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Fake Equatorial Guinea 1976, Looking forward to an Olympics they would not attend

Can you really boycott an Olympics when there is no Olympic team to send. Of course, especially when you are doing it with fake stamps. 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.

Equatorial Guinea was in a bad place in the 1970s. The Dictator, Macais Nguema had changed his title from President to “the Unique Miracle”. His rule was not known for good governance. From 1972-1979 it is known that the Central Post Office left over from the Spanish was padlocked and there was no mail service. There were however many stamp issues emanating from Spain. They are considered fake.

We do know however that this was an 11 stamp issue in various denominations issued May 7th, 1976. There was also several souvenir sheets including one embossed in gold foil. It would be another unique miracle if any of them had any value.

South Africa had been excluded from the Olympics starting in 1964 over their then apartheid policies. Therefore there was never an invitation to attend the 1976 Summer Olympics held in Montreal. The Supreme Council of Sport was at the time the governing body for organized sports in black Africa. They desired a way to show solidarity with violent protests then happening in black South African townships like Soweto. They hit upon the sport of rugby. This was not an Olympic sport, but a team from New Zealand was playing a series of matches in South Africa with integrated teams. New Zealand was invited to the games and the Supreme Council of Sport would pull the African teams already there if New Zealand was not removed. Over 40 mostly African nations boycotted the games with the Olympic Committee reminding that rugby was not their business since it was not an Olympic sport. The boycott had the desired effect with several news cycles dominated by South Africa’s apartheid policy.

Equatorial Guinea was officially a boycotter but the reality was that they never sent a competitor to any summer or winter Olympics prior to 1984. To date, they have never sent a competitor to a winter Olympics. The country does have an important footnote from the 2000 games in Sydney. Swimmer Eric Moussambani recorded the slowest time in Olympic history during a 100 meter Freesyle heat. With disqualifications of the other two swimmers due to false starts, he won the heat. Mr. Moussambani had never before been in an Olympic size swimming pool and was barely able to complete the distance. Nonetheless his time was a national record in the event. The press labeled him Eric the Eel and congratulated him on his courage for finishing. When he finished the cheering was so loud he thought he had won the Gold. He is currently the coach of the swim team of Equatorial Guinea.

Eric the Eel after finishing

Well my drink is empty and I will pour another to toast Eric the Eel. Come again soon for another story that can be learned from stamp collecting. First published in 2020.

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Kamchatka 1994, fake stamps that do serious moral and economic harm to the Russian Federation and discredits the Russian Postal Service

In 2000 the Russian Federation appealed to the Universal Postal Union in Switzerland to help them put a stop to entities outside Russia from producing topical stamps purporting to be issued by regions of Russia with some autonomy. Hence most of these fake stamps come from the 1990s. This one I think is implying it comes from the Kamchatka Krai though the spelling is pretty wild with Roman script and that weird number 3. Some times it is difficult to figure out what a real stamp designer is trying to get across. Designing fake ones must add another level of challenge. 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.

If you are not an employee of the real Russian postal service trying to get collectors to appreciate what real Russian stamps have to offer, than perhaps you can appreciate this stamp. The fall leaf in the mouth of the turtle is a nice touch though I would imagine Kamchatka to be less deserty.

This is a fake stamp so there is no catalog value. I did a search for Kamchatka stamps on Ebay and only found legitimate Russian and Soviet issues showing off nicely Kamchatka volcanoes. Russia and the UPU must have done a good job stamping out these type issues.

The late 16th century saw Russian and Cossack explorers push into the Kamchatka peninsula and claim it for the Czar. The found the place very sparsely populated with Itelmen natives that were closely related to other Eskimoes of the Russian far east. Interesting they also found evidence that the Japanese had been there, including one living in a Itelmen village. The Russians thought he was a Hindu from India because Tokyo then called Hondo and Hindu were confused. He was sent to Moscow and Peter the Great helped him establish a Japanese school. There was also much talk among natives of an earlier expedition by Russians under a mythical Russian explorer called Fedotov, whose people had stayed on and intermarried.  The Itelmen the legend says thought them gods and left them alone until they witnessed a murder among the Russians. They then murdered them and looted their village. Well people should keep their bad behavior to themselves.

