Tag: New Zealand stamp

New Zealand, despite it’s far away location and small population, went all out in service to the victorious Empire during World War I. Over 10 percent of the population served overseas. Among them were many of the Maori tribe of Pacific islanders. Their participation was a little more complicated. So slip on your smoking jacket, fill your pipe, take your first of your adult beverage, and sit back in your most comfortable chair. Welcome to todays offering from The Philatelist.

The portrait of the man is what drew me to this stamp. I assumed he was a deceased politician that is rivals had zinged by slipping in Devil’s horns on his stamp honour. The makings of a fun stamp. Thus I was disappointed when he turned out to be a Maori Chief. Even the most rabid colonialist would not portray a native that way, well maybe if New Zealand was a French colony. As confirmed on many later New Zealand stamp issues featuring Maori, their leaders wear their hair with small pony tails in that manner.

Todays stamp is issue A50, a one and a half pence stamp issued by New Zealand on January 27th, 1920. It was a 6 stamp issue in various denominations celebrating the Victory of the British Empire in World War I. According to the Scott catalog, the stamp was worth 55 cents used.

New Zealand immediately began a large scale mobilization when World War I broke out in Europe in 1914. Though New Zealand’s first action involved removing Germans from Samoa where their landing was unopposed, the bulk of the troops served in Europe and especially the unsuccessful Gallipoli campaign in Turkey. The mobilization was massive with over 10 percent of the population serving overseas. The casualties were catastrophic. Of the 100,000 who served, 16,000 died and 41,000 more were injured. I did a New Zealand ANZAC monument stamp here, https://the-philatelist.com/2018/02/16/new-zealand-expands-a-war-memorial/  . At first the force was all volunteer and was open to Maori tribesman. By 1916, conscription was introduced but not for the Maori. In 1917 the government tried to extend the conscription to Maori but faced strong opposition. No Maori was sent overseas as a conscript.

Self proclaimed Princess Te Puea was the niece of a Maori Chief who claimed to be their King and the daughter of an English land surveyor who busily maintained a Maori wife in addition to his English wife. Colonial life sure sounds hectic. Te Puea had a wild adolescence that included much drinking, fighting, and promiscuity. This left her unable to conceive a child, perhaps job one for a real Princess. Upon the death of her mother, she returned to her family and began pushing to have her title recognized by the New Zealand government and compensation of course for her myriad woes. She was a leader in the Kingitanga movement that not all Maori were a part of. She hit upon the attempt at Maori Army conscription and lead protests in Waikato, dramatically hiding Maori men from conscription that remember did not apply to them. The authorities suspected Te Puea of being really a German spy and pointed to German heritage on her families English side. Well that does sound royal.

After the war Princess Te Puea thought that living like a Queen might enhance her cause. She formed a steel guitar and hula band that toured named after a battle between Maori and colonials that the colonials rudely won. She also applied  to the government for funds to build a Maori Royal Court. Her funds were later cut off after it was found that funds given her had evaporated. She tried to take a one/third income tax Royal tribute from Maori followers of the Kingitanga movement but of course trying to collect taxes from the Maori was a fool’s game.

Princess Te Puea fell into obscurity in her older years. She had fallen out with most other Maori leaders and made a big stink about New Zealand’s Centennial in 1940 when she was not given an equal footing with the British Governor General. She died in 1952.

Well my drink is empty and I will pour another to toast the memory of those of all heritages that served in World War I. I have had some fun here with this con artist Princess, but the real tragedy was in quickly hurrying of to war without considering the consequences. Come again soon for another story that can be learned from stamp collecting. First published in 2020.

A nabob is a word that comes to English from Hindi. In the English language it came to mean a fellow who returns after making a great fortune in India. When nabob John Cracroft Wilson arrived in New Zealand, he was perhaps not the fellow you would have expected to bring with him that rural England staple, a flock of sheep. You might not also expect New Zealand to take to the raising of sheep in a bigger way than even England. Even today with a diverse urban society, New Zealand hosts ten sheep for every human. 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 view of a sheep herd is an attempt by the stamp designer to evoke spring. There were four stamps in the issue, one for each season. This is the lone season that implies work. Not sure what to make of that.

