Tag: Netherlands stamp

113 years separates the USA stamp I did recently, see https://the-philatelist.com/2020/12/18/usa-1893-a-columbian-exposition-brings-the-worlds-eyes-on-chicago/ , to this one today. They both were trying to do the same thing. Show the past in a patriotic way that gives hope and confidence for the future. On that stamp we sneer at the ideal “white city” even though they clearly meant less pollution not race. Here the Dutch postal service asked modern artists for pleasant renderings of Holland and that request was too much for this artist to bare. 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 one hand, there is some room to be impressed with the printing of this stamp. Getting full size works of art on stamps as small as this one must have taken some doing by the lithographer. Obviously the tiny bulk postage stamp is not an ideal venue to view art. I wonder if the decision makers were unimpressed  by the quality of the art submissions and tried to lessen the embarrassment by minimizing the stamp size.

Todays stamp is issue A480, a 39 Euro Cents stamp issued by the Netherlands on January 2nd, 2006. This issue came as booklet panes of 10 self adhesive stamps. According to the Scott Catalog, the stamp is worth 25 cents used.

This stamp displays A day in Holland/Holland in a day by artist Barbara Visser. Babs was born in 1966 in Harlem(the Dutch one) and had an extensive education that spanned several countries and stretched into her thirties. Her government grants and prizes included the 30,000 Euro Charlotte Kohler Prize handed out by the Prince Bernhard Culture Fund.

When the call went out from the postal authority for modern works on Dutch subjects, Babs had the idea to pull a little trick on them. The title of the work  gives off a tourism vibe and causes you to not question the presence of the Japanese couple admiring the old windmill. The painting though is not what it seems or what was requested. The windmill on the stamp is an old Dutch windmill that had been disassembled, shipped to Japan and reconstructed. It is the artist who is the tourist and not in the Netherlands.

While the stamp from 17 years ago appears to be the height of Babs art career she has other achievements. In 1995 she had a four episode arch on the Lithuanian soap opera Gimines playing herself but married to a Lithuanian/American surgeon named Steve.

Well my drink is empty and I will pour another in commiseration with the postal authority having been shat upon for the crime of trying to display todays well subsidized art to a broad audience. Come again soon for another story that can be learned from stamp collecting. First published in 2020.

Consorting with German princes can lead to trouble. After everything though, one can respect a life well lived. 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.

A lot to like about the visuals of this stamp. First is that it looks at least 10 years newer than it is. Second that it shows the Prince as a man, with accomplishments and perhaps flaws. Then there are the airplanes. A Fokker F27 Friendship regional airliner showing off Dutch industry, and the KLM Boeing 747 reaching for the stars with it’s promise of worldwide travel.

Todays stamp is issue A123, a 25 cent stamp issued by the Netherlands on June 25th, 1971. It features Prince Consort Bernhard honoring him for his work in Dutch aviation and in other stamps in this issue, his work for the World Wildlife Fund. According to the Scott Catalog, the stamp is worth 25 cents.

The Prince was born in 1911 in Germany as a Prince in the house of Lippe. The royal house became out of work after World War I but the family still had money. The Prince was educated and took a job! with IJ Farbin the large German chemical company. He also to his later embarrassment joined the Nazi Party and served in the SS in a reserve capacity. He met Dutch Princess Julianna at a winter Olympics in 1936 and was judged a worthy suitor as a proper Royal and a Lutheran. He married Princess Julianna in 1937 and with her fathered 4 daughters including future Queen Beatrix. His German background came back to haunt him when the Germans invaded in 1940 but he willingly fought for his adopted country by flying Spitfires fighters from Britain. Julianna and the children fled to the safety of Canada. The allies were nervous of him at first but over time he earned their respect. When Queen Wilhelmina erased the honorary from her son in law’s military title, something she did not technically have the right to do, the Dutch armed forces honored it. He had a brother who fought with his native Germans and many wondered of their wartime relationship.

In 1948, Queen Wilhelmina abdicated and Bernhard’s wife Julianna became Queen. He became a jet setter who actively promoted Dutch business around the world. He also became Inspector General of the Dutch armed forces. His jet setting later led to two further illegitimate daughters, one in 1952 by an American landscape architect and a second by a French model in 1967. He also helped found the World Wildlife Fund.

He also courted controversy. In the 1960s NATO countries pooled their resources to buy fighter planes for their air forces on better terms. The group chose the Lockheed F104 Starfighter for the large order despite the model being a failure in American service. It later became controversial for it’s many crashes, In Canada, it was called the widowmaker and in Germany the tent peg. Rumors flooded Europe that the order went to Lockheed because of bribes paid. Proof was found from Prince Bernhard of him demanding a 1 million dollar “commission” to him personally in return for the Dutch order for Starfighters. He tried to claim he was above answering questions on such things but later stepped down from the armed forces and other business interests to avoid criminal prosecution.