A 19th century Russian depiction of an Itelmen. What is he about to do with that knife?

There was much hardship for the Russian explorers who faced many uprisings and stolen reindeer from their Eskimo guides as well as rebellious Itelmen. The Itelmen had it even worse for the encounter with the Russians as they contracted and were greatly thinned out by small pox. The suicide rate, the Itelmen had also discovered Russian vodka, was quite high. The Czar made it illegal for an Itelmen to kill himself and the Russian Orthadox Church made extra effort to convert and assimilate the Itelmen.

There was a period when the area had legitimate stamps of their own. Between 1920 and 1922 a red Soviet aligned Far Eastern Republic was allowed to exist as a neutral buffer state during the white-red civil war. The red Soviets were worried that Japanese soldiers in Vladivostok would attack them. The Far East Republic did not go well with a coup against the installed government and the rural areas breaking off as an autonomous region. The stamps were mostly overprints of old Czarist issues.

Real Far Eastern Republic stamp from 1922

Today the area is overwhelmingly populated by Russians. Intermarriage meant that Idelmen no longer based their ancestry on pure blood, but rather on the the practice of the Itelmen language. Fewer than 100 mostly older people now speak it.

Well my drink is empty and soon there will be another story that can be learned from stamp collecting. First published in 2020.

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Dhufar 1974, The Sultan’s stamp advisor keeps alive the dreams of his rivals whether Imans or communists

Where would we be without the ultra helpful stamp advisors of local Sultans? Well stamp collectors aren’t  going to learn much about the province from official Omani issues and only a tiny portion of collectors are Mormon, and so are aware of Dhufar’s place in Mormon lore. 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 of course is not a real stamp so there is no catalog listing. It proports to remember the 100th anniversary of the Universal Postal Union, which dates it to 1974. Dhufar was not a member, and as far as the Union was concerned, the area was represented by member Oman. The stamp does not tell us what painting this is.

Oman was a rough place in the 1960s. The interior sections under a Imam were trying to break away from the Sultan of Muscat. The nomadic interior people were far different from the descendants of Arab traders on the coast. In neighboring Saudi Arabia, the Imam had some support. He also had postage stamps, printed in Britain by stamp dealer Clive Feigenbaum and handled by Lebanese stamp dealer Youssef Salam Tedros. The support lead Lebanon and Syria to accept the State of Oman issues for postage so it was possible to order your topical stamps with real postal cancelations. I covered a fake state of Oman issue here, https://the-philatelist.com/2020/03/18/omanstate1969-the-state-of-being-a-fake-stamp/    .

The discovery of oil in the interior strengthened the Muscat Sultan’s resolve to hold on to the interior and the Imam was defeated and went into exile. If Feigenbaum and Tedros were to continue their fake stamp business they needed a plan B. Tedros became the postal advisor to a local Sultan in Dhufar in northern Oman on the border with Yeman. He was and is a vassal of the Sultan of Muscat.

Muscat took the name of Oman as part of national reconciliation. There was a new threat as socialist South Yeman began supporting rebels seeking to liberate Dhufar and all of Oman from the Sultans. There was fighting in Dhufar that made the world news and indeed areas of Dhufar were under rebel administration.

In the press materials for the stamp issues, it was strongly implied but not said directly that the stamps were for use in the rebel held areas. This implication lead socialist Syria briefly to accept the stamps  for postage so there are a few Damascus postal cancelations of the stamps. Oman’s real post office did not accept the stamps but did not file formal objections to Dhufar stamps with the Universal Postal Union as they had done previously to the State of Oman issues.. They must have understood that it actually was for the benefit of the Sultan.

A clocktower in modern stampless Dhufar

In 1986, the fighting in Dhufar came to an end with the rebels defeated and the Sultans still in charge. The Sultan and the stamp dealers decided it was time to end the stamp issues. Too bad the socialist rebels never had a rival postage stamp advisor. Tiny far off, war torn places are better with rival stamp issues.

The stampless, doomed Dhufar rebels. Leave it to the socialists to let their women fight alongside

Dhufar plays a part in the lore of the Mormon Church. The Mormon prophet Lehi is believed to have sailed from the “Land of Bountiful” around 600 BC for the New World. They place the land of Bountiful as Dhufar.

