Preface

This connects to my concern about the fate of Africa since independence. My commentary really is about trying to find a worthy leader among the dozens who came to power as French, British and Belgian colonies gained independence more than half-a-century ago. Originally I saw these leaders depicted as handsome statesman on the stamps I collected from nations with exotic names like Ghana, Senegal, Cameroon, Congo. Then I lived in Africa as a teenager and saw things close-up — but from a sheltered perspective, as  my father was a diplomat.  The inspiring portraits and imagery on the post-independence stamps of sub-Saharan Africa caught my eye — and I still admire the delicate engravings and beautiful designs. The more I learned about these “inspiring” leaders, however, the more disillusioned I became. Is there no honest father of his country among them? This bunch of cruel, self-dealing, power-hungry egotists, opportunists and worse gave in to their post-colonial ids during the heady days, months and years after independence. In telling their cautionary tales, illustrated by the stamps they issued in their own honor, I hope at least to move the conversation along    FMF

 

Introduction

Take a look at these two stamps from Africa, issued more than half-a-century ago. One is from Ghana, the other from the Central African Republic. Both depict the leaders of newly emerged sovereign states in optimistic, hopeful terms. Ghana’s Prime Minister Kwame Nkrumah looks out from an oval frame — calm, alert, focused— over a map of Africa with Ghana defined as a rectangular dot in the west. In the foreground, a palm-nut vulture  is on the wing. In the Central African stamp, the engraved image of Premier Barthelemy Boganda glows with his joy and enthusiasm. He smiles broadly, as if partly in wonder. His glassy gaze is focused upward toward … a bright future? He poses under the colorful flag of his brand-new nation.

There was some cause for optimism as the former colonial territories of France, Great Britain and others declared and were granted independence, starting with Ghana in 1957 and accelerating through 1960. Standards of living in many sub-Saharan states had risen as economies benefited from the postwar growth and investment in new industry and commerce. Imperial rule was moderating, adopting more inclusive and representative practices. The seemingly limitless potential of Africa’s resources was matched by a burgeoning labor force. Hopes and expectations were high that independence would bring new prosperity to sub-Saharan Africa’s 50-plus nations — prosperity now shared equitably with indigenous populations shortchanged under colonial rule.

Yet other factors were not as auspicious. Imperial rulers had not expected to set their colonies free so soon. Some had devised blueprints that would defer the day of deliverance for years, even decades. When liberation movements and foreign pressure forced their hands, colonial governors abandoned their orderly timetables. It quickly grew apparent that decades of racist policies had left indigenous Africans woefully unprepared for the job ahead. There were few trained civil servants, teachers, doctors, engineers. Kenya’s first African lawyer began practicing only in 1956. In Northern Nigeria there was a single college alumnus. In the entire Congo, there were just 30 black university graduates. Only 136 Congolese students graduated from high school in 1959-60. This was no accident: restricting indigenous access to higher education and the professions was an intentional strategy designed to perpetuate white rule and native subordination. Lovanium University, the first post-secondary school in the Belgian Congo, did not open until 1954. The University of East Africa, serving Kenya, Uganda and Tanzania, opened only in 1963.

Yet even these challenging circumstances could not have foretold the record  of misrule, malfeasance, corruption and violence compiled by one African leader after another, from one end of the continent to the other, year after year, decade after decade. This sorry tale has many sordid chapters,  the latest of which are still being written. It didn’t take long for the frothy days of liberation to be curdled   by the metastasizing greed of rulers intent on self-enrichment, tribal supremacy, patronage and perpetuating their power. Repressive one-party states emerged in Ghana, Niger, Dahomey, Togo, Mauritania, the Central African Republic and Upper Volta (now Burkina Faso), and variations held sway in Kenya, Guinea, Senegal, Ivory Coast, Malawi, and elsewhere. In one stunning and heartbreaking case after another, African leaders betrayed their early promise. They inflicted appalling cruelties on their political enemies and other innocents, and displayed a shocking indifference to the public welfare. They mouthed platitudes while enriching themselves, their families and cronies — and all too often, murdering their rivals.  With dismal consistency, indigenous African leaders failed to live up to their own goals. Men who had demonstrated ambition and promise in their early lives, who had achieved educational, public service and military distinction under colonial rule, proved towering disappointments after they took office. The great potential of the continent to yield its riches for the benefit of its people has been squandered. Today, I would argue, few Africans experience a higher  standard of living than before independence.

If I attempted to tell you why this is so, or how things could be better, I would have to be writing something other than a stamp commentary. Since stamps are my thing, what I will do here is explore, in brief written sketches, the woeful stories of a succession of African leaders whose  images and portraits appeared on stamps.  The arcs of their lives, the patterns established during their tenures in office, more often than not will be cautionary tales, some  with truly disturbing aspects. The end result, I hope, will be illuminating, if not definitive or prescriptive.

I already have described in some detail the troubled history of post-independence leadership of the former Belgian Congo. (see Congo blog posts). It is a sorry tale indeed that unfolded around Patrice Lumumba, Cyrille Adoula, Joseph Kasavubu, Moise Tshombe, Albert Kalonji, Joseph Mobutu and their successors. It needs no retelling here. Instead, let us start with the two leaders mentioned above — Nkrumah and Boganda.

(A note on the stamp illustrations that follow:  Rather than include photographic images of these African leaders, I use only stamps, intentionally. They are authentic, contemporaneous visual records. I believe they are particularly revealing in that they reflect not only their subjects, but the ways they were strategically positioned to appear at the time. Some or most of these stamps were produced abroad, particularly the beautiful engraved portraits crafted by skilled French artist/engravers. The stamps are official issues of their nations. Not all leaders chose to emblazon stamps with their formal portraits, so it’s fair to suggest those who did were fostering a cult of personality. Many of these leaders did succeed in wooing, or at least dazzling, their constituents, in spite of their misrule and misdeeds. They were popular, regardless of rigged or non-existent elections, political repression and worse. Some of these portraits reflect the odd blend of French high culture and African popular culture. The connection between the French and the favored indigenous elites was deep, and continues to be reflected in francophone Africa. To a lesser extent, British culture still influences Nigeria, Ghana, Sierra Leone and Gambia, and a host of countries in east Africa. While these associations may take bizarre forms, I can’t help but think they still could prove useful in the long run …)

Kwame Nkrumah

This west African nation seemed uniquely poised to make the most of its independence, granted in 1957. When Kwame Nkrumah, the handsome, charismatic young leader of Ghana, took the radiant Queen Elizabeth of England into his arms for a dance at State House in Accra in 1961, it seemed like an interracial fairy tale made real. I suspect neither party could have known at the time that the fairy tale would prove a fantasy, and that reality would turn into a nightmare. Humbly born, Nkrumah showed promise as a student. His mentors eventually enabled him to go to the United States, where he studied at Lincoln University and the University of Pennsylvania. He lived and worked in America for 10 years, returning to Ghana just as nationalist sentiment was rising. He weathered the storm of the independence protests, and emerged as a leader. The leader. Amid a surge of popular support, Nkrumah was selected to lead the new nation, whose name he had proposed: Ghana. As a key member of the colonial administration, Nkrumah had played a role in growing the postwar economy of this “model colony” of the Gold Coast. As a nationalist leader, an idealistic socialist who favored pragmatism, Nkrumah seemed suited to play a mediating role between the global interests competing for influence the continent. On his own after independence, Nkrumah continued to talk the talk of freedom and development. But by the mid-1960s, he had neutralized his rivals, sometimes with violence, and consolidated power. He abandoned regional assemblies within two years of taking over. His new constitution in 1960 allowed him to rule by personal decree. He curtailed the media and civil liberties, eventually creating a one-party security state. But though he remained an object of cult worship — at home and abroad — he could not overcome factional differences. Nkrumah grew rich off a system of bribery and corruption that benefited his family and coterie. When he attempted to co-opt the military, in 1966, he was deposed. He withdrew to neighboring Conakry, Guinea, where he lived in restless retirement until his death in 1972, at age 62, from prostate cancer.

