Tag: United Arab Emirates stamp

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Manama 1968, Finbar Kenny discovers another country with an assist from the Emir of Ajman

This one is a little confusing. Manama is the name of a fairly large city in Bahrain. This is not that place. This is the tiny agricultural village that pledges to the United Arab Emirates by way of the Emir of Ajman. Current population is five thousand. 1900 population 50. 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.

These so called dune stamps are considered fake as they were printed by an outsider by a place that really are not countries, just sand dunes. The fact was though the leader or the area did sign the deal and open post offices. When the United Arab Emirates took over the postal system, the stamps of the dune places were valid for postage for another six months. All sounds pretty real to me. Plus doesn’t this stamp capture the excitement buzzing in Manama during the leadup to the 1968 summer Olympics in Mexico City. The biggest occupation in period Manama was bee keeping, so hopefully they weren’t too distracted.

The not mythical Manama Post Office. Once bringing forward unique stamp issues, it still serves postal patrons in the UAE

Finbar Kenny had been the head of the stamp department of the American Macys chain of department stores. Department stores had previously seen the wisdom of allowing a card table near the elevator where a person would try to interest children in stamp collecting. Mothers could leave their children and shop in peace. The idea for this was originated by the old Minkus stamp album publisher. Finbar Kenny was interested in becoming an important stamp dealer. When Great Britain ended their postal service for the Trucial States in 1963, Kenny was ready. He approached the Emirs of Um al Quain, Fugeria and Ajman  with the idea of independent post offices with the stamp revenue divided 50/50 with the Emirs.

The Emir of Ajman, a poorer area, had the idea to increase his revenue further. He would open an additional post office in Manama that would offer separate stamp issues. The Trucial states in earlier times had relied economically on pearl diving, but that industry moved to Japan. The Emir of Ajman started promoting Manama as the potential bread basket of Ajman. Papaya and a few lemon trees were planted on the sand dune by the local Sharqiyin tribe.

Discovering so many new countries did not go too well for Finbar Kenny personally. The Dune stamps ended with the forming of the UAE in 1972. Interestingly one of the first things the UAE had to do was bring into line the rebellious Sharqiyin tribe. Kenny still had the contract to produce stamps for the Cook Islands. The Prime Minister of Cook then approached Kenny and asked for a loan secured by future stamp revenue to fund his reelection campaign. Kenny made the loan thinking he did not have a choice. The Supreme Court of Cook then decided that the loan was a bribe and an attempt to throw an election. So Kenny got the honor of paying Cook a fine of $60,000.

Finbar Kenny in 1965

Authorities were not done with Finbar Kenny. The USA had just passed the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act that made it illegal in the USA for Americans to offer bribes overseas and charged Kenny over the Cook Island situation. Kenny was the first to plead guilty under the act. At least he didn’t go to jail.

Well my drink is empty. I wonder if a postal patron at the post office in Manama today can still buy any of the old issues. It was a long time ago but the same building. Come again soon when there will be a new story that can be learned from stamp collecting. First published in 2021.

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Ras Al Khaima/ Khaimah 1969, Finbar Kenny brings postage stamps to a high tent on a pirate coast

Translated Ras Al Khaima means top of the tent, and indeed the Emirate contains the highest peak in the United Arab Emirates. In the old days it probably had some great smugglers dens. Now it hosts the worlds longest zip line. This stamp collector would rather talk about the old days. 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 shows the docking of the lunar and command module of that years American Apolo 11 mission to the moon. A note about how spelling changes. They currently list three acceptable spellings for the Emirate in English, none of which is the one this stamp from 1969. The Emirate now seems decisive in wanting an h at the end of Khaima. Interestingly, in the first year of the Emirate’s stamps in 1964, the cancelation to order done on the stamp spelled the Emirate differently than on the actual stamp. The cancellation was prescient on putting the h at the end of Khaima, but then switched the Al to El which again is not one of the three allowed English spellings.

This dune stamp is considered fake so it is not in the catalog. Between 1964 and 1972 1036 stamps and 70 souvenir sheets were issued by Ras Al Khaima. Mid way along the currency switched from  Indian Rupees to Riyals so there are even some overprints of early issues changing the currency. This issue of 6 stamps and one souvenir sheet came out on August 15th, 1969.

The area of Ras Al Khaima has been occupied by humans continuously for 7000 years. It is associated historically with the trading post of Julfar. The area has been rules by the House of Al-Qasimi since 1721. Another line of the Royal house rules the Emirate of Sharjah. During this early period the British involved with the private British East India Company labeled the area of the coastline a pirate coast. There is some contention that this is just the British putting labels on trading competitors, however it is known that the Al-Qasimis were tied to the Somalis. Their allies in old times were the Persians and their rivals were the Omanis in Muscat and their British allies.

