stamps and mocked for his lavish lifestyle and extensive collections. In Italy, he couldn’t fully enjoy his exile as the women in his life turned on him. His wife left him and a former British Cypher clerk at the embassy in Cairo who had been given the title of official mistress took advantage of his plight by writing a novel about a proper English girl who has to sleep with a hairy, morbidly obese former King named Yoyo who liked to spank her. Maybe she needed one. So slip on your smoking jacket, fill tour 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 shows the Cairo Citadel first built by King Saladin in 1176 AD. It was one of the most advanced and extensive fortifications of it’s day. You can also spot the twin spires of the Mohammed Ali Pasha Mosque added by the first Albanian Pasha appointed by the Ottomans at the end of Napoleon era French occupation. Mohammed Ali Pasha was the founder of King Farouk’s Royal Line. There was cause for cellebration at the time of the original version of this stamp. The Egyptian Army had just replaced the British Army garrisoning the citadel.

Todays stamp is issue A73, a 50 Millemines stamp issued by the new Egyptian Republic in 1953. It was one of 23 Royal era stamps reissued with King Farouk crossed out. According to the Scott catalog, the stamp is worth 35 cents used. The cross out adds 10 cents to the value.

In 1952, King Farouk was enjoying his summer has was his habit in Alexandria on the more temperate Mediterranean where he could also enjoy Alexandria’s night life and casinos. The King had been warned by his Prime Minister that officers in the army were plotting against him. He had the list of suspects read to him and then dismissed it as being from people too junior to be a real threat. He appointed a new defense minister to rout them out. Two days later Cairo fell to the coup plotters and army units headed toward Alexandria. The Sudanese Royal Guard stayed loyal as did the navy at anchor in Alexandria. They were able to fight off the first assault on the Alexandria palace with King Farouk himself taking out five of the attackers with his hunting rifle. The Army prepared to bring forth tanks and artillery for a final assault and King Farouk saw the wisdom of abdicating and sailing away on the Royal Yacht El Mahrousa bound for Italy.

Safely in Italy with his family, Farouk was faced with insult over insult. His collections of coins, stamps, suits of Armor, pornography, and geiger counters were displayed, ridiculed and put up for auction. This dragged out forever as many of those that helped him put together his quite extensive collections sued claiming Farouk had not paid for much of what he had. This dragged out the pain.

Even worse was his treatment by his women. His young Queen, left him going back to Egypt and sued him for divorce civilly claiming adultery, and abandonment. Divorce was granted gleefully by the new Egypt and allowed her unlike Farook to keep her citizenship. Prince Ranier stepped in and granted Farouk a Monaco passport. English socialite Barbara Skelton who had been a cypher clerk at the embassy in Cairo during the war had been awarded the title of  official mistress. She repaid him by writing a novel  called A Young Girl’s Touch.  with her background sanitised and many years taken off her life and the King made older and more repulsive as King Yoyo. In reality, if he wanted to spank a younger girl he would have picked a different mistress. Barbara Skelton was four years older then him.

King Farouk tried to put his life back together in Rome. He found a new and final official mistress, 19 year old 1953 Miss Naples Irma Capese Minutolo. She stayed with him the rest of his life after he paid her parents a great deal of money in exchange for her virginity. They enjoyed the nightlife and King Farouk supported her ventures in acting and opera singing. She is still with us and has lately made the claim they were secretly married. As with Ms. Skelton she has the tendency to subtract years from her life to make her stories more tawdry/sexy.

King Farouk died in 1965, collapsing in his favorite Rome restaurant. President Nasser consented to an Egyptian burial but not a Royal one. President Sadat later had the remains removed to the Royal Cemetery. The Royal Yacht El Mahrousa returned to Egypt after dropping Farouk off in Italy and still serves, as it has since 1865.

Well my drink is empty. Farouk thought the young officers against him were nothings. Turns out to be true also with the women in her life. Come again tomorrow when there will be another story that can be learned from stamp collecting.

After the end of the Monarchy, Egypt has been governed by the top down but in the socialist style. That as meant land reform and giant projects to turn the deserts green and get agriculture beyond the Nile Valley. 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 the first issue of stamps after Egypt became a republic. On them we have a modern farmer, a modern soldier, and an ancient profile of Queen Nefertiti. The farmer had the task of feeding locally a fast growing population. A soldier, finally local who would keep out any would be colonials. An ancient Queen, a strong contrast to the recently deposed and a reminder of when Egypt was important in the world. Not bad for a first issue.

Todays stamp is issue A109, a three Millimes stamp issued by the Egyptian Republic in 1953. This was a 19 stamp issue in various denominations. According to the Scott catalog, the stamp is worth 45 cents used.