Well, my drink is empty. Come again soon when there will be another story to be learned from stamp collecting. First published in 2021.

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Manama 1968, Finbar Kenny discovers another country with an assist from the Emir of Ajman

This one is a little confusing. Manama is the name of a fairly large city in Bahrain. This is not that place. This is the tiny agricultural village that pledges to the United Arab Emirates by way of the Emir of Ajman. Current population is five thousand. 1900 population 50. 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.

These so called dune stamps are considered fake as they were printed by an outsider by a place that really are not countries, just sand dunes. The fact was though the leader or the area did sign the deal and open post offices. When the United Arab Emirates took over the postal system, the stamps of the dune places were valid for postage for another six months. All sounds pretty real to me. Plus doesn’t this stamp capture the excitement buzzing in Manama during the leadup to the 1968 summer Olympics in Mexico City. The biggest occupation in period Manama was bee keeping, so hopefully they weren’t too distracted.

The not mythical Manama Post Office. Once bringing forward unique stamp issues, it still serves postal patrons in the UAE

Finbar Kenny had been the head of the stamp department of the American Macys chain of department stores. Department stores had previously seen the wisdom of allowing a card table near the elevator where a person would try to interest children in stamp collecting. Mothers could leave their children and shop in peace. The idea for this was originated by the old Minkus stamp album publisher. Finbar Kenny was interested in becoming an important stamp dealer. When Great Britain ended their postal service for the Trucial States in 1963, Kenny was ready. He approached the Emirs of Um al Quain, Fugeria and Ajman  with the idea of independent post offices with the stamp revenue divided 50/50 with the Emirs.

The Emir of Ajman, a poorer area, had the idea to increase his revenue further. He would open an additional post office in Manama that would offer separate stamp issues. The Trucial states in earlier times had relied economically on pearl diving, but that industry moved to Japan. The Emir of Ajman started promoting Manama as the potential bread basket of Ajman. Papaya and a few lemon trees were planted on the sand dune by the local Sharqiyin tribe.

Discovering so many new countries did not go too well for Finbar Kenny personally. The Dune stamps ended with the forming of the UAE in 1972. Interestingly one of the first things the UAE had to do was bring into line the rebellious Sharqiyin tribe. Kenny still had the contract to produce stamps for the Cook Islands. The Prime Minister of Cook then approached Kenny and asked for a loan secured by future stamp revenue to fund his reelection campaign. Kenny made the loan thinking he did not have a choice. The Supreme Court of Cook then decided that the loan was a bribe and an attempt to throw an election. So Kenny got the honor of paying Cook a fine of $60,000.

Finbar Kenny in 1965

Authorities were not done with Finbar Kenny. The USA had just passed the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act that made it illegal in the USA for Americans to offer bribes overseas and charged Kenny over the Cook Island situation. Kenny was the first to plead guilty under the act. At least he didn’t go to jail.

Well my drink is empty. I wonder if a postal patron at the post office in Manama today can still buy any of the old issues. It was a long time ago but the same building. Come again soon when there will be a new story that can be learned from stamp collecting. First published in 2021.

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State of Mahra 1968, The Sultan is gone, the communists are here, want to buy a fake stamp for the Winter Olympics

The Mahra Sultinnate occupied the eastern portion of South Yemen and Socotra Island for 700 years prior to falling in 1967. Where does that leave this stamp from 1968? In the state of being fake, though tolerated by the new South Yemen government. Don’t try to mail 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.

The Philatelist obviously has no problem with stamps that celebrate the Olympics. This one is just silly and a missed opportunity. The new government was allowing the old Sultanates to continue fake stamp issues. Obviously they were doing this for the money by why not use the stamp issues to show what was going on in Mahra? Some things were changing, some things they hoped to change, and others were staying the same. A license to chronical that with fake but illuminating stamps would attract this collector. Instead we have a fallen Sultanate famous for it’s camels showing you a generic luge team.

Todays stamp was not for postage so has no catalog value. I checked on eBay and they had a 10 stamp issue from this period and were asking $50. Steep.