At first there was much inconclusive fighting with Muscat. In 1820 to they said put a stop to the piracy, the East India Company attacked by land and sea the fort at Ras Al Khaima. When they charged the fort they found it almost deserted. Unable to locate Emir Al-Qasimi, they traveled to Sharjah and had that Al-Qasimi sign a capitulation that agreed to an end to piracy and slavery. Ras Al  Khaima again seperated from Sharjah in 1869.

1820 British and Muscat siege of Ras Al Khaima

In 1963, the British stopped being the protector and stamp issuer for the Trucial States as they called them. That allowed American fake stamp guru Finbar Kenny come in to fill the stamp breach, signing a deal with Sheik Saqr Al-Qasimi. However the time period was very bad for Ras Al Khaima. Two islands that the Emirate claimed were occupied militarily by Shah era Iran. It seems the Al-Qasimi ties with the Persians had frayed. This became very important to stamp collectors because Ras al Khaima delayed joining the United Arab Emirates until the whole area agreed to to take up the cause of returning the islands. As a result of the delay, Ras Al Khaima produced the last fake dune stamps. Emir Saqr ruled from 1948 -2010.

Emir/Sheik Saqr Al- Qasimi

In 2003 Saqr removed crown prince Khalid in favor of son Saud. Khalid was forced into exile in old rival Muscat, Oman. Upon Saqr’s death on 2010, Khalid posted a video claiming the Emirship for himself, but the Emirate council recognized instead the selection of Saud. Khalid than funded a western PR campaign suggesting that his father and brother were in cahoots with the Islamic Republic of Iran in their nuclear weapons program. Sometimes the Philatelist has to update his scorecard to track the leans. Dunes do shift.

Well my drink is empty. Tomorrow I will have to make a painful announcement as to the future of this website. Come again tomorrow to read it.

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Fujeira/Fujairah 1960s, Invoking Goya’s The Forge to tell the guest worker what is expected

Here we have another of Finbar Kenny’s Dune stamps issued under the apparently misspelled name of the then Trucial State of Fujairah. The stamp trade calls them fake, but these little village states are interesting and why not relate the subject of the stamp back to the place however tendential. Kenny’s topicals were beautiful if fake and perhaps unfortunately evocative of the future of the hobby. 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 is now over 50 years old and I am fascinated by the spelling discrepancy of the name. Even if you look at the Arabic the spelling is different. Does an Emir just decide to change or is it one of those things that just changes to better reflect local pronunciation?

Finbar Kenny’s stamp output is considered by the trade as fake. The stamp professes it’s value in Dirhams  which puts it after 1966 when that currency replaced the Indian Rupee in the Trucial States. The area was annoyed by India’s devaluations. Join the club. Fujairah postage was handled by the UAE post 1971.

Fujairah was a small village of 50 houses that may have broken away from Sharjah around the beginning of the 20th century. The Bithnah Fort had been built there to protect a trade route that traveled up a wadi, (a usually dry creek bed)going inland. The original purpose was to protect from Wahabis but later control of the fort signified if the area was leaning toward Sharjah on one side or Muscat on the other.

Bithnah Fort

The British had decided that Fujairah was a part  of Sharjah which they had a protectorate deal with so it didn’t really matter who had the fort. That changed in 1952. A British oil company wanted to make sure the petroleum exploration concession stood up anywhere in the area so suddenly the British granted Fujairah recognition and protectorate status. Yay team another Emir gets paid! There wasn’t oil in Fujairah. The big current industry is a cement factory and the bulk of the population are guest workers from India. So much so that the schools follow the standard Indian syllabus. Perhaps the British oil company should have skipped the Emirs and dealt directly with by then independent India as successors to the British in the area. The oil wealth of the UAE pays for new development. Among them is a new beach resort near the Oman border called the Al Fujairah Paradise. The average high daily temperature is over 90 degrees Fahrenheit with summer months over 100 degrees. Paradise or Hell on Earth?

Spanish Painter Goya painted the Forge to show off strong workers dealing with molten hot iron. It is thought to be an allegory to the tough Spanish people dealing with the recent intrusion of Napoleonic era France. The iron forger is putting his strength behind an anvil to work the hot metal. The anvil of history at the time was a concept that would correct short term injustices. Perhaps the Indian toilers in hot modern Fujairah can relate to both Finbar Kenny and Goya.

