Tag: Spain stamp

Spain used this stamp issue to try to show respect for the professionalism of the then three branches of the national police. By professionalism, crime fighting was not on the agenda, they meant serving loyally left governments as well as right. It didn’t work and two of the branches were disbanded, just like Franco had done in 1939. 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 national police force was not disbanded immediately after Franco’s death and the country’s politics moved left. King Juan Carlos was trying to keep some continuity so the right wouldn’t rebel restarting the 30s civil war. The reforming was gradual. Some leaders were pensioned off and this stamp shows the new uniforms that changed their look. There was also a new police labor union, that weeded out right wingers. The left was dissatisfied with these reforms and the police force was abolished and replaced in 1986.

Todays stamp is issue A627 a 9 Paseta stamp issued  by the Kingdom of Spain on March 23rd 1983. It was a three stamp issue honoring the then 3 divisions of the National Police. This stamp shows the urban National Police Force. There were also stamps for the rural Civil Guard and the Superior Police Corp, a non uniformed secret police. Only the Civil Guard still exists. According to the Scott catalog, the stamp is worth 25 cents whether it is mint or used.

During the bloody 30s civil war, the national police sided with the left republican side while the Civil Guard leadership stayed republican but about half of the rank and file went to Franco’s side. After Franco won the civil war, the national police were reformed as the Policia Armada and a Republican Civil Guard General was executed. From these reorganizations, the national police could be relied upon by Franco and despised by the left. When Franco died, his chosen successor King Juan Carlos picked from the old Royal House took over. Quickly the left found themselves taking power in the government. Personally however the King was a conservative figure that it was hoped could maintain the loyalty of the Franco police until they could be quietly purged.

It was not to be, in 1981 Civil Guard Coronel, Antonio Tejero, attempted a coup. He had a lot of experience combating Basque separatists and was outraged the left government had legalized their flag. The separatists had the tactic of flying their banned flag and when the Civil Guard police force tried to remove it, a bomb was attached. Several police had died this way. Tejero sent a sarcastic letter to his superiors asking if he was now to salute the now legal flag. In 1981 Tejero lead 150 soldiers and policeman into the lower house of Parliament taking the Deputies prisoner. When the rest of the army didn’t join him, the King got on tv at midnight and ordered them to surrender to avoid violence. Tejero surrendered the next day.

While awaiting trial for treason, Tejero formed a right wing political party called Solidarity and attempted to get a seat for himself in Parliament from his jail cell. A sitting member of Parliament would have had immunity from prosecution. His slogan was enter with Tejero into the Parliament. He got 28,000 votes, not enough for a seat. He served 15 years in jail. Tejero is still alive and served as a pallbearer recently at the funeral of Franco’s daughter.

As much as it must have annoyed them, the left followed Franco’s example and disbanded the National Police and purged the Civil Guard so that what was reformed was directly under their control. Necessary of course, but it does not take George Orwell to see the irony.

Well my drink is empty and I am always happy to toast professional, non political national police. Given the virtual FBI coup attempt in the USA recently, they are as hard to find here as in Spain. Too bad, I could have used another drink. Come again tomorrow for another story that can be learned from stamp collecting.

Ah, the troubles of the life ruler. Eventually you have tried all your ideas and without fresh blood to keep things moving, things can stagnate. However knowing how smart and right you are, and as a student of history, there is the hope that the Gods will smile and the old dictator vindicated. In Mercury we pray. 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.

You may join me in admiring the aesthetics of this stamp. Spain printed their own stamps and so they were a little behind most of Western Europe in adding elaborate color to the issues. There was somewhat an exception for the frequent religious issues. Nobody was worshiping the Roman God Mercury in Franco’s Spain, but he does seem to get the extra care given Catholic symbols. This stamp celebrated a stamp day, and the perforations pictured imply that Mercury was on an older stamp. He wasn’t, early Spanish stamp issues usually featured their Royals. Perhaps Franco would have preferred a Mercury issue.

Todays stamp is issue A274, a 25 Centimo stamp issued by Spain on May 7th, 1962. It was part of a four stamp issue in various denominations displaying the Roman God of Commerce, Mercury. Spain usually had a stamp issue to present at the big annual stamp exhibition in Barcelona to go with International Stamp day. We covered the 1980 issue here, https://the-philatelist.com/2018/12/24/spain-1980-honoring-postal-as-well-as-royal-heritage/ , that allowed then King Juan Carlos to honor his not well remembered grandfather. Franco had you go back all the way to the ancients. Well stamp collectors can be accused of spending to much time looking back instead of forward. According to the Scott catalog, the stamp is worth 25 cents whether it is mint or used.

By the 1960s, Spain was failing to catch up with the economic success of Western Europe. Avoiding participation in World War II was not the big economic driver it was in Switzerland or Sweden. The 1930s had seen  a devastating civil war and with the ostracism of Franco from much of Europe recovery was slow. Spain was doing better however than communist Eastern Europe, that had the same issue of tired old dictators ruling for life. On their stamps you would have more likely seen the prophet Marx than Roman God Mercury, but I guess you have to pray to someone for new blood. The Spanish Civil War with the choice of Marxist or Fascist was suboptimal.