Todays stamp is issue A275, a 70 cent stamp issued by New Zealand on June 2nd, 1982. It was a four stamp issue in various denominations. According to the Scott catalog, the stamp is worth 85 cents whether used or unused.

Sheep raising was not practiced by the Maori prior to the arrival of Europeans. The islands, especially the south island, are quite suited to it with ample grassland and well distributed rainfall over the seasons. John Cracroft Wilson was stationed in India during the time of the East India Company. He was tasked there with hunting down groups of native thugs that were preying on British in residence there. Thugery is another word that came to the English language from Hindi. He was quite successful at it but when faced with a patch of ill health he decided to find a more temperate climate and chose New Zealand.

Seeking a calmer rural life, he stopped in Australia and acquired a flock of sheep. One can imagine how treacherous it must have been to move a flock of sheep by sea in the time of sailing ships. Indeed the journey was quite hard on the flock with over 1200 of them having to be put overboard. He founded an estate near Christchurch that he named Cashmere. The name was to be evocative of the Indian region of Kashmir.

Just as Mr. Cracroft Wilson was getting established in New Zealand he was called back to India at the time of the Sepoy rebellion. His success in this period against thuggery was so that he was said by the Viceroy Lord Canning to have saved more Christian lives than any man in India. Mr. Cracroft Wilson was awarded by Queen Victoria the rank of Knight Commander in the newly established Order of the Star of India. Soon however he was back in New Zealand to tend his growing sheep flock. The growing flock required him to lease three additional sheep runs.

At the time New Zealand was short of accomplished men so Mr. Cracroft Wllson was pressed into a variety of roles. He was head of the Jockey Club, the Acclimation Society, a military cavalry reserve unit, the Governor of Canterbury College. He also served in the New Zealand Parliament where he was quite the nattering nabob in debate. Dealings with the Maori were a hot topic and Cracroft Wilson proposed importing a unit of Gurkhas from India to make short work of them. The suggestion was not taken up.

The sheep industry got a big boost in 1882 when it became possible to export the meat frozen and not just the wool. At the peak the flock of sheep in New Zealand was 70 million. With land becoming more valuable, it is no longer possible to allocate so much land to the sheep. The flock is down now to 39 million, but that is still 10 for every human being and ten percent larger than the sheep flock of the UK. The decline of market price for wool meant that by the 1980s, dairy farming became the bigger industry.

Well my drink is empty and I will pour another toast the Hindi language. I had no idea there were so many contributions to ours. Come again soon when there will be another story that can be learned from stamp collecting. First published in 2020.

In a now independent far off outpost of Empire, there is a tendency of elevating the mediocrity. The important thing to show was that it was local. What I don’t understand is the point of remembering such excursions years later. Unless the point is to not try this again. 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 interesting thing about this stamp aesthetically is something that this stamp does not include. As printed there was a tab with a scratch and win label. It was part of a contest. The contest of course is long over but if the stamp still has the unscratched tab attached, the value of this stamp rises 30 cents. Underwhelming right after over 20 years of controlling your curiosity.

Todays stamp is issue A415, an 80 cent stamp issued by New Zealand on August 7th, 1996. It was a four stamp issue in various denominations remembering examples of local film making. According to the Scott Catalog, the stamp is worth $1.10 whether used or unused.

Broken Barrier was a film made in New Zealand in 1952. It is the story of a young white male reporter who falls for a young Maori girl while writing a story about rural Maori life. The couple have trouble with her family and then later after she moves to the city with his family. The couple listens to their families, break off their relationship and resolve instead to marry their own kind. That way they can be a part of building their respective communities instead of tearing them apart. I kid of course, the plot is exactly what you would expect.

Even the poster looks dreary. There did seem room in the movie budget for hair gel.

The barrier broken was that it was the only film produced in New Zealand between 1940 and 1964. With so little going on in filmmaking there really were some barriers. This was director John O’Shea’s first credit. It was also the first acting credit for male lead Terence Bayler though he had a later career in the UK that included “Dr. Who” “Monte Python, The Life of Brian”, and “Harry Potter”. He died in 2016. The Maori female lead Kay Ngarimu, is still alive but this was her only acting credit. The film was not released widely outside New Zealand.

