Tag: Laos stamp

What to throw away and what to keep. For the communist Pathet Lao the ancient Royals had to go. Except not entirely. Laotian Royals had multiple wives and dozens of children. Among them were 3 “Red Princes” whose French educations left them followers of Ho Chi Minh. Perfect for a Communist head of state, with the slight nod that maybe not so much was changing. 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.

One of the last stamp issues of the Royal government of Laos honored American Apollo astronauts. There were no stamps at all for a year and a half and then when stamps came back, one of the first celebrates Soviet Cosmonauts. Different but just a little the same right. Except this issue cellebrates 60 years since the Bolchevick revolution in Russia. That is a pretty big hint that Pathet Lao was having it’s strings pulled form the outside, just like they accused the other side.

Todays stamp is issue A99, a 5 Kip stamp issued by Laos on October 25, 1977. During this period the stamps went under 2 names. Less political issues used Postes Lao. More political earned the full if clunky Republique Democratique Populaire Lao. the regime is still in power but last used the mouthful name on a stamp in 1982. This was a five stamp issue in different denominations that was also available in two different souvenir sheets. According to the Scott catalog, the stamp is worth 25 cents. The sovenir sheet that included this stamp is worth $6.00.

The Royal government faced a civil war virtually constantly after World War II. The Pathet Lao was openly communist but also claimed to be nationalist. The Royal government, having lasted through the French was seen as collaborators of colonialists. They perhaps were not helping their otherwise valid point by opening areas to North Vietnam’s military. After the USA left Vietnam in 1973 a treaty was signed in Laos that retained the King but had a coalition government including communists. This was not good enough and with South Vietnam and Cambodia falling in 1975 the Pathet Lao made their move. In August 1975 they marched into the capital unopposed with 50 women in front of the column. For a while the King stayed in the Palace. At the end of the year he submited his abdication but just moved to an apartment in Vientiane.

The Pathet Lao had their own Royals. Prince Souphanouvong was a lesser Royal born to a concubine in 1905. His paternal bloodline got him an education in Vietnam and then in France during the period of French Indo China. Such education of natives never leads them to love de Gaulle or even Petian. They instead all seem to become followers of Ho Chi Minh. Prince Soupanouvong returned to Laos a Red Prince and was made a General Secretary of the Pathet Lao political arm. Power to the People!

With the abdication of the real King, Souphanouvong stopped calling himself Prince and the Communist named him President, a non executive head of state. The now ex King was even named his Supreme Adviser. Power to the People. The real commies could not however stomach still having the King around. There was still some fighting in the countryside mainly eminating from the Hmong minority. Remember them from the Eastwood movie “Gran Torino.” Worrying that the King would leave the capital and lead an uprising, The Royal Family was rounded up and sent to a re-education camp. It was announced in 1978 that all the Royals died simultaneously from malaria. Well we know today that there are deadly Asian bugs around.

None of this affected Soupanouvong. In fact even in the re-education camp he would still visit and consult with the ex King. As the eighties went along, the country came less controlled by Vietnam and reopened again to tourism and trade with Thailand. After Soupanouvong retired in 1991, Laos decided that no longer needed Royals to serve as head of state. They do after all have that susceptibility to malaria.

Well my drink is empty and I will pour another to toast big families, they help a family adopt and get on. Come again soon for another story that can be learned from stamp collecting. First published in 2020.

Laos did something interesting. They gave you a window into the origins of the subway system  of several important world cities. This allows you to contrast the different timeframes, ideas for technology, and methods of management. 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 a farm out issue from a country that has no subways in country. Thus perhaps such an issue better belongs with the United Nations Post Office.

Todays stamp is issue A262, a 15 Kip stamp issued by Laos on January 9th, 1993, the 130th anniversary of the worlds first subway. The issue contained five stamps plus a souvenir sheet that contained a sixth, otherwise unissued stamp. The metros of  New York City, Berlin, Paris, London, and Moscow were featured. According to the Scott catalog, the stamp is worth 25 cents whether mint or used.

This stamp shows off New York’s system, so that is what we will cover. The subway got previewed in two ways. In 1869,  Alfred Ely Beach invested $350,000 dollars to construct a 300 foot long, one station pneumatic subway as a demonstration of what could be done. 400,000 people paid to ride it. It took four years to gain approvals from the city to expand it. However in 1873, there was a stock market crash, and Beach was unable to raise the capital needed and he closed the demonstration.

Around the same time the terminus in Queens at the site of the ferry to Manhattan of the Long Island railroad went underground after it was required to not locate the steam train at street level. At first it was just a cut but was later roofed over. Walt Whitman waxed poetic about how going underground gave a wonderful feeling of entering a big city. The use of this tunnel ended when the borough put a large tax on locomotives and the tunnel was sealed up. Later the knowledge of the tunnel underneath became fascinating to the police. During World War I, they dug into it expecting to find a bomb making operation by German spies. In the 1920s, it was again dug into and searched hoping to find a large scale distillery during alcohol prohibition. Nothing was found either time, That was for the best, imagine how bad that water to make the whiskey would have been.

By the 1890s it was realized that it would have to be the government to build a large subway system serving all the boroughs. It was going to be an electric railroad and the timing meant there was an interesting technology choice. At the time there was a current war between the companies of Thomas Edison and of George Westinghouse over how electric current should be delivered. Edison promoted a direct current DC. Westinghouse’s alternating current AC eventually won out but to this day the New York City subway still uses Edison’s DC direct current.

The subway  built out rapidly and peaked out in 1946 at over 2 million annual riders. There was a lot of inflation  in the post war period and reorganizations to cut cost did not succeed. The 5 cent fare went to 15 cents in a six year period and ridership dropped a third. This put on unending hold  on any expansion plans. The citizens could see the system deteriorating and twice passed bond initiatives to modernize and expand the system, however the money raised was syphoned off for other projects.