Mercury is the Roman God of Commerce, Mercury is a bringing over from Greece of their God Hermes. In bringing over Hermes, the earlier Roman God Dei Lucrii was merged into the idea of Mercury. This taking over can be seen in how later Catholic Saints were appealed to in similar ways as were the pre Christian Roman Gods. In Roman times, the Roman Historian Tacitus saw other peoples Gods as being representations of Mercury. He saw this as true for the Germanic God Wotan, and the Celtic God Lugus. None of those had Mercury’s cool helmet. Tacitus was perhaps right about Mercury being absorbed by not just Romans. We see him here on a Spanish stamp, he also was the inspiration for Ford’s Mercury automobile. The American Mercury dime coin, in use until 1946, was not actually Mercury. It was really Lady Liberty, but her head gear on the coin was thought to resemble Mercury’s famous winged helmet.

Well my drink is empty and so I will patiently await tomorrow when there is a new story that can be learned from stamp collecting.

This is an impressive picture that shows a then up to date Baleares frigate, an AMX-30 tank, and a F4C Phantom fighter plane. A show of strength while the reality was shrinkage, weapons received second hand by charity, and integration of the power into NATO. 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.

When the military of any nation is shrinking, and the mission changing, there will be a lot of uncertainty in the ranks. Indeed a year after the stamp there was an attempted coup. The changes also brought an end to the isolation Spain dealt with under Franco. Showing newer weapons was perhaps trying to show a way forward. It was still an iffy time,

Todays stamp is issue A570, an 8 Peseta stamp issued on May 24th, 1980. It was a single stamp issue for Armed Forces Day. There was a similar issue in 1979. There was not one in 1981 after the attempted coup. According to the Scott catalog, the stamp is worth 25 cents used.

After Franco ended his long rule in 1975, the Monarchy was restored. King Juan Carlos fairly quickly replaced Franco’s people with those from the left. There was also an attempt to bring the military under control  by combining the separate Army, Air Force and Navy ministries under a unified defense department. The military was shrinking rapidly with Empire commitments at an end and conscription scaled back. There was a movement toward NATO integration which was achieved in 1982.  A rough time but the absence of Franco meant that doors of cooperation around Europe were opening. Those steeped in the long tradition of the Spanish Army may be forgiven if they viewed such changes skeptically.

The F4C Phantom fighter plane was a left over from earlier times. They were ex USA Air Force machines that were given free of charge to Spain in 1971 under the Peace Alfa aid program. At the time the USA Air Force was flying F4Es from a Spanish air base. Spain retired the F4C in 1989.

The Baleares class frigate was a license built copy of the American Knox class frigate. Again a left over from Franco, they were built a little later than the Knox and lasted longer in service, being retired in the early 2000s.

The AMX 30 tank was also still from the Franco period and license made from France. Interestingly Spain had originally chosen the superior Chieftain tank, but Britain had refused to sell to Franco. France has a tradition of selling arms more liberally. They were replaced by second hand Leopard II tanks donated from Germany.

Today the Spanish Army numbers about 85,000, about a third of it’s strength under Franco. There is no longer a draft and less second hand equipment, as Spain participates as a junior partner in many integrated European projects like the Eurofighter and the Airbus tactical transport A400M.

Well my drink is empty and so I will open the discussion in the below comment section. Come again tomorrow for another story to be learned from stamp collecting.

One of the issues facing modern stamp issues is an overabundance of issues that look backward instead of forward. This is probably related to a sense in the western world that the future will be worse than the past. Some times the look back can be making a current point. Like Spanish King Juan Carlos seeing that his unpopular grandfather King Alfonso VIII is treated respectfully on a stamp after the Royal nightmare of Franco and Republicans was over. 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.

Todays stamp was produced to honor the 1980 EXFILNA stamp collecting exposition held that year in Barcelona. It was the 50th anniversary of the first national stamp exposition that was also in Barcelona. To mark the anniversary, it was decided to show 50 year before King Alfonso visiting the first exposition. This is where the politics entered in. King Alfonso was about to abdicate in 1930 after a long but lousy rule. Republicans had won local elections discrediting the King’s favored conservative prime minister. The army then rebelled but the civil war that followed was won by Francisco Franco who was not interested in restoring the Royals. King Alfonso and his heirs had to watch this from Italian exile. After Franco’s death, Alfonso’s grandson King Juan Carlos I was Franco’s chosen successor as head of state and restoring the Royal line. This is what is really being celebrated on this stamp. The stamp exposition is a clever way to slip unpopular grandfather back on a stamp without creating a ruckus.