The Mahra Sultanate had  been ruled by the Banu Afrar dynasty since the 1400s. They also controlled the island of Socotra that attracted more than their share of Europeans. The Portuguese were the first to conquer it as a replenishment stop for it’s ships on the India trade. Once there, they found it less useful than hoped and abandoned it. Prior to getting the nearby colony of Aden up and operating, the British East India company leased a coaling station on Socotra but found the Sultan untrustworthy so again the area was lightly used.

Map of area in period

On the mainland, the region became most famous for mehri camels, who are fast, agile, and tough. Mahri tribesmen on their famous camels played a big part in the capture if the Middle East and North Africa in the name of Islam. Later in a somewhat different cause the French Army prized the mehri camels for their Sahara adventures. This history was remembered by Citroen in 1968 when their jeep version of the 2CV was named Mehari. It lasted 20 years in production and yes many were bought by the French Army.

Citroen Mehari Jeep

When Aden was abandoned by the British in 1967 that was the end of the Federation of South Arabia that included Mahra and all the area Sultans. Initially they did not resist the occupation by pan Arabist from Aden. The Sultans scattered to Saudi Arabia, London, and Switzerland. Those pan Arabist who were hoping for an end to European intrusion were to be disappointed. Starting in 1971, Socotra was open as a replenishment stop not for the Portuguese or the British, but the Soviet Navy. As happened in previous times the Soviets found the island surplus of requirements and abandoned it in 1985.

The island of Socotra is again appearing useful in the civil war in modern Yemen. The United Arab Emirates landed at the airport allegedly to help train the Yemeni army unit on the island. Instead the unit announced to UAE’s approval that they support a separation from Yemen. The current pretender to the Banu Afrar Dynasty has now also arrived on Socotra, he says at the invitation of local tribal chiefs. I humbly suggest that he just rents his old palace instead of buying it. He did bring with him a big supply of the old style flags. Can more fake stamps be far behind?

Current Mahra Sultan pretender Abdulla al Afra greets his subjects? after arriving in Socotra

Well my drink is empty. Come again soon for another story that can be learned from stamp collecting. First published in 2020.

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Quaiti State in Hadhramait 1969, The what state in where

The stamp topical guys have found another important country with which to show off western art. Where do you guess this is? Thee choices; the United Arab Emirates, Somaliland, or the Yemen. Those who guessed Yemen were correct. I guessed UAE knowing Finbar Kenny sought out some pretty small villages looking for Emirs and mythic post offices. This actually was a semi autonomous Sultanate affiliated with the British colony at Aden to the north. By the time of this issue however. communists had overrun the area and incorporated it into South Yemen. They let not good for postal use stamp issues continue though notice it is a state now not a Sultanate. 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 quite nice painting on this stamp was painted by Thomas Gainsborough R. A. late in his career in 1785. It was painted of a young couple of 21 years, the future Mr. and Mrs. Hallett and their Pomeranian sheepdog. It was a period when British artists like Gainsborough were getting more recognized with the help of the then new Royal Academy and the fancy people could buy their art locally. Over the fullness of time, the particulars of the people on the painting became less important and the painting acquired the title “The morning walk” that it did not have in period. The painting is in the collection of the British National Gallery.

Sorry value seekers, this is a fake stamp so there is no catalog value.

Forces under Sultan Quaiti conquered this area in southern Yemen in 1881. The Sultan than entered into a treaty relationship with the British in 1890 and the area became a protectorate of the British Colony in Aden. In the early 1960s, the British intended to leave the area and they created a Federation of South Arabia as a hoped for successor state. The Quaiti Sultanate refused to join the Federation.

Map of area in period

The British had bigger problems in the area. Pan Arabist communists were receiving much support from Egypt’s Nasser and Britain had to declare a state of emergency in Aden. Over a short period there was a bomb attack on the colonial governor, an Air Aden airliner was shot down with no survivors, and most shockingly the Aden police mutinied and ambushed and killed 23 British soldiers. The British understandably lost interest in South Arabia and just left in November 1968.

