Falkland Island stamp – The-Philatelist

War between major powers often takes place in some far off places. A otherwise costly, lonely outpost can become suddenly important when you add the presence of the enemy. 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 is the first stamp issue of the Falkland Island Dependencies. So why not inform the collector where you are talking about with a map. The stamp looks nice but I can’t make much out on the map. The stamp designers saw this themselves and redrew the stamp two years later but it is hard to get around that the south Atlantic ocean is large and the tiny outposts spread out.

Todays stamp is issue A1, a half penny stamp issued by the Dependencies of the British Crown Colony of the Falkland Islands. It was an eight stamp issue in various denominations. According to the Scott catalog, the stamp is worth $1.10 unused. The half penny denomination, quite the bargain, would have only been useful for inter-outpost mail, so the stamp being used triples the value. I mentioned the stamp was redrawn and that change ups their value 8 fold.

The Falkland Islands dependencies was the arrangement where by the Falkland Island colony administration took responsibility for other British outposts including South Georgia island, the South Sandwich Islands, South Orkney Islands, the South Shetland Islands, and British outposts on Antarctica. The Antarctic territories separated in 1962, see https://the-philatelist.com/2019/06/10/british-antarctic-territory-1963-with-no-more-shackleton-we-better-make-bases-permanent/ , and left only South Georgia and South Sandwich as Falkland Dependencies. In 1985 the Dependencies became a separate overseas territory of Britain, which they remain. The islands were free to do there own stamps, we covered a South Georgia stamp here https://the-philatelist.com/2019/06/14/south-georgia-at-least-the-norwegians-immigrants-brought-reindeer-to-this-british-island/ .

Maintaining British nationals in such far off outposts will always be expensive. The 20th century brought world wide wars among Great Powers and a base suddenly useful. In World War I the German Indian Ocean naval squadron was returning home by way of the south Atlantic under the command of Admiral and Graf Maximillian Spee. He decided to bombard the Falklands to deprive the British of their radio relay and coal station. A larger British naval squadron was looking for them and had stopped at Stanley to be refueled. Spee’s squadron was surprised and most of the ships were sunk, only two of the eight German ships escaped. Admiral and Graf Spee perished.

HMS Inflexible picking up survivors from the sunken German Cruiser Sharnhorst after the Battle of the Falklands.

At the onset of World War II, a German pocket Battleship, named in honor of the World War I Admiral, deployed to the south Atlantic to raid commercial ships. A pocket battleship was a faster and better armed cruiser built to get around Weimar restrictions on ship building. It was at the extremes of its range and had no prospect of rearming so was ordered to avoid all contact with even weaker enemy ships. A British cruiser squadron was again waiting for them off Falkland and the Graff Spee decided to scuttle herself to save her crew rather than face them. Captain Ludendorf of the Graf Spee committed suicide, his body falling on the battle ensign of the Graff Spee.

After the war the foreign intrusions were by lessor powers. In 1966, an Argentine DC4 airliner was hijacked to Falkland by 19 members of a Peronist extremist group and the plane landed on a racecourse but hit power lines. First responders were taken hostage and the Argentines disembarked around the plane, raised Argentine flags and sung the Argentine national anthem. The local part time defense forces surrounded the racecourse and forced an Argentine surrender. I will leave the 1982 war with Argentina for another stamp.

Well my drink is empty and I guess the Falklands are safe with Germans no longer using the name Graf Spee on their ships and not hiring any descendants of the Graff. Their navy’s current frigates however do rather resemble pocket battleships. Come again tomorrow for another story that can be learned from stamp collecting.

The Argentine claim on South Georgia was beaten back by force. The Norwegians came and were allowed as they were willing to naturalize. The British outlasted them having banned their way of life. Then it was the turn of the reindeer to be exterminated, for the ecology you understand. 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 struck me about this stamp was how odd it is to show reindeer on a stamp that does not involve Christmas. Reindeer weren’t native to the cold South Atlantic islands but Norwegian examples were introduced by whalers from Norway and thrived.

Todays stamp is issue A1, a half penny stamp issued by South Georgia in 1963, at the time it was considered a Dependency of the nearby Crown Colony of the Falkland Islands. This first issue of South Georgia stamps consisted of 16 stamps of various denominations. According to the Scott Catalog, the stamp is worth 55 cents.

The island of South Georgia had been spotted by several explorers, merchant sailors and pirates but Captain Cook was the first to land, survey and claim the uninhabited islands for Great Britain. In the 19th century there had been several attempts at seal harvesting but those operations were not conducted sustainably and were banned when the seal population was made tiny. In the early 20th century, there was an attempt at a whaling industry. New country Norway attempted to unsuccessfully to buy the islands from Great Britain. Britain allowed in their whaling camps and many naturalized as British citizens. At the height of it, the island was 90% Norwegian and only 5 percent British. The warm season saw 3000 residents dropping to about 300 in winter. In 1965, whaling was ended and the Norwegians departed.

Beginning in the 1920s and 30s, Argentina claimed the island. In 1982, a preexisting authorized Argentine camp began flying the Argentine flag and Argentine special forces landed. 27 Royal Marines fought them and killed several, shot down a helicopter and damaged an Argentine Navy Corvette by shooting it with a bazooka. The Argentines managed to take the island for a few weeks until the arrival of the British fleet. They still formally claim the island.There are still scientific stations and cruise ship visits as with Antarctica, see https://the-philatelist.com/2019/06/10/british-antarctic-territory-1963-with-no-more-shackleton-we-better-make-bases-permanent/ , but no permanent residents on South Georgia.

Reindeers, 3 males and 7 females were introduced by Norway as a source of meat for their whaler residents. By the early 21st century there were over 7000 reindeer in two herds on the island. There numbers had increased after the departure of the Norwegians as they were no longer hunted. Ecologists came to believe that the reindeer were a threat to the glacier on the island. After 20 were moved to the Falkland Islands to preserve the now unique South Georgia breed, 7000 reindeer were exterminated in 2011-14. There are no longer any reindeer on South Georgia, a final 8 that escaped were hunted down and killed in 2015. Reindeers appeared on South Georgia stamps most recently 2004, but no stamp to mark the extermination. The unique bird life of South Georgia is still shown on their stamps. Better hope none of them accidentally land on the precious glacier.

Well by drink is empty and I am left wondering about the so called ecologists who decided the reindeer must be exterminated. Off with Dasher, off with Dancer…. I mean geez. Come again tomorrow for another story that can be learned from stamp collecting.