Starting in 1954, there was a new New York city planner named Robert Moses. He emphasized parks and highways for suburb commuters to easily get into the city by car. Since poor people  of the period did not have cars and were also housed in more large subsidized housing projects that were assessable by the subway but had little car parking, this was hoped to keep crime only in certain neighborhoods. This strategy was later vilified by liberals as racist and when Moses was opposed to a plan to redirect bridge tolls into the city to fund subway shortfalls, he was fired by liberal Republican mayor John Lindsey. The vilification of Moses went so far that a liberal biographer claimed that Moses had tricked his mother into excluding his brother from her estate. It turned out that Moses’s brother was a drug addled bum and his mother had made the decision herself. After Moses budgets then went up but so did crime and ridership continued to drop.

Well my drink is empty. With modern standards and small construction crews, it gets ever more difficult to build a new subway. Elon Musk through his operation, “The boring company” is trying to invent new technology for underground emission free travel. Obviously boring has a double meaning to Musk, but I don’t think it’s boring and I hope he is able to pull it off. Come again next Monday for another story that can be learned from stamp collecting.

An ancient royal house lasted 800 years even through the colonial period only to die of “malaria” in a communist reeducation camp. 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.

Post war Laotian stamps from the Royal period are really quite well executed artistically. The first years of communism in the late seventies show typical scenes of Soviet style soldiers and by the 80s the stamp issues were farm outs. The late forties through the early 70s were the golden age for Laotian philatelists.

The stamp today is issue A19, a 12 and a half Kip stamp issued by Laos on November 2nd 1959. It shows the gilded Stupa of Wat Chom on the summit of Phou Si in the then Royal capital of Luang Prabang. It was part of a 6 stamp issue in various denominations. According to the Scott Catalog, the stamp is worth 80 cents used.

The French were able to come back in 1946 and put back on the throne Sisavang Vong. He had been briefly deposed when the Japanese invaded Laos in February 1945. This time his realm was not just Luang Prabang but the entirety of Laos. The French withdrew again in 1954. The North Vietnamese invaded Eastern Laos in order to build the Ho Chi Min trail to supply the Vietcong in the south of Vietnam.

Sisavang Vong was a bit of a playboy King. He fathered 50 children and had 15 wives. Two of his wives were his half sisters and one was his niece. And you thought European royal family trees did not have enough branches.

Sisavang Vong died in 1959 and was succeeded by King Sisavang Vatthana. He only had one wife and five children. He decided against a formal coronation as the country was in a state of war with North Vietnam and their allies, the Pathet Lao. The King tried to stay neutral in the conflict but the Vietnamese refused to abandon the occupation. The Ho Chi Min trail was subjected to heavy American bombing. A peace treaty was signed in 1973 creating a coalition government with the Communists but again the Vietnamese did not leave. In late 1975 the Pathet Lao moved into the administrative capital Vientiane and forced the King to abdicate.

Although 10 % of the country left for Thailand the King thought it his duty to stay, His personal situation gradually deteriorated. At first he remained in the palace but then volunteered to leave it so the new government could make it a museum. Soon he was under house arrest. Then the government feared he might escape house arrest and try to lead a resistance movement. His family was arrested and moved to a reeducation camp that was for high officials of the former regime. In 1978 the government announced that the King, his Queen and the Crown Prince had died of malaria at the camp. The youngest son escaped when the regime fell to Thailand and on to Paris. There he worked for the carmaker Renault and lobbied for Laos to return to a constitutional monarchy. He died in 2018.

Well my drink is empty. Come again for another story that can be learned from stamp collecting. First published in 2018.

Laos celebrates new year in April which coincides with their hottest time of the year and the beginning of the monsoon season. That and the Buddhist traditions mean things are celebrated a little differently. The idea of a new year bringing hope is universal. 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 takes a formal and reverential tone to the ceremonies around new year. That is well and good and the stamp is well printed. New Year in Laos is foremost a cellebration though and that seems missing from this stamp. A while back I did a stamp on a similar festival as practiced by Hindus in Guyana, see https://the-philatelist.com/2019/08/19/guyana-apparantly-south-america-1969-after-the-political-rift-along-racial-lines-a-country-seeks-a-new-start-with-a-celebration-of-spring/      . I think that stamp better captured the party atmosphere.

Todays stamp is issue A239, a 150 Kip stamp issued by Laos on November 20th. 1990, seven months after new year. It was a four stamp issue in various denominations. According to the Scott catalog, the stamp is worth $1.25 cancelled to order. 150 Kip is currently worth less than 2 cents.

Pi Mai, the Laotian new year is a three day holiday. The first day, April 13th, is the last day of the old year. It is reserved for cleaning body, home, and especially Buddha Icons.  The second day is thought of as the day between  the years. It is a day for gathering sand and flowers. The sand is to be taken to the temple to build mounds and the flowers are to decorate the Icons and to add a pleasant smell to the water used on the third day. The third day, April 15th, is the actual first day of the new year and water is poured on the old and Monks by the young in return for blessings. Then it broadens with perfumed water being spayed every way. In recent years the celebratory spraying has started to include shaving and whipped cream from cans.

I mentioned above the taking of the sand to the temple to build mounds. These are called Stupas and are meant to build merit. The mounds are supposed to represent the mountain Phoukhou Kallot, where ancient King Kabinlaphrom’s skull was kept by his seven daughters.

There are also beauty pageants where seven young maidens compete to be name Miss Lao New Year. The seven contestants are also meant to represent the seven daughters of King Kabinlaphrom.

Well my drink is empty. Happy new year to all, it is probably new years somewhere everyday. Come again tomorrow when there will be another story to be learned from stamp collecting.