Remember though the Quaiti Sultanate was not a part of South Arabia. They hoped for a UN referendum on the areas future. Instead that November the Yemen marched in unopposed and that was the end of the Sultanate. If you think of the relative position of Aden verses Dubai back in the protectorate days and think of Aden now. It would not be difficult to conclude that a still British influenced South Arabia under the Sultans might have been a better outcome. Neither Aden nor Dubai itself have much oil.

Well my drink is empty and one wonders what it must be like in modern Aden. When people think of how some of the old international trading cities thrived post Britain and others just sunk  into hell holes do you blame the British, do you blame Nasser, or do you look in the mirror. The last must be the hardest. Come again soon for another story that can be learned from stamp collecting. First published in 2020.

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Norway ships at sea 1943, Not all of our Sleipner destroyers became Torpedoboot Auslands, we still have the unsinkable boat

Here is one of those stories where they try to put the best face on a pretty bad picture. In doing so, they come right up to the edge of making a fake stamp. 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.

What right does a government in exile have to print stamps that should be collected and bought in bulk by the stamp collecting hobby. As with a similar Yugoslav stamp I wrote about here, https://the-philatelist.com/2018/07/30/communist-yugoslavia-1950-sells-off-the-invalid-exile-stamps/     , the answer was found in the navy ships at sea that escaped the invasions. The tiny crews could use the stamps on their mail, so that makes them real. Or course, you have to accept that the British Royal Navy was handling it. Well if you do accept it, sorry I think it fake. HNoMS  Sleipner was a good subject, it was pretty much it as far as Norway still fighting for the Allies. It had a crew of 72.

Todays stamp is issue A43, a 10 Ore stamp issued in London by the Royal government of Norway in exile in 1943. It was an 8 stamp issue in various denominations. Post war, the issue was made more real by selling them finally from Norway’s post offices.  According to the Scott catalog, the stamp is worth 25 cents whether used or unused. A version of the stamp set with an overstamp of London with a date and a serial ups the value to $700. Barrel aged no doubt.

The Royal Norwegian Navy ordered 6 copies of the locally made Sheipner class of destroyers in the mid 1930s. They were reasonably modern but sized more like a larger torpedo boat. Four were in service when Germany invaded in April 1940. The lead ship Sleipner, named after Norse God Oden’s horse, had already seen its most interesting action. Germans had boarded and taken as a prize an American cargo ship the SS City of Flint. The treasure crew then sailed for the nearest neutral port to collect bounty. The Sleiper had chased it away from the port of Tromso without firing. The ship went on to Haugesund where the Germans were interned but the ship was not returned to the USA.

The Sleipner again went into action against the Germans after the invasion. The only one of the four destroyers in service to do so. It was to cover British landings at Narvik. The ship came under what must have seemed like intense attack from the air. 48 bombs were dropped near the ship with none hitting. There was a lot of Allied propaganda at the time portraying the Sleipner as an unsinkable ship. Given what happened later it was clear that the Germans were purposely missing because they intended to seize the ship intact and make use of it.

Two of the Sleipner class were seized intact by the Germans and put into action by the Kriegsmarine. Two more still under construction were finished and also used. Germany re-designated them Torpedoboots Ausland and gave them new names. The Gyller became the Lowe and had interesting service. In 1945 it was escorting the German troopship Wilhelm Gustloff which was evacuating German civilians by sea from East Prussia. Wilhelm Gustloff was then hit by a torpedo fired by a Soviet submarine S-13. Lowe pulled alongside and saved 472 people from the doomed ship.

Just because the Sleipner couldn’t be sunk doesn’t mean that it couldn’t be mothballed and that it was happened to it early in 1944 over a year before the end of the war. After the war the Sleipner and the four remaining sister ships that served Germany returned to Norway and were modernized and re-designated  as frigates. The served Norway’s Navy until the late 1950s.

Well my drink is empty and I will pour another to toast the stamp designers that labor to provide much needed funds for governments in exile. Come again soon for another story that can be learned from stamp collecting. First published in 2020.

 

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Buriatia 1990s, off to Siberia for another fake stamp

A while back I did a 1920s stamp from a place called Tannu Tuva in Asian Siberia, see https://the-philatelist.com/2018/07/24/tannu-tuva-1934-the-russian-commissars-extraordinary-have-arrived-and-brought-stamps/   . The idea for the stamps was marketed to the Soviets by a Hungarian stamp dealer. Well the 1990s saw a new round of autonomy seeking, and there were still stamp dealers out to make a quick buck on it. 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.