Barthelemy Boganda

The story of Barthelemy Boganda is one of promise unfulfilled — which is as much as to say, promises broken. The ambitious native son of the French territory exotically named Ubangi-Shari was the first Ubangi elected to the French parliamentary assembly — under the colonial pretense that all subjects of  foreign territories were full-fledged French citizens. Quickly realizing the sham of this arrangement, Boganda went home to advocate for self-determination, at first as a federated community of equatorial African states, then just for Ubangi-Shari. He did not call for total independence, but for shared rule. In 1958 he got his wish, and successfully pushed through a new, democratic constitution for the Central African Republic. On March 29, 1959, he boarded a plane in rural Berberati to return to the capital city of Bangui. A mid-air explosion killed all aboard. Traces of explosives were found. Rumors swirled of a plot by business  interests, French secret service complicity, and the evil designs of is estranged wife. But the cause was never determined — not surprising, since there was no inquiry. Boganda’s untimely death at age 49 brought to power …

David Dacko

Another promising young man from a rural village, David Dacko became Boganda’s protege and successor. Between 1959 and 1965, his tenure was marked primarily by his consolidation of power, establishment of a one-party state, and a pattern of bribery, corruption and bloated bureaucracy at every level of government that has plagued that nation — and other sub-Saharan African nations — ever since. Although the nation’s diamond industry grew, the benefits did not flow to the people. His popularity had faded by the time he was overthrown by one of his generals. Though he eventually returned to serve the government, and indeed became president again in 1979, he was sacked for good in 1981. Dacko remained active in politics until his death, at 73, in 2003.  The period between his two terms of misrule was filled by the macabre antics of one of Africa’s most bizarre and terrifying dictators:

Jean-Bedel Bokassa

“Central Africans,” declared the rebellious colonel, “a new era of equality between us has begun …”  It was nothing of the sort. Instead, one  predatory leader (Dacko) was replaced by an even more predatory one. Though Jean-Bedel Bokassa was related to both Boganda and Dacko, he made them look positively restrained in contrast to his rapacious and violent years of dictatorship. Self-promoting and self-indulgent, obsessively drawn to the life of luxury, Bokassa would not tolerate dissent or political competition. The French newspaper Le Monde speculated on which grisly technique he used to dispatch one rival: “Did Bokassa tie him to a

pillar before personally carving him  with a knife he had previously used for stirring his coffee in a gold-and-midnight-blue Sevres coffee set, or was the murder committed on the cabinet table with the help of other persons?”

Growing increasingly erratic, Bokassa had himself crowned “emperor” in 1976. His coronation cost a

reported $20 million —a big chunk of the national budget at the time. Popular dissatisfaction produced food riots — and subsequent massacres. The final outrage was an attack that killed as many as 100 schoolchildren who were protesting an order to buy costly uniforms emblazoned with the emperor’s likeness. After some children threw rocks at his passing motorcade, Bokassa was said to have stepped from his Rolls Royce limousine to  help club some of the children to death with his cane.

Finally deposed in a coup assisted by the French in 1979, Bokassa first lived in exile at his chateau near Paris, to the increasing discomfort of his neighbors and hosts. Eventually he returned to the Central African Republic, where he was arrested and tried on numerous capital charges. Although he declared his innocence — “I’m no saint,” he testified. “I’m just a man like everyone else” —  he was convicted and sentenced to death. On one charge, though, he was acquitted: cannibalism. Prosecutors could not establish beyond reasonable doubt that the carcasses seen in his meat locker were human flesh. Nor could they prove that his cook used the meat to prepare occasional meals for Bokassa and his guests, including French President Valery Giscard D’Estaing. Bokassa’s sentence was commuted to life in prison. He was granted amnesty in 1996, and died at home, age 75, in 1993.

Fulbert Youlou

This fellow may look like an overgrown Boy Scout or a benign man of the cloth, but do not be deceived. He was just as venal and power-hungry as the next African strong man. Fulbert Youlou was a brilliant student in his village, and rose in the network of the Catholic church to be ordained a priest. Along the way he came briefly into the orbit of Barthelemy Boganda, soon to head the Central African Republic. Trading on his clerical collar and his nationalist connections, Youlou  parlayed himself into the seat of prime minister, then president after the former French Congo became the independent Congo Republic in 1960.  He encouraged a cult of personality, in part by ordering the issuance of stamps bearing his likeness in his religious garb, though by this time he had been defrocked because of adultery and polygamy. His big ego and eccentric ways soon got him in trouble — one story tells of him pulling out a revolver to force members of the National Assembly to withdraw a challenge. Inheriting one of the more robust economies among French territories, he focused on expanding his political control and limiting the opposition as the national debt increased. Accused of corruption and anti-union violence, he was forced out in 1963. At first imprisoned in Fulbert Youlou Military Camp, he was released but remained a target of the pro-Marxist regime. He fled across the Congo river to Leopoldvile, in the by-then-former Belgian Congo, where he was granted asylum. Eventually he resettled in Spain, where he died of hepatitis in 1972, aged 64.

(interlude) 

Get a load of this item: An airmail stamp from the Central African Republic celebrates “The Great Reconciliation” — presumably between the CAR, whose leader, Jean-Bedel Bokassa, poses in the middle; the Republic of the Congo, featuring Joseph Mobutu at left; and Chad, whose president, N’garta Tombalbaye, is on the right. What a trio! My first impression was of some costumed dancers doing a cakewalk. Are they in drag? The way Tombalbaye and Bokassa daintily raise their clasped hands is worthy of a minuet in the court of Versailles. I can’t tell whether the stick between Mobutu and Bokassa is being gripped by one or the other — or both. Notice how Mobutu and Tombalbaye are dressed in matching outfits, one lime green and the other turquoise, that somehow signify authenticite, or African authentic-ness. This was a campaign Mobutu developed as a photogenic distraction from his systematic plunder of the Congo. It seems he persuaded his fellow ruler from Chad to play along. The fellow in the middle, meanwhile, looks jaunty in his trim brown suit and porkpie hat. Bokassa could be a Vaudeville song-and-dance man out on the town. One can almost hear the High Life band in the background, belting out a central African cha-cha. The “great reconciliation” this stamp boasts about apparently involved the three leaders agreeing to forget their past differences and resurrect something called the United States of Central Africa. If you never heard of this union of nations before, I’m with you. I’m at a loss to tell you anything more about it, including what if anything it ever accomplished; certainly nothing for the beleaguered and horribly misrepresented populations of Chad, CAR and the Congo. However, I can all too easily conjure many benefits that flowed from the USCA into the pockets and Swiss bank accounts of Mobutu, Bokassa and Tombalbaye. OK, let’s not put the president of Chad just yet into the same venal category as Mobutu, or the near-psychopathic category of Bokassa. At least, not until we look a bit into his background …