Even basic filmmaking proved impossible for this no experience crew working with a tiny budget. Mr. Bayler remembers making 6 Pounds a week on the set. There is no dialog between characters, instead relying on voice overs. This was not a creative decision of Mr. O’Shea, but a reality forced by the shoestring filming style. It is no wonder there was not another film in New Zealand for another 12 years.

Well my drink is empty and I am afraid this does not seem a good movie for a rainy day. Come again soon for another story that can be learned from stamp collecting. First published in 2019.

Fonzie was supposed to be a cool character on 70s tv. He rode a motorcycle and wore a leather jacket. To emphasize how cool he was, there would be motorcycle jumps in the 70s style of Eival Kinevil. In a late season they had Fonzie jump a shark while water skiing. The country reacted strongly that Fonzie was no longer cool but had made himself silly. This matches putting holograms on stamps as New Zealand did in 1994. 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

My stamp is unused so I get to see the hologram in all its glory. You can’t because how could the 3 dimensional effect be photographed. If the stamp was mailed, the cancellation might well blot out the hologram. Further when the collector soaks the used stamp off the envelope, the hologram will be damaged. All a long way of saying that the designers were probably thinking more about wowing each other that interesting the stamp collector. Notice also that the moon landing anniversary being recognized has nothing to do with New Zealand.

Todays stamp is issue A388, a $1.50 stamp issued by New Zealand on July 20th, 1994. It was a single stamp issue remembering the first moon landing by the USA 25 years earlier. According to the Scott catalog, the stamp is worth $2.25 unused.

Holograms were invented in 1960 as a way for a two dimensional image to have a three dimensional effect. A laser beam is split before projecting an image onto film so the image comes from two perspectives. This is indeed how it was done on the first stamps but now the effect can be achieved by computer software more recently. Holograms are very useful in securing currency and credit cards. If stamps required a small one in the corner to avoid fakes, my objections would drop away.

Austria was first with a stamp with a holographic image in 1988. Over 80 countries have now issued over 450 stamps with holograms. Most of the images are outer space themed. The fad seems to have peaked around the millennium. The stamps are obviously more expensive to print so usually show up on a special issues related to a stamp show. For example, the denomination on this stamp at $1.50 was over three times the going rate to mail a letter in New Zealand at the time, which was 45 cents.

Well my drink is empty and sorry if my take on this stuff annoyed you. Some collectors are quite excited about new technology being adopted to postage stamps. If I thought  the hobby would be saved by involving children I might agree. A big push for kids to collect occurred around World War II. The biggest effect of this is many high end collectors use that war as a cut off date for their collections. It is my belief that the hobbies’ best chance is educated, well travelled mature men who find themselves under utilized by economic and family dislocations. These days many such people are of mixed background so there are often multiple places for whom they feel an affinity. My guess the best way to attract them to the hobby is to assume they are serious people. Come again tomorrow when there will be another story to be learned from stamp collecting.

This article is going to have me come across as an aging bitter old ass. Guilty x 4. Here we have a stamp celebrating an organization with Royal patronage whose mission is remembering the bravery and sacrifice  of especially the New Zealand Expeditionary Force a 100 years later. Noble stuff, but it leaves me with sadness at the thought that none of the western countries are united enough to do that again. The connection to who we are and where we come from is just too frayed. In the places we live, we are now the minority, the aging vestige. A big project of this organization is restoring gravestones, so at least there are monuments to what we were. How many are left who even care? 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.

Before we get to that, a note on the visuals of this stamp. At first glance, and second and third, I thought this was a South African stamp, remembering New Zealanders that fought in the Boer Wars. There were some. RSA was how South Africa labeled the stamps. 100 years after the Boer War puts you in the time of the new South Africa, but once in a while they forget Mandela and topicals for a moment and put out a proper Commonwealth issue. This mistake proves that the designer of this stamp is himself not a collector.

Todays stamp is issue A653, a 80 cent stamp issued by New Zealand on February 3rd, 2016. It was a four stamp issue honouring the 100th anniversary of the Remembrances and Services Association. According to the Scott Catalog, the stamp is worth $1.10.