He had earlier controversially planted stories in the German press about his wife the Queen for seeing a faith healer, which the article described as her Rasputin. The story was true and eventually Queen Julianna was forced by the government to cut ties from her. The Royals were divided as to whether he was taking desperate measures to help her or whether it was a German Putsch to have Julianna abdicate with Bernhard leading a regency for his young daughter.

The last controversy soiled his work with the World Wildlife Fund. The Prince sold some Royal paintings for $700.000 giving the money to the WWF. The WWF than gave $500,000 back to him to help form a mercenary army in Africa to fight poachers. How much they fought poachers and how much the collaborated with them is up for debate. Post apartheid South Africa believes the target was really the ANC and Zulu freedom fighters.

Prince Bernhard lived till 2004 and was considered somewhat of a character in Holland late in his life. He was awarded a full state Burial and outlived Former Queen Julianna by 8 months. The Dutch Air Force performed a missing man formation  with an old Spitfire, modern F16s, but no Starfighters.

Well my drink is empty and I will happily pour another to toast Prince Bernhard. The world needs a few characters. Come again  for another story that can be learned from stamp collecting. First published in 2018.

You don’t think of Holland as a great military power. Sea power much more so. Well a sea power  often finds the need to quickly go ashore and Holland was among the first to translate the idea of marines as shipboard soldiers to small units that could go ashore. Today that means the goal is going ashore anywhere in the world within 48 hours. 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 tries to show both changes and continuity by displaying a Dutch Marine as he looked in 1665 and then 1965. The 1960s style graphic detracts from what could have been a better stamp.

Todays stamp is issue A106, an 18 cent stamp issued by Holland on December 10th,1965. It was a single stamp issue. According to the Scott catalog, the stamp is wort 25 cents whether used or unused.

The Dutch realized the need for amphibious Marines during the second Anglo-Dutch war in the 17th century. Their first operation was audacious. A group of Royal Navy ships were laid up at a boatyard in Chatham up the Medway River. The Dutch Marines captured a river mouth fort at Sheerness and sailed up the river and boarded and burned 13 Royal Navy ships before escaping with the then Royal Navy flagship HMS Royal Charles under tow. The Dutch thought the ship unsuited for service in their navy so instead docked it as a tourist attraction. The British were deeply embarrassed by the successful raid and quickly came to peace terms with the Dutch.

The Dutch Marine Corps made up with the British Royal Marines and in 1704 participated in the joint operation that took Gibraltar. They also made themselves useful during the 1940 German invasion of Holland, but the result was not as successful as Chatham or Gibraltar. The German plan was for German paratroopers landed in central Rotterdam to link up with on the march regular German infantry. This plan was thwarted by the Dutch Marines making a successful defense of Maas river bridges. The Germans responded with a devastating aerial bombing of Rotterdam.

I mentioned that for the marines had for quite a while been closely aligned with the British Royal Marines. The British call them clogies for their perceived insistence on wearing the wood shoe. The integration had gone beyond just interoperability into combined logistics functions, During Euroland integration, this was pointed to as a model as to how European nation state armies could become more integrated,

This as gone so far that old rival Germany has subsumed their own marine corps into the Dutch Marine Corps. This makes a lot of sense in terms of German politics if you can assume the Germans and the Dutch will always be on the same side. Remember the modern marines are a worldwide quick reaction force. Anything beyond natural disaster relief would be very controversial in Germany, as maybe it should be. Perhaps less so if it is happening under a Dutch flag.

Currently the Dutch Marine Corp is 2000 strong. It has the use of the Landing Platform Dock amphibious warfare ship HNLMS Rotterdam.

Well my drink is empty and what a great excuse to pour another to toast the now 355 years of service of the Dutch Marine Corps. Come again tomorrow for another story that can be learned from stamp collecting.

Europe is blessed with a long history of achievement. Not many places had advanced Universities in 1636AD. Utrecht in the Netherlands did. To recognize 300 years, instead of say showing an old building, why not call fourth the Roman Goddess of Wisdom Minerva, to show that the value of learning is even a longer and richer tradition. 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.

Minerva appears in the seals of many Universities, perhaps the most prominent one the University of Heidelberg in Germany. Usually she appears with her pet owl. The owl is missing here and also on the Seal of the Utrecht University itself. Another odd place that Minerva appears is on the money of the Confederate States of America. In Roman times, Minerva had a secondary role as a Patron of strategic defensive warfare, something the the Confederacy was deeply involved in.

Todays stamp is issue A35, a 6 cent stamp issued by the Netherlands on May 15th, 1936. It was a two stamp issue in different denominations. According to the Scott Catalog, the stamp is worth 25 cents used.