Comparing this stamp to the Tannu Tuva stamp leaves me preferring the old. Though poorly printed, the stamps showed exotic writing in several languages and alphabets and views of the natives of Tannu Tuva that might expect you to run into Genghis Kahn himself on the next stamp. Whoever is doing Buriatia just shows you topical stamps that could be from anywhere.

This fake stamp is not listed in any catalog but I found the six stamp souvenir sheet of the horses for sale online for $1.99. Even in Buriatia, you cannot use any of the stamps for postage.

In 1923, the Soviets formed the Buryat-Mongol Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic in the same area of Asian Siberia. Most of the people then were Mongol Buddhists. The ethnic makeup allowed for Soviet era studies into the the traits of the three races in the area. Soviets, Mongol Buryats, and those of mixed parentage were studied on guidelines as to how they performed as state workers. The official results were that there was no particular advantage to any of the three ethnicities.

Over time there were ever more Soviets in the area and in 1958 the Soviets reflected that by dropping the Mongol from the title of the region. By 1990 the area was 70 percent Soviet. The Soviet Republic was refashioned into the Buryatia Republic in 1992 that remained within the then organizing Russian Federation. The leader of the republic was for the first 25 years a locally born Soviet. In 2017 President Putin appointed a new leader that was of mixed Buriatia/Russian heritage. Both mens’ career prior to politics were with the railroad, perhaps indicative of how important the Trans Siberian Railroad is to the area. The area has at best a stagnant population.

Here are some of the old Mongol states of the area prior to the Russians. Obviously peoples in desperate need of fake stamps

Well my drink is empty and if I may, I encourage the purveyor of modern fake stamps to do a better job. 99% of the people will have no idea about where your made up place is. What an opportunity to show off the truly exotic. Come again soon for another story that can be learned from stamp collecting. First published in 2020.

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Viet Cong 1964, Better blow up the Canberra bombers that the USA wasn’t supposed to send

Here we have a fake stamp covering a real attack on bombers that were not supposed to be there. I will try to get to the bottom of the creation of this unique stamp. 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 is rather hard to identify. It looks North Vietnamese and indeed is printed there. Notice the rough state of the perforations. Instead though it is an issue of the National Liberation Front of South Vietnam, the Viet Cong. The stamp is also a little confusing because the plane blowing up on the stamp is the well known British Canberra bomber. The USA used them as well, repackaged as the B-57 and used them extensively in Vietnam, including before they were supposed to.

The Scott catalog does not recognize the issues of the Viet Cong. For a stamp to be considered real there has to be a postal system. If the Viet Cong had one, they never convinced the stamp collecting world of it.

In 1964, the USA was doing much to help prop up the government of South Vietnam. The mostly communist National Liberation Front was receiving support from North Vietnam and trying to overthrow the South government, which was left by the French when they left in 1954. Under the terms of the Geneva Protocol, outsiders were not allowed to deploy jets to Vietnam. Thus the early bombers sent were old B26 piston engine bombers. In early 1964, a B26 crashed in the USA and the fleet was grounded. It was decided to then get around the ban by deploying B57 Canberra jet bombers, but claim they were out of the Philippines. The idea was to operate them with South Vietnamese markings and joint crews. This just did not work out. In late 1964 48 B57s arrived at Bien Hoa airbase. Four of the aircraft crashed on arrival. The airfield was also not secure from Viet Cong attack. On Halloween night 1964 the base came under a 30 minute long mortar barrage. The base was crowded and many of the bombers were parked in the open air. Five B57s were destroyed that night and 13 more were damaged. This is the attack depicted on the stamp. The idea of joint manning with the South Vietnamese did not work out as the South Vietnamese crews thought the plane was beyond their capabilities. There was another disaster involving the B-57 in early 1965 when a fully loaded bomber exploded while waiting in line to take off that set up chain reaction explosions on over a dozen additional bombers.