In 1914, the New Zealand Army was mostly a part time Territorial reserve force with no capabilities to project force beyond New Zealand. Similar to the situation today. The declaration of war by the British Empire immediately saw New Zealand commit to raising two brigades and sending them wherever the British Empire saw fit to use them. A ship convoy taking them and Australians was indeed diverted to Egypt where they camped in their warm European woolen uniforms in sight of the pyramids. Seeking a soft underbelly of Europe they landed in the Dardanelles  hoping to make quick work of the Ottomans. Instead they faced a grueling and unsuccessful campaign. New Zealand ultimately sent a force of over 100,000 at a time when the country had only one million. Maori were excluded from the draft and only a few volunteered. The losses to New Zealand were catastrophic. Of the 100,000 sent 16,000 died and 41,000 were injured.

I mentioned that the Maori did less than their part 100 years ago. Indeed there was civil unrest at the prospect of it. New Zealand is now 5 million people but about 30 percent Maori and Pacific Islander and another 15 percent Asian. In the largest city, Auckland, people of any brand of European heritage are a minority. What kind of expeditionary force could New Zealand raise today. When I was in Auckland a few years ago I visited the ANZAC Memorial which is located in a hilly park. Preparing to enter, I saw an Asian jogger use an unknown soldiers monument to adjust his sneaker before going back down the hill. Inside the displays had been reoriented to talk up the few Maori that did serve and room had been converted where a film was shown of a modern Maori girl who is there to tell you how much she is owed. Hint what ever number you have in mind is not enough. An attack in a city called Christchurch, which seem only filled with mosques teaming with people on a work day resulted in the European heritage PM and much of the surprisingly feminized police force wearing Moslem religious attire. The image of her so attired was then broadcast off of the Burj Khalifa highrise in Dubai. The nation bowed down, and not to God.

I hope you don’t interpret this as an attack on New Zealand. The same thing is happening all over the world and seems only to be accelerating. I am not sure anything can even be done anymore about it. Speaking for myself and only myself, I don’t like it.

Well my drink is empty. Hint, I am going to refill it. Come again on Monday when there will be a new story that can be learned from stamp collecting.

Explorer Abel Tasman did not hang around his discovery of New Zealand the way the Dutch did in the Indies to the northwest. The Maori there were trying to kill him. Perhaps that was the correct decision for the Maori. The descendants faired better under the British than the Malayans further north did under the Dutch. Modern New Zealand is much more wealthy than modern Indonesia. 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.

They pack a lot of information on this stamp. The man portrayed as an obvious Dutchman, the ship undergoing a rough voyage and a map showing the part of the west New Zealand coast that was spotted by Tasman. It would probably be too much to ask to also include a club wielding Maori, but I bet the kids and probably the Maori would have appreciated it.

Todays stamp is issue O79, a 2 Pence official stamp issued by New Zealand in 1940. It was an 11 stamp issue in various denominations that show scenes from the colony’s founding. The “official” overstamp meant the stamp was used for government business. According to the Scott catalog, the stamp is worth 30 cents used. Without the overstamp the value falls to 25 cents.

The government of Holland had granted a monopoly to the Dutch East India Company for trade with the east after the realization that the world was round. The company had made an arrangement with local Malayan Prince Jakarta to set up a trading post in what the Dutch called Batavia. Among their employees was seafarer Abel Tasman. Tasman had a close brush with death when he landed without warning to trade spices on the island of Seram in the Malluccans and several of his companions were murdered. He escaped and returned to Holland. He then reupped for 10 years and brought his wife to Batavia. There was a theory at the time that the great Euro-Asian land mass near the North pole must be balanced out by another undiscovered land mass near the south pole. In the Indies they heard local legends of such a place rich in gold. The Dutch version of this was the “Provinces of Beach”. The Dutch East India Company sent out Tasman to find them.

Tasman of course first found the island of Tasmania off of southern Australia but this stamp requires me to get to the New Zealand part. Upon leaving Tasmania, Tasman intended to sail north but the rough seas and strong winds had his ships go east. He spotted the west coast of the south island of New Zealand in 1640. His earlier trouble in Seram had taught him not to rush ashore. He anchored a kilometer off the coast and sent a small boat ashore to scout some fresh water. They were met by club wielding Maoris that murdered them. Now the Dutchmen knew how the kiwi birds felt. Tasman thought the discovery important as he hoped the land connected to land already discovered at the southern tip of South America.