At it’s founding, Utrecht was the third university in the Netherlands. It was hoped that the University would give the city more stability, the Rhone River was constantly shifting and threatening flooding. The University started small with just a few dozen students and offered Philosophy training to all plus advanced teaching in Theology, Medicine, and the Law. Very unusually for the time, Utrecht admitted a female student prominent young artist Anna Maria van Schurman. In Lecture Halls she sat behind a screen so she could not be seen by other male students.

Around 1850, Utrecht was able to achieve some prominence  in the field of the hard sciences. The school innovated the use of laboratories for learning. By then the leaders were all male, but who knows what went on behind the screens.

Today the Utrecht University has 31,000 students. According to the Shanghai Ranking, it is the best University in the Netherlands, the 13th best in Europe, and the 49th best in the world. I wonder how Minerva would feel that such world rankings now emanate from Shanghai.

Well my drink is empty. There is still some time to decide, but I wonder how the Netherlands will remember 400 years of Utrecht in 2036. I hope they don’t just print up the Shanghai Rankings on a stamp. Yes more modern and I suppose it is important where young Chinese decide to apply or not apply. Somewhere though, we seem to have lost some of the majesty. Come again tomorrow for another story to be learned from stamp collecting.

Churchill described Queen Wilhelmina as the only “real man” among the many governments in exile in London. Perhaps because it wasn’t her first war. Quite a lesson for granddaughter and new Queen Beatrix. Things looked bright for Beatrix’s Reign, but one can never be sure. 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 was issued on the fortieth anniversary of the Netherlands being conquered by Germany. Given that there was a new Queen that year the presentation comes across as a plea that the new Queen be more serious in the mold of Wilhelmina and less of the flightiness and corruption of recently abdicated Queen Julianna. See https://the-philatelist.com/2018/08/30/netherlands-1971-prince-bernhard-is-honored-for-his-part-in-dutch-aviation-before-his-reputation-tarnishes/    .

Todays stamp is issue A198, a 60 cent stamp issued by the Netherlands on September 23rd, 1980. There was one other stamp in the issue that featured Churchill and the British flag in thanks for hosting the government in exile. According to the Scott catalog, the stamp is worth 25 cents used.

There were 3 Queens in a row that served between 1890 and 2013.The Dutch House of Orange did have rules favoring male heirs but if their are no male offspring…. Wilhelmina assumed the throne after the death of her elderly father. He had 4 sons by his first wife but they had all died. The King remarried in old age in hope of a new heir but the only issue was Wilhelmina who in her early years had her mother serve as regent. Wilhelmina faced many wars that challenged her deeply. The first was the Boer war that saw Boer settlers of Dutch heritage fighting a losing battle with the British in South Africa. She risked war with the British when she ordered Dutch naval ships to South Africa to evacuate leaders of the Orange Free State. This gave her a loathing of the British.

Germany was threatening as World War I approached. Kaiser Wilhelm threatened her by pointing out that his bodyguards were 7 feet tall while hers were a foot shorter. She responded “That is true your Majesty, but if we release the dykes the water will be 10 feet deep.” Holland was not attacked in the war but faced the same blockaide as the Germans as they were perceived as allies of them. Kaiser Wilhelm was welcomed in Holland when he was exiled from defeated Germany. The fall of the Czar in Russia also left her personal fortune much diminished. She had been the first female billionaire. She was also facing a strong communist labor movement  at home that sought to remove her. The relative prosperity of the country at the time saved the Dutch Monarchy.

The Queen pulled an about face when Germany attacked in 1940. The government boarded British ships and was evacuated to London. The Prime Minister sought accommodation with the German invadors but Wilhelmina was now adamant about the Allied cause and had him removed from the government in exile. She became a symbol of resistance. Her home in Britain was even heavily damaged by a late in the war mini Blitz by Germany on Britain in early 1944. She returned after the war but by this point she was elderly herself. She began the tradition of abdicating to allow the next generation a long rule. That tradition continued through Beatrix abdicating in 2013 in favor of her son.

Beatrix reign was for less eventful than Wilhelmina. The power that she had was gradually disapated. She also avoided controversy by making it against the rules to quote her directly. Her son abandoned this but it seems a sensible precaution if someone is adept at putting their foot in their mouth.

Well my drink is empty and I will pour another to toast the Royal House of Orange. Come again tomorrow for another story that can be learned from stamp collecting.

Delft University of Technology has over the previous 177 years,become one the premier technical universities in the world. As such, it is much larger than how it started. In the 1960s that change was reflected in a new assembly hall that replaced a small local chapel for university events. With more students, the University thought big and brutal. 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 suspect the stamp designer was not a fan of brutalist architecture. Well it is an acquired taste. One that I am myself acquiring after doing this Polish stamp, seehttps://the-philatelist.com/2019/03/20/poland-1976-would-it-be-too-brutal-to-try-this-again/ and this Soviet stamp, see https://the-philatelist.com/2019/01/02/soviet-union-1983-a-superpower-builds-big/.In those cases it was cold war era communist behind the buildings, but in this case the building came to be in the Netherlands. The impulses were the same as the school was more for the masses than before. Notice the floating spaceship aspect of the building built in 1966, the Russian fad of making their brutalist building appear to be floating was 10 years later. Innovation, as you would expect from a premier university in the field using it’s own graduates.