N’garta (Francois) Tombalbaye

Chad has been more or less a basket-case of a nation ever since independence. When it wasn’t drought or civil war, it was encroachment by plotters from surrounding nations, led by Libya’s Moammer Gadhafi. There were some real wrong-os in charge of Chad during those decades, including the fanatic Hissen Habre. Could it be that Chad’s first president, Ngarta Tombalbaye, broke the pattern? Could he have been, like CAR’s Boganda, a well-intentioned, bright young man with good values and leadership skills? I hope so, because then there would be two African leaders I can look up to. On the other hand, I shudder with anticipation as I turn to his life story, for it surely cannot have ended well. If he wasn’t killed under mysterious circumstances, as was Boganda, it is all too likely that his good intentions went awry as he yielded to the temptations of power. At least we might hope things started out well …

OK, our hopes turn out to be unfounded. Tombalbaye’ s thumbnail bio on Wikipedia begins on a promising enough note — a teacher and trade unionist, leader of the Chadian Progressive Party … “Tombalbaye was appointed the nation’s head of government after independence on August 11, 1960.”  The note also said he ruled until his death, in 1975, aged 56. Then came this chilling coda: “He ruled as a dictator until his deposition and assassination by members of the Chadian military …”

Oh dear. Like a latter-day Demosthenes of the sub-Sahara, I continue in vain my search for an honest African leader … who survived …

By the way, do you find it at all unusual that while some African dictators like to adopt costumes of African “authenticity” (Mobutu), others enjoy posing as dark-hued members of a dynastic royal line? Indeed, the doomed Tombalbaye did both. Remember the cakewalk for “reconciliation,” where he was depicted in a kind of Nehru-Dashiki jacket, along with a knock-off of Mobutu’s leopard-skin cap? In contrast, on his formal portrait stamp, above, he appears in a white tie and tails, complete with crisply creased collar tips and a bright yellow-and-green sash. In another incarnation of colonial cross-dressing on the other side of the continent, Uganda’s murderous Idi Amin liked to wear a kilt and fancy himself “the last King of Scotland.” Among the other dandies at the dictators’ debutante ball were Gabon’s Leon Mba, Felix Houphouet-Boigny of the Ivory Coast, Modibo Keita of Mali and Maurice Yameogo of Upper Volta. Oh, and the poet/politician/polymath, Leopold Senghor of Senegal. Did any of these really live up to their images?

Leon M’ba

Born into a relatively privileged family, M’ba obtained employment in the civil service, and use his charisma and social talents to line his pockets and further his ambitions, under the banner of African nationalism. One colonial administrator observed dryly: “Leon M’ba not only was the leader who had claimed for personal use the colony’s money; He enjoyed also a considerable amount of prestige … which he got from witchcraft activities he practices. As we was intelligent, he exploited this situation to extort the people he had to administrate, also the cabal which he had formed. But on the other hand, he knew how to flatter the representatives of the authority …”  As Gabon’s first president after independence in 1960, he vowed to establish and lead a democratic government.  Yet he promoted  a cult of personality, and consolidated his power. As the French secret service reported: “He regarded himself as a truly democratic leader … Still, he wasn’t happy until he had the constitution rewritten to give him virtually all power and transforming the parliament into high-priced scenery that could be bypassed as needed.”  Establishing what would be called a “hyperpresidential” regime, M’ba had songs sung in his praise, and stamps and loincloths printed with his likeness. By 1964, conditions had deteriorated to the point that rivals could mount a successful coup. The only trouble came from Paris, where Charles de Gaulle stood by the man who had served France during World War II. (He did the same for Bokassa and others). M’ba was restored to office in Libreville by French troops. He spent his remaining months surrounded by French aides and officers, growing increasingly sick and infirm. In 1967, he was re-elected with 99.9 percent of the vote — a landslide aided by the fact that no one dared to oppose him. Days before he was to take his oath of office, he died of cancer, aged 65. He was succeeded by his vice president, Albert Bernard Bongo.

Felix Houphouet-Boigny

This elegant Francophile — what a name! — may have been one of the more reluctant African liberationists. Descended from tribal chiefs, he thrived under French colonial mentorship — and developed a distinct taste for French culture. He would have preferred to maintain strong links to france instead of exercising full independence, but when the chance came, he took it, serving as president for 33 years. At his death in 1993, aged 88 (at least), Houphouet-Boigny was the world’s third-longest serving leader, after only Fidel Castro and North Korea’s Kim Il-Sun. His focus on development made Cote d’Ivoire one of Africa’s few early success stories — cocoa production tripled between 1960 and 1980; coffee doubled, spurring an export boom. Meanwhile, the industrial sector was expanding at a welcome rate of 10 percent-plus per year …

Then what happened? The president, affectionately nicknamed “Papa Houphouet” or simple “Le Vieux” (The Old One), had calmly adopted the autocratic ways of his neighbors. There were no meaningful elections in his one-party state for decades. Houphouet-Boigny and his coterie profited handsomely from the “Ivorian miracle” — not so much the ill-served citizens of the Ivory Coast, who didn’t seem to have much choice in the matter. The president bragged openly about the “billions” of francs he had earned from his enterprises and deposited in Swiss bank accounts. “There is even a bank that manages my profits in avocados, of which, I think, I am the main producer in Cote d’Ivoire.”

When commodity prices dropped in the 1980s, the over-leveraged statist economy tanked. In 1987, the regime admitted it was bankrupt.  Still revered in the west as the “Grand Old Man of Africa,” Houphouet-Boigny continued to live in high style at his palace in Yamoussoukro, modeled on Versailles. There he also could worship at his local church, the world’s largest. The Basilica of Our Lady of Peace cost the Ivorian people $300 million to build.

Did the average Ivorian family benefit from Houphouet-Boigny’s decades of high-handed rule? If you’re patient, some day I’ll look up the statistics on per capita income in 1990 compared to 1960, adjusted for inflation. Meanwhile, my guess is that things stayed pretty much the same for most of the common folk. There were no coups or civil wars, but not much of a windfall from independence — except for the favored few, to be sure. After President Felix’s death in office in 1993, things such as they were quickly fell apart. The Ivory Coast has been plagued by political instability by coups, economic reverses and civil war practically ever since. Whatever else he may have done, Houphouet-Boigny was not able to build a secure nation-state during his many years on the world stage.

My speculations extend to another elegant West African leader, the poet   and philosopher-statesman Leopold Senghor from Senegal.   Interestingly, I could not find a stamp from Senegal bearing his likeness — though in my searches I did come upon one philatelic tribute stamp — from Moldova.