Well my drink is empty and so I will have to wait till tomorrow when there will be another story to be learned from stamp collecting.

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Ajman 1960s, check out the rocket, were you able to bring up any pearls

Ajman was a tiny pearl diving village occupied seasonally by Nomads. Thanks to Finbar Kenny there were stamps, big colorful stamp designed to get kids interested in stamps, or at least buy a starter pack from the Macys Department Store. Things can get pretty weird when a hobby goes big business. 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.

Stamps like this from Ajman are considered fake by the hobby. So I cannot give you a value or an exact issue date. That is not to say the “Dune” stamps were not influential. Mr. Kenny hoped that by making stamps more colorful and on subjects more relatable to a wider cross section of kids, he could sell more stamp collecting starter packs. It did not work, neither Macys or any other big department store currently have a stamp collecting department. What it did though was inspire real country stamp designers go down the same road of appealing to the immature would be collector. That did not boost the hobby.

Ajman was a tiny but fortified pearl diving village in what was then known as the Trucial States. Today it is one of the United Arab Emirates. As recently as the early 20th century the population was only 750 people and the town was only occupied seasonally. There was a pearl diving season and a palm date harvesting season. For the date harvesting season, most of the population moved to Muscat in modern day Oman. Pearl diving mostly went away after Japanese advancements in cultured pearls and dates just are no longer lucrative enough to travel for.

The Maim tribe conquered Ajman around 1816. Depending on who you ask the ruling Sheik may have been a vassal of the ruling Sheik of nearby Sharjah. After a sacking of a neighboring trucial state by the British in 1822, Ajman signed on as a British Protectorate that left the local Sheik in charge. Don’t get too annoyed at the British, these villages were constantly sacking each other. Ajman had special and repeated problems with the Sheik of Muscat. Remember it was there the nomads were precuring the palm dates.

Sheik/Emir Rashid bin Humaid Al-Nu’aimi ruled Ajman from 1928-1981. He sold the rights to print stamps in the name of Ajman to Finbar Kenny. The arrangement ended in 1971 when Ajman became part of the United Arab Emirates. The Emirs decided to band together with the end of British Protectorate status.

I mentioned Finbar Kenny was the head of the stamp department of the Macys department store. At the time, in the 1930s, it was common for there to be a table near the elevator displaying stamps to children. Mothers could leave their children there to be entertained while they shopped. Kenny through contacts started participating personally in some sales of very high end stamps. He then had the idea to make stamps that his tables might have more luck with by buying the rights to small independent countries no one could find on a map. Many of the Trucial states signed on to Kenny’s plan. In 1971 the formation of the UAE ended Kenny’s deals as the UAE would have a postal system and do there own stamps. Finbar Kenny then signed up the Cook Islands in the Pacific to continue his business with stamps under their name. That did not go well. The leader of the Cook Islands demanded a loan backed by future stamp revenues. After this bribe was paid, the American government arrested Finbar Kenny under the foreign corrupt practices act. He was fined $50,000 and naturally the Cook Island “loan” was not repaid. Things can get pretty rough when you spend too much time in the dunes or Gilligan’s, excuse me Cook, Island.

American philatelic entrepreneur Finbar Kenny holds ‘the world’s rarest stamp’, a British Guiana 1c magenta, at the Stanley Gibbons Catalogue Centenary Exhibition in London, 28th January 1965. (Photo by Stan Meagher/Express/Hulton Archive/Getty Images). No Dunes that day

Well my drink is empty and I will pour another to toast Finbar Kenny. I don’t think over the long term he was good for the hobby but I admire his creativity in the cause. Come again tomorrow for another story that can be learned from stamp collecting

 

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Dubai 1971, coming from nowhere to be a TV powerhouse

As of the time of this stamp, Dubai did not yet have a TV station. It was coming though. 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.

Dubai’s last stamps were in 1972 as the United Arab Emirates took over a universal postage service. As such Dubai can be forgiven for jumping the gun to show off it’s upcoming TV station. The station would be a rival to Abu Dhabi’s TV station that opened in 1969. So a united UAE might not have been so excited by it. The stamp shows the Intelsat satellite, that first brought the world the Beatles singing “All you need is Love”. It also shows Sheik Rashid bin Said who was then transitioning from Dubai’s leader to the united UAE leader.

Todays stamp is issue A25, a 10 Riyal stamp issued by the Emirate of Dubai in 1971. It was part of a 10 stamp issue in various denominations showing new construction in Dubai. According to the Scott catalog, the stamp is worth 85 cents used.