Agriculture in Egypt used to center on raising cotton in the Nile Valley mainly for export. The British had built a much smaller dam at Aswan in 1903. After the republic was declared there was a large scale land reform. Farm size was limited to 190 feddans. A feddan is about the size of acre and comes from the Arabic for the yoke of an oxen. That is the area than an oxen can be expected to till in a period of time. The government was trying to discourage cotton in favor of food grains. It was important so less food would have to be imported and population was rising fast. That population meant a further land reform in 1969 that now limited farms to 50 feddans

The Aswan High Dam was completed in 1970. It increased arable land by about a third. There was still big problems with irrigation. Over use of wells caused seawater intrusion into the aquafers and the government became ever more concerned of water usage. In the mid 1980s the drought in Ethiopia caused water levels in Lake Nasser to fall to scary low levels. Then God/Allah smiled. The water level in the 1990s rose beyond the amount governed by the Nile deal with Sudan. This water was free for Egypt to use as it saw fit.

Starting in 1997, work started on  a new canal running west and then north from Lake Nasser for a length of 200 miles. The idea was that the New Valley project would open new land to live in and be available for agriculture and industry. Construction was slow going but in 2005 a new large pumping station named after President Mubarak started sending water up the part of the canal already dug and as well to a new series of lakes named Toshka after a former village now at the bottom of Lake Nasser.

The change in government in 2011 saw progress on the New Valley stop. The project was labeled a boondoggle and could never work due to the ever present problem of salt intrusion and evaporation. The soil near the canal also suffers from much clay, The current government under President el-Sisi restarted work. He has pledged that half the newly useful land be given to recent college graduates one feddan each if they agree to use it. The plan is funded by something called the Long Live Egypt Fund.

Agriculture has changed again in recent years. As with other countries like China with large populations and limited farmland, it is realized that grains are poor uses of scarce land compared to fruits and vegetables. Dates and figs of course but also onions, eggplant, strawberries and watermelon. Around the time of this stamp, 87 percent of Egyptian exports were cotton. Now agricultural exports are down to 11 percent.

Well my drink is empty and I hope dear readers you are enjoying this kick I have been on lately of turning deserts green. I had no idea how many projects there were to do such things that seem so antithetical in this time of climate doom. Not the kind of story I expected to learn from stamp collecting. Come again tomorrow.

Some times it is obvious that the results of a revolution aren’t as wonderful as what was hoped. It is a time perhaps to bring in some new people and try some new things still within the framework of the revolution. We did an nineties stamp from Vietnam here, https://the-philatelist.com/2019/10/22/vietnam-1993-after-a-renovation-wondering-about-becoming-an-asian-tiger/   , when it faced similar issues. In Egypt, 20 years after the revolution that ended the Monarchy, new President Anwar Sadat was ready to put his stamp on Egypt. 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 emblem on this stamp proports to be the coat of arms of Egypt. It is not, after the Monarchy the Coat of Arms gas been a depiction of the Eagle of Saladin. That doesn’t mean that this is a bad emblem. You see the Pan Arab Socialist emphasis on progress and science. You also see the call to Faith, part of the Corrective Revolution was Sadat lightening up on religious persecution and reaching out a hand to Islamist. Getting that balance is quite tricky. Even on the stamp it seems somewhat discordant.

Todays stamp is issue A395, a 20 Milliemes stamp issued by Egypt on July 23rd, 1972 when it was in a federation with Syria, Libya, and the Sudan. It was a two stamp issue remembering the 20th anniversary of the revolution. According to the Scott catalog, the stamp is worth 30 cents used.

Anwar Sadat was born in southern Egypt to a Nubian family of modest means. He was one quarter Sudanese on his mothers side. Thus he was significantly darker than most Egyptians. He was trained as an officer in the Egyptian Army and posted to Sudan, where he met the more senior future general Nasser. He was arrested and jailed by the British for trying to contact the Axis powers to conspire to rid Egypt of Britain. He participated in the revolution that ended the Monarchy and rose fast in Nasser’s government including ultimately the Vice Presidency.

After the death of Nasser in 1970, Sadat assumed the Presidency. Most figured him a short term caretaker but he had other ideas. He threw out the Soviet Army from Egypt as a non Muslim force was unwelcome and exerted too much influence on Egypt’s actions. He arrested the head of Nasser’s secret police and lightened up on the practice of the faith. He rejuvenated efforts at Pan-Arabism by introducing a Federation of Arab Republics. After agreeing in full to a UN proposal on the Israel occupied Sinai resulted in no movement with Israel he reformed the Army toward a new war. This was all packaged as a Corrective Revolution.