Long-lived like his sometime-friendly neighbor, Houphouet-Boigny, Senghor was born into a rare bourgeois African family — his father was a businessman with six children and access to Catholic boarding school. By the time he was a teenager, Senghor was captivated by French literature. He managed to spend more than a dozen years traveling, studying and living in France, then became one of the future African leaders who would serve with distinction in the French army during World War II. Like Houphouet, Senghor was comfortable in the “French compound,” and was in no hurry to declare independence after the war. He and his sophisticated cohort enthusiastically adopted the pose of black Frenchmen; as he put it, “Our ambition was to become photographic negatives of the colonizers.” Back home, as he rose in the ranks of colonial administrators, he wrestled with nationalism even as he appreciated the colonial domicile.  “We have grown up in it, and it is good to be alive in it, he said. “We simply want to build our own huts.” Mesmerizing with his poetic and analytic abilities, Senghor beguiled all he met, and his political skills propelled him to the presidency at independence in 1960. Would you be surprised to learn that he wrote the new nation’s national anthem?

In office, Senghor presided over a growing economy, published his poetry and spread his gospel of “negritude,” even as he maintained close links with the Quai d’Orsay in Paris. He also developed his venal and autocratic skills — spreading the wealth to his coterie and to maintain his power. Dissent was not tolerated. Senghor tried to reinvent himself as a democratic leader several times, then became the first post-independence African head of state to step down voluntarily, in 1980. In 1984 he was elected to membership in the French Academy, that nation’s highest honor for cultural contributions. Senghor died in France in 2001, aged 95.

Whether Senghor loved France more than his native land is something I won’t even speculate on. Once again, however, I am left wondering (lazy scholar that I am) how the average Senegalese family fared during Senghor’s long tenure. Were they sufficiently beguiled by his poetry, his elegant charm, his mantra of “negritude,” to ignore the fact that their standard of living was hardly budging? What good has the French Academy ever done them?

Maurice Yameogo

There seems to be very little written about Maurice Yameogo the first president of the Republic of Upper Volta  (now Burkina Faso). He served from 1959 until 1966, and died in 1993, aged 71. During his tenure there were crises that required military intervention. Eventually, Yameogo was ousted in a coup led by Lt. Col. Sangoule Lamizama, whose dictatorial rule would last more than two decades. Yameogo, known popularly as “Monsieur Maurice,” for his elegant manners and wardrobe, was a feeble exemplar of a democratic leader. Soon after he took office he banned all political parties but his own. Popular unrest continued as conditions worsened, until the military finally cracked down. Then things went from bad to worse.

Modibo Keita

I have just one more Francophile dandy for you: Modibo Keita, first president of Mali (1960-68). Isn’t that a beautifully engraved portrait of a distinguished statesman?

Alas, he was no such thing.  Claiming kinship with the founders of the Malian empire, Keita grew up in the capital city of Bamako, got an education and became a teacher. His skills as a political leader quickly grew apparent, and he was elected to the National Assembly of France as a favored African delegate. When independence came, he was a natural choice. Unfortunately, his scholarly infatuation with socialism led him into disastrous economic experiments that ended badly. Simultaneously he was jailing his political opponents. Then he suspended the constitution, recruited violent militias, and devalued the Malian franc. In the ensuing popular uprising, Gen. Moussa Traore stepped in, threw Keita out of office and sent him to prison in rural Kidal. He was returned to the capital as a conciliatory gesture in 1977, but died before he could be released. He was 61. Keita was officially rehabilitated in 1992, after the death of Moussa Traore, the guy who led the coup back in 1968.  By 1999, there was a monument in Keita’s honor standing in Bamako. I don’t know if it depicts him in white tie and tails, or if it should.

Bye for now

This seems as good a place as any to end Part One of this African Rogues Gallery on Stamps. Well, it’s a terrible place to stop, actually, if you consider the fate of Upper Volta after the ouster of the dastardly “Monsieur Maurice,”  or poor Mali, now once again wracked and destabilized by a coup. The pioneer of African nationalism, Ghana’s Kwame Nkrumah, turned out to be a mountebank, a martinet and a self-serving hypocrite. Those who followed him in Ghana and beyond also betrayed their responsibilities and their people. I had hoped to find inspiring models of statesmanship in either Felix Houphouet-Boigny or Leopold Senghor. But no. Where, oh where is the leader in sub-Saharan Africa in the post-independence days who acquits himself (or herself) with honor and integrity? Who overcomes tribal divisions, builds coalitions and cleaves to democracy, no matter what? Who maintains efficient administration and integrity in public life, resisting the temptations that come with power? You will not find him in Part One — but perhaps we will find one in Part Two, for there is much more to come. Don’t abandon all hope — yet.

TO BE CONTINUED

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Please come along as I return briefly to a beloved topic in stamp collecting — the exquisite pleasure of “completing sets.” Internet stamp shopping has made it easier than ever to fill your “wish lists” with the stamps missing from your key sets — that is, if you can afford to spend the money! (“But it’s an investment!” I tell my wife, who rolls her eyes, gives me the cold shoulder, puts her foot down and closes the books.) The accompanying illustrations show how several of my recent online purchases — within my budget — allowed me to fill out two favorite sets in my British Commonwealth collection: the Ascension Queen Elizabeth definitive series of  1963; and the Jubilee Issue of 1897 from Canada, commemorating the sexagenary (60th year) of Queen Victoria’s rule. Each stamp in that latter series features side-by-side portraits of the queen as a swan-necked beauty in 1837 and a doughty dowager in 1897.

Admittedly, I have not “completed” the Jubilee set. Its values run from a half-cent to $5, including $1, $2, $3  and $4 stamps. The high values are hideously expensive. Some of the lower values cost more than I normally would want or be able to spend. But recently I got the bug, so I’ve been marshaling my resources and trolling the Internet for bargains, just to see how many from the set I could gather  …

But before more words about  Canada, a few words  about Ascension.  The attractive bird issue of 1963 followed the first Queen Elizabeth definitive set of 1953 — a gorgeous and valuable  series that I have described elsewhere (see my  Ascension blog post). The 1963 set is not cheap — I had to shop around and finally bought the top two values, from separate dealers, for a combined $22.30.   I hope the images here and below help to  explain the appeal of stamp collecting in a visual way — notice the designs and the colors, also the way the completed set (below) moves smoothly from 1 penny through 1 pound, each stamp linked to the other by a common design template, each one its own handsome object, with original art, vivid color and the unifying portrait of the queen. The complete mint set sells online for $33, so I don’t know how well I did — particularly since my 1/6 stamp is cancelled. I may decide to pick up a mint 1/6 some day  — it’s not expensive. Meanwhile, I indulge my  predilection for  complete sets, even if they do include a mix of mint and cancelled stamps.

 

Now, on to the Canadian set, and my bold bid for the 15-cent and 20-cent stamps in the series. This set is a particular favorite of mine, and seems to be popular with many collectors. The stamps,  as mentioned earlier, are pricey! It took me  years of stop-and-go collecting to begin building my set. My first big move was to buying the 1/2 cent. Oddly, its price seemed to be rising sharply a few years ago. When I finally jumped in and picked up a mint copy in 2014, it cost me $22.49 — a 4,400 percent increase over face value, right? Imagine: If  your ancestors had been in Canada in 1897, they could have picked up a full sheet of these black beauties for a quarter, the face value! (Why is this low-value stamp so expensive? Why so rare? Uh, sorry, I haven’t gotten around to researching that particular subject yet; maybe later …)

Some of the mid-range values are not outrageously expensive — I got a mint 1-cent for $2.25, a mint 5-cent for $4.35. Others cost a bit more. I scored a coup, I think, when I found the 50-cent, used, offered for $39.