The stamp today is issue A575, a 5 Peseta stamp issued by the Kingdom of Spain on July 1st, 1980. It was a single stamp issue. According to the Scott catalog, the stamp is worth 25 cents whether it is mint or used.

King Alfonso XIII ascended the throne upon  his birth as he was born posthumously after his fathers death. It is said he was presented as a baby naked on a silver platter to the then Prime Minister.’ Lucky for him this did not happen in one of Spain’s African colonies. See https://the-philatelist.com/2018/06/05/spanish-guinea-in-the-rush-to-leave-spain-turned-it-over-to-a-witch-doctor/ During his childhood, Spain was ruled by a Regency headed by his Austrian mother. The Regency went badly as Spain lost the Spanish American War and with it the Empires last footholds in the Americas and Asia. When Alfonso was actually in power the empire calamities continued much closer to home in Morocco with the costly Rif war see.https://the-philatelist.com/2018/10/25/spanish-morocco-it-is-useful-to-have-a-second-stringer-occupy-much-of-a-large-dangerous-place/ The wars were also expensive and required large armies manned by peasants for whom the economic situation was not improving fast enough. Even the genius of staying neutral in World War I was not enough to restore his popularity. His marriage to an English Princess was unhappy since he resented that she had passed her families’ hemophilia to his sons. He fathered 5 children out of wedlock in addition to his legitimate 4 children.

Franco was not interested in reestablishing the Monarchy during his long rule. The Royals had been on the Right side of politics but many in his movement supported a rival pretender Royal line. Franco also wanted to keep the power for himself. The Royal line still formally claimed the title and continued reaching out to Franco. A Royal married Franco’s granddaughter and the young royals were allowed to be educated in Spain. As Franco aged he ignored the in place royal line and installed Alfonso’s grandson Juan Carlos as heir apparent. He hoped for loyalty to his movement but once in power the King followed a more middle of the road course. He appointed more liberal ministers to replace Franco’s people and supported pro democracy reforms. At the same time he maintained a conservative image that allowed for a certain continuity. To his credit, over time he backed away from politics and was thought by most as a positive, stabilizing influence in Spain.

The stamp expositions are still an annual event in Spain. There is often a unique stamp issue that is available to buy only within the Exposition. The issues are often more valuable than regular issues but the fact of stamp collecting is that it is impossible to buy a stamp when issued and have it be life changingly valuable in your lifetime. If you are lucky though the value might keep up with inflation. Todays stamp did even worse that that. No love for King Alfonso outside the family?

Well my drink is empty and I will pour another to celebrate the annual EXFILNA stamp shows in Spain. Long may they continue. Come again after Christmas for another story that can be learned from stamp collecting. Happy Holidays.

Getting mankind off the ground involved brave engineers testing their theories in some far off places. Some worked, most didn’t but things were eventually sorted out. 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 printing of this stamp really lets it down. The color barely lets you see the autogiro over Madrid. The autogiro was invented in Spain and must have created quite a stir in the 20s. I generally find the elaborate colors of modern stamps clownworthy, but in this case better printing and color choices would have helped. If Cierva had invented the autogiro in Argentina under Peron, the stamp engravers there would have known how to handle it.

Todays stamp is issue AP30, a 20 Centavo airmail stamp issued by Spain in January 1939. It was part of a 7 stamp issue in various denominations that honored Juan de la Cierva, the inventor of the autogiro. According to the Scott catalog, the stamp is worth 40 cents used. There are overptints of this issue denoting airmail or a stamp show in San Sebastian in 1948 that were applied privately and so do not effect value. There is also an imperferate version that is real and ups the value to $40.

Juan de la Cierva was born in 1895. By his late teens he was obsessed with a theory of sustained flight by the lift effect of the auto rotation of a rotor. This would allow the craft to take off without a runway to build speed and airflow around wings like a conventional airplane.  An autogiro differs fom a helicopter in that an engine propeller provides the airflow to turn the rotor rather than powering it directly. The flight controls are more like a conventional airplane and Cierva thought this a big advantage over a helicopter.

There were many issues around how to achieve the tilting of the rotor and how to transmit the engine torque. So several generations of flying prototypes were built. Cierva then moved to Britain after successfully demonstrating a prototype to the Air Ministry. With the help of Scottish industrialist and flight enthusiast James Weir, Cierva set up an aviation company. With this he was able to  license his technology to others working in the Netherlands and Germany and incorporate their advances. In 1936, Cierva was killed in a plane crash of a KLM DC2 on the way from Croydon to Amsterdam. Work on Cierva’s designs ended at the outbreak of World War II.

Post war, the company tried to continue where it had left off, only now with conventional helicopters. The prototype of the then largest helicopter in the world with 3 rotors on outriggers crashed in 1948 killing the pilots who were also the executives of the company. Juan de la Cierva was made a Spanish Count and a member of the aviation hall of fame posthumously.

Well my drink is empty and I will pour another to toast Juan de la Cierva. Come again tomorrow for another story that can be learned from stamp collecting.