Todays stamp is issue A107, a 20 cent stamp issued by the Netherlands on January 5th, 1967. It was a single stamp issue celebrating the 125th anniversary of Delft University of Technology by showing the then new assembly hall. According to the Scott catalog, the stamp is worth 25 cents whether it is mint or used.

The University was founded as a Royal Academy in 1842. The original intent was to train colonial administrators for the then vast Dutch colonial empire. Originally the colonies were owned by the Dutch East India Company but the company went bankrupt and was nationalized in 1799. The Napoleonic Wars then played havoc with the empire but after that  the need was seen for more professional management. Over time, the Netherlands home country was rapidly industrializing  and the school transitioned to providing engineering training on an ever more vast scale. At the time of the Royal Academy there were 400 students, now there are over 19,000.

The assembly hall is called the Aula. It was designed by the architectural firm of van den Broek and Bakema, who were both graduates of the University. The firm mainly did large apartment buildings around Rotterdam in the Brutalist style but really went to town with the Aula. Their work was of some note internationally and they were invited to participate in the Interbau development in late 50s West Berlin. See that period Berlin architecture on a stamp here https://the-philatelist.com/2018/09/17/berlin-1966-a-new-divided-and-more-corporate-berlin/

The building still stands though the great masses of visible prestressed concrete tends to be discolored if not recently pressurewashed. That is okay, brutalism only improves with a little wear, enhancing the period feel. Delft Technical University received the honor of another stamp on the 150th anniversary in 1992, but that issue did not feature the architecture of the campus. Perhaps the many newer buildings did not measure up.

Well my drink is empty, and thankfully my University days are far behind me. Come again tomorrow for another story that can be learned from stamp collecting.

This stamp is an appeal for charity. So one might expect a dramatic depiction of need. The Netherlands was pretty rich by 1984. So instead we see the appeal clothed in humor and the addition of luxury to the less privileged child’s life. Says something I think of the privilege of being Dutch. 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 am not fond of the aesthetics of this stamp. There is too much going on and it is simply not serious in the appeal. It is worth remarking that the stamp looks many years ahead of its time. It is 35 years old but could easily be an issue of today. To me that is not a compliment but to some it might be. Economic security brings more leisure and time for humor and even frivolity. With issues like this, we may be going beyond the basics of human dignity.

Todays stamp is issue SP238, a fifty plus twenty five cent semi postal issue from the Netherlands that was issued on November 14th, 1984. The four stamps of various denominations feature comic strips featuring earlier period children receiving music lessons on this and on others for example going to the dentist. The extra 25 cent charge was programed to support child welfare. This was a common beneficiary of Dutch semi postal issues. According to the Scott catalog, the stamp is worth 80 cents used.

Think about what this stamp implies is being provided to Dutch children in less then fortunate circumstances. One might think of a home, basic clothing, proper nutrition, access to healthcare and a free public education. These stamps promise way more than that showing private music lessons and aesthetic dentistry such as teeth braces. Exactly the type of thing that comes automatically to the rich but for the middle class something that only exceptional parents provide by sacrifice. Yet here we have a joking charity plea that implies such things will be given to the less fortunate. The people behind the stamp issue must think that there are a lot more rich who think of such things are automatic than middle class that struggle to provide such things to their children. Probably says most about the class that decides the stamp issue.

So where does Netherlands stand economically. Not bad at all. In terms of per capita GDP, the Netherlands is about 10 percent ahead of Germany and Belgium and 20 percent ahead of France and the UK. They are slightly below Scandinavia and the USA. One can see a stamp like this put out by the USA during a liberal administration that won’t have considered how annoying it is to those in the middle who did not vote for them. This theory does not seem to play out for the Netherlands of the time as it was then governed by a center right coalition supporting Ruud Lubbers, who presented himself as a conservative reformer. Lubbers after office took positions at the UN that would more appeal to liberals, so that may be indicative that politics in the Netherlands are more left than the USA. Lubbers was later forced to resign from the UN after metoo style allegations were found unsubstantiated but still leaked. Some things are the same all over. Lubbers, still married for 56 years and the father of three, died in 2018 at age 78.

Well my drink is empty and I am afraid I won’t be donating to music lessons for the Dutch less fortunate. Come again tomorrow for another story that can be learned from stamp collecting.

PS. Happy birthday to my daughter Betsy, also a stamp collector, if she happens to be reading today.