A word on the condition of stamps like these in relation to their value. Mint, never-hinged examples from this set command sky-high prices. Hinged mint copies go for considerably less. Used copies may cost slightly less than that. Then comes the matter of centering. A stamp may be sound in every other respect — no tears or thins, scuffs, short or missing perforations — yet still be a relative bargain if the design is noticeably off-center. You will notice in my set, pictured here and again below, a number of  pretty dramatically off-center values — look particularly at the 1/2-cent (skewed high), the 15-cent (low) and the 20-cent (skewed left). At least the stamps themselves are sound. And remember my urge toward “completeness,” which overcomes key considerations like mint or used — or in this case, centering. I stand by my Jubilee set, noting that each stamp is intact, if not the most elegant example you will find.

The mint 20-cent cost me a whopping $38.39 from one dealer; the used 15-cent a still-considerable $33.94 from another.  It was a thrill to insert these two rarities into their protective, black-backed sleeves (using stamp tongs, of course!), custom-cut and mount them in my British America album. Wow! The set is filling out nicely! Of course I should not expect to pick up the $1 or higher values anytime soon — unless I come into some serious money. (I saw a $2 nearly obliterated by a heavy cancel, on sale for something like $90 …)  But just having the set complete to the 50-cent would be a feat I never thought  I would accomplish;  if only I could find an affordable 6-cent! The pressure is on: Just look at that page (pictured above). The white hole in the middle cries out to be filled! Copies of the 6-cent  were available on Internet sites, all right, but the cost was daunting — $30, $40 or more. I could pick up a damaged “space filler” for much less, but that’s not my way. I insist on intact stamps, with only the rarest of exceptions.

Eventually I did settle on a 6-cent, offered on an Internet site for a very reasonable $15.50. What’s wrong with it? It looked fine, though the cancellation was ugly. It seemed to have all its perforations, and the centering was even decent, so. I snapped it up. When it arrived in the mail a few days later, it fulfilled my expectations. Yes, one corner is a little greasy; the cancellation makes it look like it’s missing some perfs, even though it isn’t. It’s a sound stamp, listed as “fine.”  And the price sure was right! Plus, I got the pleasure of adding the missing piece to “fill out” this desirable set from the 1/2-cent through the 50-cent. (See below, enlarged.)

Altogether, I figure I spent a little over $185 over a period of five or more years to acquire this “partial set.” Now, let’s check online to see what this set is going for today.  According to the widely used online site Zillions of Stamps, using the middle range of prices, my partial set would cost an encouraging $296.50 — 62.5 percent more than I paid.  An all-mint partial set, 1/2-cent through 50-cent, was selling for $400 …

What a handsome series it is! Though I can’t help but wonder how many Canadian stamp collectors in the turbulent economy of the 1890s were able to buy those $1, $2, $3, $4 and $5 stamps —  any more than most collectors today can afford the inflated prices of these rare, high-value beauties  …

Photo gallery: The top values
Well, at least we can feast our eyes. Here they are, the top values of the Jubilee Issue, all lined up, like a wish list for my fantasy stamp collection.  (See below.) These images are from the Internet, of course, not  my collection. They are, so to speak, for illustrative purposes only. And what illustrations! Notice the exquisite engraving: the delicate portraits, the emblems, the stylized maple leaf border; the vivid color; the fine centering — and the high prices!  I will supply brief captions with a few details.

The $1 (color: lake) is offered for $375. It is a mint, never-hinged example, very well-centered.

 

The $2 (dark purple) is offered for $2,900. It is a superb example, accompanied by certificate. Notice the near-perfect centering.

The $3 (yellow bistre) is also a beautiful example. It is offered for $1,395.

This example of the $4 value (purple) is marred by a heavy “railroad cancel.” The centering also is skewed toward the top. Price: $190.

 

 

 

The stamps pictured below, from around the British Empire, were issued between the 1890s and the 1950s. They span five reigns, from Victoria to Elizabeth, that amount to 179 years — and counting. Across this vast expanse of time and territory, these stamps have held to the same design standard set by the first Victoria Jubilee series. These remarkable threads of continuity — from monarch to monarch, century to century, continent to continent —weave a mesmerizing tapestry of empire, don’t you think?

Same design through five reigns: (from top) Victoria, 1837-1901; Edward VII, 1901-1910; George V, 1910-1935; George VI, 1936-1952; Elizabeth II, 1952 —

The stamps pictured below, from around the British Empire, were issued between the 1890s and the 1950s. They span five reigns, from Victoria to Elizabeth, that amount to 179 years — and counting. Across this vast expanse of time and territory, these stamps have held to the same design standard set by the first Victoria Jubilee series. These remarkable threads of continuity — from monarch to monarch, century to century, continent to continent —weave a mesmerizing tapestry of empire, don’t you think?

Same design through five reigns: (from top) Victoria, 1837-1901; Edward VII, 1901-1910; George V, 1910-1935; George VI, 1936-1952; Elizabeth II, 1952 —

The other day I got what seemed to be a piece of unsolicited good news: My FMF Stamp Project had been selected as one of the “Top 60 Stamp Collecting Blogs” on the Internet.  Cool!

What exactly does this mean? Well, first take a look at the message the popped up on my email server:

“Hi Frederick,

My name is Anuj Agarwal. I’m Founder of Feedspot.

I would like to personally congratulate you as your blog FMF STAMP PROJECT has been selected by our panelist as one of the Top 60 Stamp Collecting Blogs on the web.   (Ed: Anuj supplied a link further into his Feedspot site: http://blog.feedspot.com/stamp_collecting_blogs/ )

I personally give you a high-five and want to thank you for your contribution to this world. This is the most comprehensive list of Top 60 Stamp Collecting Blogs on the internet and I’m honored to have you as part of this!

Also, you have the honor of displaying the following badge on your blog. Use the below code to display this badge proudly on your blog.”

Opening the link, I found a listing of the other 59 stamp-collecting blogs that have received this special recognitions. And more text, starting with a sentence fragment:

“The Best Stamp Collecting blogs from thousands of top Stamp Collecting blogs in our index using search and social metrics. Data will be refreshed once a week.

These blogs are ranked based on following criteria

•Google reputation and Google search ranking

•Influence and popularity on Facebook, twitter and other social media sites

•Quality and consistency of posts.

•Feedspot’s editorial team and expert review

CONGRATULATIONS to every blogger that has made this Top Stamp Collecting Blogs list! This is the most comprehensive list of best Stamp Collecting blogs on the internet and I’m honoured to have you as part of this! … If your blog is one of the Top 60 Stamp Collecting blogs, you have the honour of displaying the following badge on your site. Use the below code to display this badge proudly on your blog. You deserve it!”

It doesn’t seem to me that my FMF Stamp Project has attracted much attention — yet anyway. But the “medal” looks totally cool, so I figured out a way to display it as a logo at the top of my home page and FMF Stamp Project blog posts. I also did a little research on feedspot.com and Anuj Agarwal.  According to social media, he already has had a successful career in international insurance, both in India and Great Britain and probably beyond. I imagined him being an enthusiastic stamp collector with considerable resources and free time on his hands (or else building a new fortune with this feedspot.com site, which seems to be an info aggregation service for its subscribers).

All this, notwithstanding that the photo he included with his email message makes Anuj Agarwal look, according to my friend George whom I shared the message with, like he’s still in junior high. (Sorry Anuj — that was George talking, not me.)