In 1973, the Egyptian Army crossed on to the Sinai smashing Israel’s fortifications. Though the war did not regain the Sinai it did energize Egypt and the wider Arab world. The near defeat shocked Israel and made them suddenly more willing to deal for peace. When the peace treaty was signed with Israel many Arabs viewed it as a betrayal. The new more capable Egyptian Army was the key tool in the defeat of the Jewish entity as they put it. Egypt was wrong they felt to sellout in exchange for only the occupied land in Sinai. The Federation with other Arab states ended and even the headquarters of the Arab League moved to Tunis, Tunisia. Sadat was assassinated 4 years later. There are debates whether the assassin was motivated by Nasserism or Islamism.

Well my drink is empty and so I will have to wait till tomorrow when there will be another story that can be learned from stamp collecting.

Stamp issuance is planned months or even years in advance. This stamp set was carefully planned showing not the ancient sites but things a prospective tourist might not know was possible in Egypt. In this case, a fishing trip in the Red Sea while staying at a modern, upscale, beachfront hotel. Then two days before the long planned date of issue……. 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.

There is a lot going on this stamp but I think it works. In the sixties people had a lot of confidence that rulers like Egypt’s Nasser would make things better. Modernity was coming to Egypt and the spoils were not just going to go to the connected. So not just the ancient, just a token hat tip to old style fishing. What Nasser was promoting on this stamp happened, just too late for him.

Todays stamp is issue AP18, a 1.1 Pound airmail stamp issued by Egypt when it was marketing itself as The United Arab Republic on June 7th, 1967. It was a three stamp issue in various denominations celebrating the UN declared international tourism year. According to the Scott catalog, the stamp is worth $2.25 used. The value doubles if unused showing people were actually mailing this stamp. That is a differentiator from most stamps of this style.

Former General Nasser had overthrown King Farouk 15 years before this stamp. He had survived an attack in 1956 from the old colonial powers and now he was an important leader in the third world non aligned movement. Central to people hopes at the time was that the cutting of old colonial bonds would allow a flowering of progress from newly freed people. Colonies were of the past and that included Israel, an enclave of European Jews in the Muslim fertile crescent. Surely they would be gone soon the way Nasser banished the Jews of Egypt, with all their connections with the old monied royal elite.

On June 5th, 1967, two days before this stamp was issued, Israel, expecting an attack on itself stuck out on three fronts against Arab neighbors. In five days, the Sinai including the Red Sea Beach resorts were in Israeli hands. The Israeli occupation would last a decade and included new Jewish settlements that implied permanence. Nasser offered his resignation, but it was his eventual successor Sadat who finally got back the Sinai in return for recognition of the Israeli state. Many Arabs thought the deal a sellout and four years later Sadat was assassinated.

It was only under Sadat that tourism got moving in Egypt. In 1951 100,000 tourist visited Egypt. In 2017, it was 17 million and tourism is the biggest industry and employs one quarter of the Egyptian workforce. Sadat lightened up on visa restrictions from Europe, North America, and even Israel. His late 70s five year plan, gosh that sure sounds more communist then non-aligned,, allocated 12 percent of the national budget for tourist infrastructure. The Turks were invited in to help establish colleges to train in hospitality management. Build it and they will come.

Well my drink is empty and I will pour another to toast todays stamp designer. He believed in the future even if sometimes reality got in the way. Come again tomorrow for another story that can be learned from stamp collecting.

I have done several stamps where I have pondered if the colonial felt abandoned by their home country in some far off outpost. If so, how they must have welcomed to new regular air service in the 1930s offered by Imperial Airways. In addition to home country busy bodies to tell you how to do things better, the planes also carried great quantities of mail. 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.

Egypt in the 1930s was not actually a British colony but a protectorate. They had their own King that was from the same line left over from the Ottomans. A view of the plane flying over the temples in Giza tells the real story though of who was in charge. The plane comings and goings didn’t involve Egyptians.

Todays stamp is issue AP2, a 1 Millieme airmail stamp issued by Egypt in 1933. It was a 21 stamp issue in various denominations featuring a Handley Page HP42 aircraft in the service of Imperial Airways flying over the pyramids at Giza. According to the Scott catalog, the stamp is worth 30 cents.

Imperial Airways was set up in 1923 by the merging of four small private airlines at the suggestion of the British Air Ministry. There was a concern that private airlines could not compete with the new subsidized airlines in France and Germany. The airline was to take up overseas routes to Africa, the Middle East, India, and Australia. The aircraft would mainly carry mail  but also there would be room for about 10-20 passengers. The flight segments were broken up into segments of three to four hundred miles which was still a fairly long distance as the planes only cruised at about 100 miles an hour. The planes acquired for the service were a mixture of flying boats and land planes made by Short Brothers of Northern Ireland and Handley Page of England. The flight crews were all male but the frequent stops allowed passengers the opportunity to sight see. The Africa route involved 10 days of flying with 9 overnight stops.