The B57 Canberra eventually proved useful in Vietnam with it’s long range and war load allowing it to fly up and down the Ho Chi Minh  trail for hours at a time hunting supply trucks. The B57 was one of the last American plane units to leave Vietnam in 1972. The Bien Hoa airbase  was directly attacked during the Tet offensive and nearly fell with many planes damaged. However the South Vietnamese managed to hold on to it until the surrender in 1975. The air base is still operational and Vietnam operate SU 30 fighter bombers from there.

North Vietnamese Army capturing Bien Hoa Airbase in 1975. The B57s were gone by then but it looks like they got some F5s

One interesting issue that arose as South Vietnam fell was who runs it post war. Viet Cong officials tried to set themselves up in the government offices in Saigon after the fall. This did not last and quickly South Vietnam was being run directly from Hanoi. It is now the official position of Vietnam that Viet Cong units were part of the North Vietnamese Army.

Well my drink is empty and I will pour another to toast Vietnam veterans. Come again for another story that can be learned from stamp collecting. First published in 2019.

 

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Azerbaijan 1919, there is oil, and Turks, and fake stamps in them there hills

Once a flag rises it can never fall was a slogan of Azerbaijan during it’s one year of independence in 1919. Perhaps it should have been never be sure you won’t see this flag again. In the mean time, lets print some fake stamps. 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.

Yes todays stamp is fake. The few real stamps from the early Azerbaijan were imperforate stamps printed on an unusual yellow paper. This stamp mimics those in how the country name is presented and currency but is later. The modern real Azerbaijan stamps don’t say republique and have a different currency. Fake stamps still plaque the country but there is something fake about the real stamps. If you see the Muslim country stamp featuring John Lennon, that is real. A stamp with the Spice Girls, that is fake. Makes you wonder if the whole country is fake.

This is a fake stamp so it is not in the catalog. So therefore the stamp is priceless.

The city of Baku was taken from Persia in the early 19th century. Oil was discovered and the town became a boomtown of Czarist Russia. The area contained Muslim Turks, Persians and Christian Armenians and Russians. With the chaos that overcame Russia in 1917 the Caucus area quickly attempted to break away. The local unit of the Czarist army became the army of the area but there was much infighting between Muslims and Armenians. The Muslims had an Ottoman Turk Army in support and the Armenians allied with the Soviets. Baku fell to the Ottomans and there was an ethnic cleansing. In theory Azerbaijan became an independent Republic under local Azer writer and journalist Mammad Ammin Rasulzadeh, who I will call MAR from here on out. MAR had been an early communist but had also trafficked in Muslim separatism. A rebel with many causes. The Czar had sent him to exile in Persia where he was part of the new Iran movement against the Shah. The Shah then sent him on to Turkey where he agitated against the Ottomans. A 1913 Czar amnesty let MAR return to Baku where he was supported by Zeynalabdin Tagiyez. ZT was a contactor that stuck oil and sold out becoming one of the richest men in Russia. An independent Azerbaijan relied on an occupation Ottoman army that was withdrawn at the end of 1918 as the Ottomans were on the losing side of World War One. After a respectable period, The Red Army marched in and made Azerbaijan a Soviet Republic.

MAR as President of Azerbaijan

The Soviets showed some grace to the Azers after the reconquest. MAR had known a young Joseph Stalin when both were anti Czarist agitators and gave him a job in public relations in first Moscow and then Leningrad. MAR escaped to Finland and then Poland where he married. Another war sent him on to Romania then Turkey from where he often spoke to Azerbaijan over Voice of America. He died in 1955. ZT in view of his previous philanthropy was allowed to live out his days in his summer cottage as his other properties were seized. ZT’s second wife Sona was not so lucky. Despite being of noble birth and upbringing, in 1924 upon ZT’s death, Sona was evicted from the summer cottage and spent her remaining days  a street person in Baku. Sona died in 1938.

ZT with grandchildren a year before his death

Azerbaijan again got independence in 1992. Oil is not has plentiful as it once was probably explaining why the area no longer receives the attention of the Russian, Turkish, or Iranian army. Baku is a big city today but the Armenians and Jews that used to be a big part of life there are gone and even Russians are down below 5 percent of the population.

Well my drink is empty and my stamp fake so come again for another story that can be learned from stamp collecting. First published in 2019.