Inspired by the sheer serendipity of the whole thing — after all, the FMF Stamp Project is just a lark, and I have only just managed to clamber aboard this wordpress.com Internet platform — I sent Anuj (I hope I may call you Anuj) a cheery email in reply:

“It was a pleasure to get your message and notification today. I don’t know exactly what it means yet, but it sure seems like it can’t be bad. (I’m already displaying my “medal” as logo on my blog!)  It is a thrill to have my FMF Stamp Project noticed in any way. This labor of love has been going on for a year or more. I am putting up more blog posts all the time, because I have a story to tell on just about every page of my large stamp collection. I looked you up via social media and see you have had a successful career already. And your Web site looks intriguing — something that could be very useful for curious and discriminating readers. Perhaps I will learn to use it one day.

“I am a retired journalist and editor in Syracuse, NY, age 68. Now I continue to pursue my lifelong interests in music composition** and performance, as well as writing projects like the FMF Stamp Project. My stamp commentaries began as essays shared with family and loved ones. I was encouraged to put them on a blog, and with help from my stepson was able to scramble onto the platform, where I am hanging on for dear life. Having lots of fun, though!

“FYI, I lived on the subcontinent in the 1950s — in Dhaka, where my father was a diplomat. We traveled several times by train from Calcutta (Kolkata?) to Delhi and beyond, to visit my brother and sister who were studying in Woodstock. What memories …

“It is also a pleasure to make your acquaintance via the Internet— which Dan Rather calls the most significant innovation since the steam engine. I wish you every success. — Fred M. Fiske, Minoa (Syracuse), NY

** p.s. I also have a site where I have posted a half-dozen of my songs so far. Go to soundcloud.com and search for fred fiske.”

It wasn’t long before Anuj sent me a reply:

“Hi Fred,

Thanks for adding the Badge on your Blog.

https://mancryfmf.com/blog/

If you can add a link back to the post, we’d greatly appreciate it.

http://blog.feedspot.com/stamp_collecting_blogs/

Best, Anuj

So now I need to figure out how to embed a link in the logo? Or elsewhere on my blog? Why a link to feedspot.com? Am I opening myself up to some kind of scam? I hope not! Will this end up with my bank accounts drained, all my assets confiscated, leaving me a homeless panhandler in the snow on a street corner? Heaven forbid!

Get a grip. Don’t be so morbid. Maybe it’s just a chance to expand your audience. Enjoy the (limited) celebrity. And limited is right. When I told my wife about my new “medal,” she snickered. That’s how much of the world thinks about stamp collecting in general. And with some reason. We tend to attract geeks and nerds, like me — and not the high-tech kind. I may be a celebrity in Syracuse Stamp Club circles, but I still need $1.50 to buy a cup of coffee.

And yet … my starry eyes are starting to focus on future prizes in the sky: more readers for the FMF Stamp Project; more open-minded folks  taking an interest in stamps; renewed interest in the hobby in general — and improved prospects that my collection won’t lose value as fast as I build it up.

My daughter Molly, who is Mideast bureau chief for the Los Angeles Times, heard the news (from me, via email) and responded with words of encouragement:

“Way to go YOD (Ye Olde Dad)! I KNEW you needed an online presence, and would get a kick out of it. Look at all you’ve been doing, between the stamp blog and your music. Am really excited for you. What a great outlet, and — as I predicted — you have an audience. Now, if you could only monetize it…  love from Cairo, where the weather is fantastically cool.”

Encouraging words, indeed. But forget about the push to monetize. We stamp collectors generally have a pretty modest and realistic assessment of our beloved pastime. While we can’t get enough of it ourselves, we all too readily accept that most of the world doesn’t care a hoot about stamps.

Nevertheless, through the FMF Stamp Project, I think I have managed to open a conversation about stamps aimed at a general audience, using the resources of the Internet to enrich my commentaries with glorious illustrations of enlarged stamps from my collection and elsewhere. Now, being selected as one of the 60 best stamp blogs —  “from thousands” (really?) — I am (modestly) thrilled. Perhaps it is slightly ridiculous. And so, I offer a bit of silliness to celebrate this new distinction: **

Let me collect my thoughts before I become unhinged by the thrill of having my FMF Stamp Project selected as one of the 60 best stamp blogs on the Internet. I know skeptics may suspect an ulterior motive behind this “medal,” and wouldn’t touch it with 10-foot tongs. They’d demand that the whole thing be canceled. Nevertheless, I am inclined to commemorate this happy event as a definitive comment on the good quality my work, and hope my commentaries will be engraved in the minds and hearts of a growing audience. My aim, of course, is to promote stamp collecting, a hobby whose popularity seems to have worn thin.  Yielding to despair and admitting I am licked would mean being stuck in a declining market that could only mean damage for my own collection. My focus is on encouraging more and more people to consider stamp collecting, in hopes that committing philately together will improve the condition of my beloved hobby.

** The italicized words all refer to stamp-collecting; if you can’t figure out how, ask a stamp collector!

This is the gist of a talk I just gave at the Syracuse Stamp Club. Vice President Dan invited me to focus on Congo stamps. I already had presented once on this subject, but Dan said he was still confused about the “different Congos” and which stamps went with which. I readily agreed to take on this intriguing topic. I assembled a group of digital images of stamp “signposts,” mostly from my collection, to  help navigate the turbulent currents and tributaries of Congo-related philately. My presentation took the form of a quiz: Look at the stamp projected on the screen and identify or guess which “Congo” it came from. Also: see if you can stump the presenter with your questions. (I don’t know everything about Congo stamps!) Comments afterwards from the audience of 20-plus indicated they liked the program, so it seemed worthwhile to recapture some of it for the blog. On with the show — a quick narrative guide through 42 slides.

1. Here is the first set of stamps issued in what would become the Belgian Congo. They picture King Leopold II of Belgium, and look a lot like Belgian stamps of the period. You can just make out the tiny writing, “Etat Ind du Congo.” That means “independent state of the Congo” — though it was anything but! What it really meant was that King Leopold was “independent” of accountability to his own government or anyone else but God. He ran this vast colony as his private fiefdom. Though he never set foot in the Congo, he micromanaged the place from his palace in Brussels, built a vast and exotic Congo museum complex in his royal gardens. While he mouthed platitudes about Christianity, civic progress, development and moral uplift, he ruthlessly suppressed indigenous populations. He exploited the country’s ivory, rubber and other resources for his own profit. He also issued stamps for his “independent” state. This set of five stamps catalogues at several hundred dollars, largely due to the rare 5 franc value.

2. The Congo may have been a vassal state of a callous ruler — Joseph Conrad  used it as the locus of his haunting novel, “Heart of Darkness” — but King Leopold did manage to put out some pretty stamps. Look at this lovely two-color engraving from the 1890s of the growing town that was to become Leopoldville.

3. By 1906, King Leopold’s Congo was such an embarrassment to the “civilized world,” thanks to the investigations and reports of  reformers like Roger Casement and Edmond  Morel, that the Belgian government had to step in and taking control. The “independent” Congo henceforth became the “Belgian Congo.” By the time the old king died in 1909, the regime in Brussels had issued a set of stamps obliterating the old title with the new name: “Congo Belge.” There are two sets: In one, the stamps are hand-cancelled; the others, as in this illustration, were machine-cancelled, worth considerably less.