Oil was discovered in 1966 and got into production in 1968. Before that Dubai got by as a British Protectorate/ trading post whose biggest industry was pearl diving. That industry had been greatly challenged by Japan’s innovations in offering cultured pearls. In 1967 Great Britain announced that they were scaling back their worldwide commitments and ending Protectorate status. At the same time India devalued the Rupee which was still the local currency. The oil discovery really couldn’t have come at a better time. Old rivalries with Abu Dhabi were put aside and the United Arab Emirates were formed.

One thing that had been learned from the British was the value of opening up to the people of the world, as was so beneficial to places like Hong Kong and Singapore. Dubai did this not just in terms of contract workers but took it to the next level in opening tax and tariff free zones to incubate new industries that could then offer much employment not tied to the finite resource of the oil. In terms of television broadcasting Dubai formed a Media Free Zone that enabled broadcasters from around the world to produce and distribute content. Dubai’s home grown television station was not left out. Soon it added a second channel offering programing  aimed at the expatriates offering western shows and offerings in Hindi. The area now produces programing including news, cultural shows, religious programing, as well as soap operas, dramas and even children’s cartoons.

It is hoped that the diversification of the economy will be a enough to keep the boom going after the oil runs out. As of now, the belief is that the oil will runout in 2029. The government believes by then it will be able to keep revenues at 90 % of the 2013 level. Over time it is hoped that there will be enough qualified locals to replace most contract workers and the country will still benefit from it’s unique and long standing trade relationship with Iran, that much of the world shuns.

Well my drink is empty and I will pour another to toast Sheik Rashid bin Said, who ruled from 1959-1990. Faced with challenges, he sought out opportunity. Come again tomorrow for another story that can be learned from stamp collecting.

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UAE 1986, Arabs prove they are not all against chess, but Russia still wins

Olympics often get mired in politics. Even a Chess Olympiad. When the Olympiad was held in Israel in 1976, annoyed Arabs set up a rival “Against Chess Olympiad” in Tripoli Libya. Instead of laughing at them, the against tournament was won by not exactly chess giant El Salvador, The Olympiad leadership cucked. Hence we have an official Chess Olympiad in Dubai. 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 you think of Emirates stamps, you think of the fake dune stamps of Finbar Kenny. See https://the-philatelist.com/2019/04/10/sharjah-lets-you-enjoy-modern-art-thanks-to-finbar-kenny/  . These later official issues are more serious stamps. There is still a little of Kenny’s old whimsy in the depiction of the Arab players. This was a cold war chess tournament, so the actual competitive players were Russians and more Russians. Even on the American team. The USA chess melting pot was serving up Russians, if you can’t beat them….

Todays stamp issue is A53, a 2 Dirham stamp issued by the United Arab Emirates on November 14th, 1986. It was a three stamp issue in various denominations in honor of the 27th Chess Olympiad played that year in Dubai. According to the Scott catalog, the stamp is worth $4.50 used.

Chess Olympiads are held every two years. I covered the French stamp honoring the 1974 Nice Olympiad here, https://the-philatelist.com/2018/11/15/france-1974-the-chess-olympiad-mostly-comes-to-nice/  , where I covered the history. Money was hindering those games as Bobby Fischer wouldn’t play without a big paycheck. Darn those people who manage to be the greediest capitalist while thinking themselves communist. Anyway soon after politics became more important. To get the not competitive Arab teams back after the Against Chess Olympiad.  this tournament was scheduled in Dubai. Using the excuse of the official but unacted upon state of war with Israel, they were not invited. Several European teams of Russians then sat out in sympathy with Israeli Russian chess players. Not to worry, lots of third worlders sent uncompetitive teams and the Olympiad hosted a then record  107 nations.

You can guess that the Soviet Union team won. This was the period that Gary Kasparov was starting to dominate teammate and 70s champion Anatoly Karpov. There were separate ladies teams where the Russians also came in first. Their scores were 30% lower. Great Britain made a good show in their former protectorate, their team of homegrown British came in second.

Dubai came to host this tournament as part of the opening up to the world that was going on there. In 1979, the Jebel Ali Free Zone in Dubai opened up there where anyone could set up shop in a duty and tax free zone utilizing facilities built by the government. The area employs 144,000 people and provides 21% of Dubai’s GNP.

Well my drink is empty and I will pour another to toast the Russians. It was quite the act of inclusion to open up their Chess tournaments not just to their diaspora but all comers. Come again tomorrow for another story that can be learned from stamp collecting.