Tasman tried to communicate with the Maori but they could not understand each other. At one point Maori tribesman sailed to the ships in canoes. When the Maori played a wind instrument as part of their battle cry. Tasman’s ship responded by one of the sailors playing sea shanties on a trumpet. The Maori did stop and listen but it did not change their intent which was to board the ship and capture it. When the canoes got too close, Tasman was forced to fire cannon and muskets. He ended up sailing away having never set foot on New Zealand. He named the area he set anchor Murderer’s Bay. For some reason that name didn’t stick.

The Dutch East India company was unsatisfied to Tasman’s work on this expedition or later ones. They decided to fire him and hire a more “persistent explorer”. He was even brought up on charges and stripped of his rank for a shipboard hanging without a proper trial. His real crime of course was not bringing in the gold. Tasman was able to live out his life as a well off landowner in Batavia.

Well my drink is empty and I am left wondering how the Maori could not have understood sea shanties played on a trumpet were  a sign of friendship? Perhaps a tribe’s warriors are not there to lay out the red carpet. Come again on Monday for another story to be learned from stamp collecting.

Update: Sorry this ran a little late today, for some reason the publication failed overnight at the usual time. I woke up this morning to see only yesterday’s offering.

New Zealand had a good run at the America’s Cup sailboat races. They won in 1995 and successfully defended the title in 2000. This stamp however is from 1992 when New Zealand’s boat was penalized for a  not allowed design and failed to make the finals. So that year it was still America’s Cup. 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.

It is not whether you win or lose, it is how you play the game. So why not put out a series of stamps to celebrate New Zealand sending a team to compete. Well how they played the game was to send a boat with design features that were not allowed. Once modified for rule compliance, the team was noncompetitive. Correction then, why not put out a series of stamps on floating rich man’s toys. Sure.

Todays stamp is issue A357, a $1 stamp issued by New Zealand on January 22nd 1992. It was a four stamp issue in various denominations. According to the Scott catalog, the stamp is worth $1.25 whether it is used or unused.

The America’s Cup sailing race was first put on in 1851. Teams are put together by yacht clubs and often lead by very rich men as vanity projects. The involvement of such wealthy men means that the boats are spared no expense to gain any small advantage. The San Diego Yacht Club team in 1992 that won  was lead by Bill Koch the little brother of the famous Koch Brothers who sold his share of his father’s petrochemical company  for 400 million dollars to his politically active brothers. This gave him the time and money to play the playboy sailor man

Australia sent a team in the 1980s that became the first foreign team to win the Cup. Australia’s Cup? This attracted the attention of New Zealander Michael Fay, partner in the NZ investment bank Fay Richwhite. He put together a team of mainly Australian sailors under skipper Peter Blake and with a boat design originating in New Zealand.

The first boat was found in violation while in semifinals against an Italian team that went on to lose to the boat America3 under Bill Koch. Skipper Peter Blake was back at the next America’s Cup in 1995 and won with a new design boat. He returned again in 2000 and became the first foreign team to successfully defend a title. By then they were no longer getting support from Michael Fay, he had moved to Geneva to be closer to what he loved, his money.

Skipper Peter Blake had an interesting sailing career in addition to the America’s Cup. He became involved with the Cousteau Society from which he bought the Seamaster ship. He engaged in expeditions designed to monitor climate change under the auspices of the United Nations. In 2001 the Seamaster was boarded by pirates while on an expedition on the Amazon River. Blake was shot and killed and the rest of the crew had their wallets and watches stolen before the pirates left the ship.

Well my drink is empty and since I can’t afford the yacht lifestyle, I might as well have another drink. Come again tomorrow for another story that can be learned from stamp collecting.

Sometimes town icons outlast what they are celebrating. Or even the town. So slip on your smoking jacket, fill your pipe, take your first sip of your adult beverage, or perhaps this once a Lemon & Paeroa soft drink, and sit back in your most comfortable chair. Welcome to todays offering from The Philatelist.

This is really a story of how towns rise and fall. Yes the drink from there still exists but not from Paeroa. The gold is gone, the railway is gone, the river is no longer navigable so the port is gone. The icon of the towns former signature product is still there and this is a stamp set of town icons. Not of thriving towns.

Todays stamp is issue A442, a 40 cent stamp issued by New Zealand on October 7th, 1998. It was a 10 stamp issue of town icons all in the same denomination. It was also available as a souvenir sheet. According to the Scott catalog, the stamp is worth 45 cents. The souvenir sheet is worth $4.50.