4. The powers-that-be quickly followed up with another short set, using the same designs
as the earlier series, but with the new name. This engraving  shows the busy port of Matadi. But there was a festering problem: Since Belgium is a bilingual nation — French and Flemish — the French-only stamps were a political irritant.

5. Belgian stamps were bilingual by the 1890s, so the  Belgian Congo had to  accommodate the proud and vocal — and touchy —  Flemish constituency as well.  Here is the result. It turned out to be relatively easy to keep the central images of the original set and redesign the borders to make room for “Belgisch Congo” as well as  the French name. This  charming two-color engraving depicts the railroad from Leo to Matadi, at the time a considerable  engineering feat. Alas, the mammoth construction project took its toll in lives, most of them Congolese.

6. The “bilingual imperative” now in place for Belgian Congo stamps did have some awkward moments. Take this set from the 1940s — or rather, two sets from the 1940s. The  nicely engraved stamps were identical in every way — except that in one set, the country’s name was printed first in French, then in Flemish; in the other set, the names were reversed.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

7. This awkward practice continued, off and on, into the 1950s. This double set featuring Belgian King Baudouin was issued five years before independence.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

   8. What’s this? A set from 1930s Belgian Congo, overprinted “USA Airmail”? With denominations in U.S. cents? What gives? I wish I had a satisfactory answer for you, but I don’t. Were Americans really a presence in the Belgian Congo? Was this overprint used at the U.S. embassy, or by troops passing through? So far, it remains a mystery to me. Whatever its provenance, the set isn’t expensive to buy.

9. Right about now would be a good time to introduce a map of the Congo, so you can get  geographical idea of the stamp-issuing areas  represented in coming slides.  I lived in the Congo from 1962 to 1964, when I was 14-16 years old. My father was a diplomat, and we lived in Leopoldville, the capital city in    western Congo, not far from the Atlantic Ocean — or the Equator. The areas I will be discussing up to 1,000 miles from Leopoldville, in central and eastern Congo — Katanga in the southeast, Kasai in the center, Stanleyville in the northeast. Then there is Ruanda-Urundi, a separate Belgian territory bordering on the Congo’s eastern frontier.  I also will have things to say about the territory around Leopoldville — both south and north.  This map highlights the divisions of the “crisis years” between 1960 and 1964. This refers to the breakaway republics of Katanga and South Kasai, as well as so-called Simba uprisings around Albertville (northern Katanga) and Stanleyville (center-north), all of which produced postage stamps.

10. This stamp marking the secession of Katanga shows a lot of gall. Not only does it co-opt a stamp from the “mother nation” of the Congo, it blots out that nation’s independence day with its own date, cleverly leaving “1960” uncovered. It also leaves alone the banner  “Independance” (inedependence), but  obliterates “Congo” with the audacious overprint “de L’Etat du Katanga” (of the state of Katanga). The essential illogic of this stamp, however, is that it depicts the whole nation of Congo and doesn’t even identify the rebel province that is declaring its independence.

11. Here’s a semi-postal stamp from Katanga picturing the renegade leader, Moise Tshombe (who I once met, by the way, but that’s another story). It features the copper crosses that are emblems Katanga, literal currency at one time,  and a key source of the region’s economic well-being, such as it was.

12. This Katanga set seemed quite modern for 1961. The indigenous bas-relief sculpture has primitive charm, though the characters do bear some resemblance to “Mr. Bill,” the hapless, creepy clay figure from early “Saturday Night Live.”

13. I include this cover of Katanga stamps, all of them overprinted Belgian Congo stamps, because I am quite proud to display such a rich sample of postally used examples from a country that only existed for a couple of years. I expect it is worth as much as $20 or more — if you can find a buyer for this obscure stuff.

14. These 1950s-era definitive stamps from India are familiar enough. But what’s with the “Congo” overprint? Here’s what: During the troubles in Katanga, the United Nations stepped up with peacekeeping troops to try to straighten things out. There also were troops from  Sweden, Canada and Ireland, but the Indians seem to be the only ones who issued their own stamps — or rather, their own stamps overprinted “U.N. Force (India) Congo.” Was it national pride? Was there a practical purpose, i.e., to provide the troops with stamps to use on letters home? If so, where are the covers with cancelled copies of these stamps? I’ve never seen one. If they exist, such philatelic oddities must be quite rare and valuable. India also overprinted this set for troops serving the United Nations in Korea (1953), Cambodia, Laos and Vietnam (1950s) and Gaza (1965).

15. Here is another overprinted set, this one involving the Belgian Congo flowers set of 1952-3. The set became the first issued by the independent nation, which was overprinted “Congo.” Here the same colonial flowers set was used for the breakaway republic of South Kasai, a renegade central province. This was only a half-hearted rebellion — South Kasai never broke relations completely with the central government, and President Albert Kalonji retained his seat in the Congolese parliament.

16. Here are the rest of the stamps issued by South Kasai, including original designs, i.e., not overprinted Congo stamps. The rebellion petered out in a few months, and Albert Kalonji, (pictured here) the president of the short-lived state,   ended up in exile — but alive.

 

 

17. The transition from colony to independence was haphazard in the Congo — socially, politically, economically — and philatelically. There were missing or misplaced overprints and surcharges, upside-down printings (“inverts”) and other varieties. As a 15-year-old stamp collector In 1964, I was able to buy stamps at the downtown Bureau de Poste to create a cover using six different versions of the original 6.50-frank stamp of the animal series depicting two leaping impala.  

Top row, left to right: 1. the original stamp, issued in 1959;  2. the same stamp, overprinted “CONGO” in red, issued 1960;  3. ditto, overprinted in black.

Lower row, left to right: 1. ditto, with a silver surcharge “5F” and red  overprint, 1964;  2. ditto, with silver surcharge and black overprint; 3. finally, with a silver surcharge as well as a silver bar behind the black inscription “Republique du Congo.”

I created another cover with five different varieties of the 20-centime stamps from the same animal series, featuring a rhinoceros. Can you pick out the differences. The last item, lower right,   is a most peculiar error. Let me explain:

While the original Belgian Congo stamp was successfully surcharged “1F” on a silver rectangle, the “REPUBLIQUE DU CONGO” overprint is missing. This means the stamp looks for all the world like a new “Belgian Congo” stamp — issued in 1964, four years after independence! (This stamp is not listed in my Scott catalogue.)

18. Here is a Congo stamp featuring Patrice Lumumba, the controversial first prime minister of the Democratic Republic of the Congo in 1960. Only the stamp is not from that Congo, but from the “other” Congo — the former French Congo, now the “Popular Republic of the Congo.” Lumumba has never appeared on a stamp from his own country  — not a big surprise, since he was assassinated with the acquiescence or connivance of Congolese leaders Joseph Mobutu, Joseph Kasavubu and Moise Tshombe. It was up to other African nations like the neighboring Congo, ruled by Marxists and self-styled Marxists over the years since its own independence, to memorialize the mercurial Lumumba.

 

19. Here are stamps from early in the former Belgian Congo’s independence years. They honor Dag Hammerskjold, the UN leader killed in a plane crash in September, 1960 while trying to mediate the standoff between Katanga and the mother Congo. The overprint reproduces a slogan from the short-lived administration of Congolese Prime Minister Cyrille Adoula — “paix, travail, austerite” (peace, work, thrift).In 1962, the earnest, honest Adoula seemed to hold out hope for a better future — but his tenure was cut short by events and plots.