Imperial Airways had the idea  to expand their revenue by increasing the amount of mail flown to include all first class letters. There was a corrupt scheme worked out with the British government where the subsidies required for the service were to be paid not by Britain but by the colonies and dominions being served. Imperial hoped that the subsidies would prevent local air services in the colonies from opening international routes. The scheme was somewhat of a bust as mail traffic was very seasonal and the airline had no spare planes to take care of the extra volume at Christmas time. In conjunction with Pan Am and United Airlines in the USA there was a publicity stunt where the first airmail letter would go around the world starting across the Atlantic ocean with Pan Am, turning over to Imperial through Europe, Africa, Asia, and Australia with United Airlines picking it up in San Francisco and getting it back to New York City.

Imperial Airways  was merged with British Overseas Airways Corporation (BOAC) in 1939 which was then itself merged into British Airways in 1974. Handley Page Aircraft went bankrupt in 1970. The HP42 aircraft on the stamp were requisitioned by the Royal Air Force at the start of World War II but none survived past 1940. In 2018, there was an air rally with 15 vintage aircraft that followed to old Imperial Airways route from Crete through Egypt south all the way to Cape Town, South Africa. It was a shame there was no HP42 to again fly over Giza to recreate the stamp.

Well my drink is empty and I will pour another to toast the Imperial Airways flight crews that brought air travel to some pretty desolate places. The Handley Page aircraft proved reliable if slow, it was said they had a built in headwind, the Short Brothers flying boats less so. It should be not discounted however the dangers faced as a matter of course. Come again tomorrow for another story that can be learned from stamp collecting.

Today we will look at a face on a stamp that will be familiar to Egypt stamp collector, but how many know who he was and what he did. 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 is obviously from the Arab world. These stamps are very close to each other, A English backed King, who descends from an Albanian Ottoman sultan named Muhammad Ali. With more French blood than Egyptian. The stamps seem interchangeable and so do the men.

The stamp today is issue A77, a 10 milliemes issued by the Kingdom of Egypt and the Sudan in 1944. The stamp displays a portrait of King Farouk. It is part of an 11 stamp issue in various denominations. According to the Scott catalog, the stamp is worth 25 cents used.

King Farouk ascended to the throne in 1936 at the age of 16 upon the death of his father King Faud I. He is a product of Faud’s second marriage. His rule did not see him getting along with his mother, now Queen mother Nazli. She spitefully sold all of King Fauds clothes in the Cairo used clothes street market after his death. This made public their unhappy marriage. She then supported the marriage of Farouk’s sister to a Coptic Christian Riyad Ghalli, which Farouk opposed. This lead to Farouk stripping them of their titles and sending them into exile in the United States. Nazli then herself converted to Catholicism and took the name Mary. She was of partial French decent. Farouk later proved correct about the marriage as the brother in law Ghalli squandered that branch of the families fortune on bad investments. This lead to divorce. Three years after the divorce he murdered his ex-wife and then unsuccessfully tried to kill himself. Queen mother Nazli, now Mary, was forced to auction off crown jewels.

King Farouk did not have much luck in other aspects of his rule. He and his people generally supported the Axis in World War II but was powerless to have any say on British troops in Egypt. At one point in 1942 British tanks surrounded the palace and forced Farouk to choose between abdication and a new British chosen Prime Minister. He gave in and appointed the Prime Minister but in doing so discredited himself.

What further discredited his rule was the lavish lifestyle with shopping trips to Europe and a bright red Bentley. An especially garish form of French Louis XV style furniture became known as Louis-Farouk and is still common in Egypt today. He also ballooned to over 300 pounds.

The Egyptian Army was also tiring of the King. It had fared poorly in fighting in Palestine. Many junior officers blamed this on incompetence and corruption. A group of about 100 junior officers staged a coup. in 1953. Farouk attempted to abdicate and named his infant son King Faud II. This was not enough and the family sailed for Italy on the royal yacht. He left in great haste and left behind an elaborate, valuable, and partially unpaid for coin collection. Embarrassingly he also left behind an extensive collection of pornography. He died in 1965. In the late seventies, then President Sadat restored citizenship to the royal family and allowed Farouk’s remains to be moved to the Royal mausoleum.

Well my drink is empty so I will open up the conversation in the below comment section. Come again tomorrow for another story that can be learned from stamp collecting.