The towns area was occupied by Maori tribes when it was first explored by Captain James Heard while in the employ of the for profit New Zealand Company in 1826. Around 1870, the area saw a gold rush and prospectors bought the land from the Maori. Captain Beard had also bought the land from the Maori but I guess the natives attitude was use it or lose it. The height of the towns prosperity came when the Bank of New Zealand set up a gold refinery. It was never a big town but even the railway came.

The Lemon & Paeroa drink was a soft drink consisting of lemon juice and the local carbonated mineral water beginning in 1907. The ad slogan was “World Famous,… in New Zealand”. The drink is a common mixer in New Zealand pubs with the American whiskey based liqueur, Southern Comfort. Around the time of the stamp there was a ad campaign showing the bottle statue on the stamp with a homespun rendering of the local population.

The town is now ready for a new boost. The gold ran out, the refinery closed and the trainline shuttered. Lemon & Paeroa sold out to Coca Cola and is now bottled at their bottlers no longer using the local water. The town’s population is below 4000 and heavily Maori. Perhaps if a new use for the area is proposed, the Maori will again entertain offers.

Well my soft drink is empty and I am curious to try that Southern Comfort concoction my next time in New Zealand. Come again tomorrow for another story that can be learned from stamp collecting.

I have been wanting to talk about Iceland’s decision to pull the plug on stamp issuance. When I spotted this New Zealand stamp, I had found the vehicle. 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.

It was the best of times it was the worst of times. The printing and use of color on this stamp is magnificent. In the sixties the mostly fake dune stamps from UAE and Finbar Kenny showed how far things could go, see https://the-philatelist.com/2019/04/10/sharjah-lets-you-enjoy-modern-art-thanks-to-finbar-kenny/  . Real country postal authorities took up the challenge and pushed even Mr. Kenny’s boundaries. Stamps that smell or change color, you name it. The dune stamps were aimed at child collectors and so it seems are real country stamps like this. Making this time the worst of times. Instead of presenting a countries situation, it’s past, it’s present, it’s hopes in a serious way and from their point of view so a collector can learn and perhaps think of things in a different way. Here we get wacky mailboxes. Makes you wonder if stamps deserve to die?

Todays stamp is issue A422, a 40 cent stamp issued by New Zealand on March 19th, 1997. It was a 10 stamp issue that came as either a booklet or a self adhesive sheet. According to the Scott catalog, the stamp is worth 55 cents whether used or unused. An unused booklet of 10 still together is worth $7 while the same 10 stamps as a sheet is $18.

A few weeks ago Iceland announced that they are discontinuing the issuance of new stamps and closing down their website aimed at the worldwide collector. 50 people are losing their jobs from the operation that has been in the red for a while. Post offices in Iceland believe they have adequate stocks of stamps till the last postcard is sent. To me that is the scariest statement of all.  I remember when Mozambique got independence in 1974, the new post office offered to sell collectors any stamp issued by Portugal for them in the previous 20 years with an independence overstamp. What if all post offices worldwide have such never ending stocks?

I am hoping that the end of new stamp issuance might finally change the supply/demand balance in favor of the supplier and result in higher stamp values. If collectors can begin to see their collection as an asset instead of just a cost it is easier to justify new acquisitions. Collector dollars also wouldn’t be syphoned off by country collectors that automatically buy all new offerings directly from the post office. We had already had several countries issues dry up or be declared fake as they no longer had a provable post system.

So how will it end? I suspect that the deciding factor of stamps will be the country that started it, Great Britain. If they are also in the hole and pull the plug, the rest of the Commonwealth will follow. Then USA and Germany, and an hour later, everyone else with perhaps total farm out issues trying to hold out a little longer.

I don’t think this is the end of the hobby. The era from 1840 to the mid 80s saw colonialization and then a plethora of new countries with different people expressing themselves with stamps. We saw ideologies rise and fall and monarchies fall or somehow stay around. All expressed as the countries themselves wanted it presented. On the stamps we also saw art, natural beauty, and technological achievement being presented. On tiny slips of gummed paper that seemingly has immense abilities to survive. I think the hobby can survive, and I intend to keep telling the stories that can be learned from stamp collecting.