20. Congo’s president from 1960 to 1965 was Joseph Kasavubu, a wily politician from an important tribal family. He managed to hang on through the Congo’s most turbulent years, only to be dismissed into  retirement after a young colonel named Joseph Mobutu took over in 1965.

 

 

 

21. After Kasavubu fired Adoula as prime minister in 1964, he called on Moise Tshombe, the exiled former leader of the Katanga breakaway province, to try and bring order to the Congo itself. This was not quite like Jefferson Davis being invited to take over after Abraham Lincoln, but you get the idea. Tshombe lasted about a year, whereupon Mobutu and the army stepped in. He rapidly consolidated his power and proceeded to rule the Congo for the next 30 years with a combination of harshness, violence, cruelty,  indifference toward his people, hypocrisy and narcissism, monumental greed and selfishness. Would you like to know how I really feel about him?

 

 

 

 

22. Mobutu’s most cynical act was his claim of “authenticity” — that he somehow embodied African values and aspirations. He renamed his country “Zaire,” in ancient tribal tradition, gave himself fancy new titles, and began to sport a walking stick and leopard-skin hat.  This Zaire stamp says more than its designers may have intended. It pictures Mobutu contemplating the big diamond — loot! And what kind of guy has himself depicted on a postage stamp wearing sunglasses? Shifty!

23. Here’s an even better likeness of Mobutu — again, probably not intended by the stamp’s designers …

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

24. Now for a U-turn back to 1915, folks! Back to World War I, which was being fought in Africa as well as Eurasia. Germany had maintained  a colony in east Africa since the 1880s. After hostilities broke out in 1914, it didn’t take long for the English to the north and east, and the Belgians in the west, to overwhelm German East Africa’s forces. They divided the spoils: Britain “took” Tanganyika, and the Belgians moved into what is today Rwanda and Burundi (see maps, above and below).  The first stamps from these countries were hand-overprints on the current Belgian Congo pictorial set, like this one. These stamps are quite rare. Mine cost $29.85. It catalogues for much more than that. My scribbled note “authenticated” means the stamp carries the desired mark on the back. (I guess there are counterfeits of this rare set.)

25. Here is the image of a stamp from the first set of “Ruanda,” also in 1916. It’s captured from an Internet screen, and is on sale for “just” $400! That’s a rare stamp!

 

 

 

 

26. The reason the Ruanda and Urundi stamps are so valuable is that so few were issued. They were soon replaced by a set with this busy overprint — in two languages. The inscription in French and Flemish reads  “German East Africa: Belgian Occupation.” The lettering partially obscures the delicate engraved designs. Aesthetically, overprints are ugly, marring the appearance of a stamp. In this case, postal authorities might as well  have printed the names on blank paper!

 

27. How about this one — an overprint on top of an overprint? You should be able to make out a faint hand-stamp “Tabora,” above the black line rising from left to right. The Scott catalogue says these local overprints were not authorized, and assigns them no value. This item from an Internet image was on sale for  a cool $99 — too rich for my wallet.

 

 

 

 

 

28. How about this item? It’s really not fair for the stamp designers to be so cagey. You can make out that it’s a Belgian Congo stamp, or at least was one originally. Then there’s a red cross and a  printed number, presumably designating a  charitable contribution of one franc on top of the stamp’s one-franc value. That’s decipherable. So is this a Congo stamp, or what? And what the heck is “A.O.”?  For answers, you need a philatelist, or historian, or at least someone with a Scott catalogue who knows where to look.  Then you would learn that “A.O.” stands for Afrique Orientale — East Africa. This is in fact another stamp from the Belgian occupation of Ruanda and Burundi — which in 1922 became the Belgian mandated territory of Ruanda-Urundi. One wonders how a stamp like this would be received by the indigenous population. Would they pay the extra franc for the Red Cross? Or as some philatelists suggest, did most  stamps like this one (which aren’t that pricey today) never even reach post offices, but rather go right to collectors?

29. The first stamps of Ruanda-Urundi were overprints of a 1920s definitive set from the neighboring Belgian Congo.  I suppose it would be a stretch to call them stamps from the Congo, though the name is on them.

 

 

 

 

30. Here is a beauty from the first set inscribed with the name Ruanda-Urundi, in the 1940s  — a handsome portrait, and a fine example of the engraver’s and colorist’s art.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

31. This stamp  commemorating the Olympic Games came out just as the Congo was preparing for its independence day June 30. The set shares the designs with last issue from the Belgian Congo.  Ruanda-Urundi remained tied to Belgium for another year before splitting into the Kingdom of Burundi and the Republic of Rwanda. The extra year didn’t prepare either nation any better for independence than the devolving Congo to the east.  The people of all three nations would continue to suffer, trading colonial oppression for corruption, misrule and tribal violence.

 

 

32. The first Burundi stamps carried clumsy  overprints on leftover Belgian Congo stamps from the 1952-3 flower set.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

33. The first Rwanda stamps bore slightly fancier overprints, still using stocks of Belgian Congo stamps, this one from the animal series of 1959.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

34. Both Rwanda and Burundi soon were issuing stamps of their own design. This one includes a portrait of Burundi’s king, who soon enough would be sent packing.

 

 

35. Before I bring you more or less up to date, a quick history lesson about other “Congo” stamps. Here’s one from the 1900s inscribed “Congo Francais” — French Congo. Now look at the next image.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

36. These two stamps are inscribed “Moyen Congo” — Middle Congo — along with the name above, “Republique Francaise.” Why Congo and Middle Congo? Aren’t they both French territory? What’s the difference? Does it matter? Indeed it does. The original French Congo overlaps with modern-day Gabon, a small nation located along the west coast of Africa, north of the Congo. Middle Congo covered a much larger territory across the Congo river from the Belgian territory.

37. Middle Congo eventually took over from French Congo, and the territory issued stamps into the 1930s, when it joined French Equatorial Africa. The first regional issues included this overprint from Middle Congo. Upon reaching independence, a large part of Middle Congo unfortunately was dubbed the republic of the Congo. The fact that there are two Congo republics across the Congo River from each other has created decades of confusion, helping to make this slide show necessary!

38. Finally, one more “Congo” in this tangled philatelic history. The stamp pictured here was issued in 1914, and represents a colonial territory of Portugal that straddles the western “lip” of the then-Belgian Congo that extends to the south Atlantic ocean.   This small “Congo” territory gave the Portuguese access to the Congo river delta. Portugal also controlled Angola, directly to the south of Belgian Congo. (see maps). While the Portuguese only used the name “Congo” until 1915,  it kept control of the territory as part of  Angola until independence in 1975. Today it is the free Angolan province of Cabinda, still straddling the northern border of the Congo. There is an independence movement in this tiny province. There also are stirrings from others in the region who dream of resurrecting the ancient “Kongo” kingdom. This unlikely development would only happen if land is ceded from four countries that mistrust each other — Angola, both Congos and Gabon. A final reflection: I wonder what the indigeneous population thought  when they first saw this stamp back i 1914, which depicts a fierce-looking caucasian (actually the harvest goddess Ceres), wielding what could be a machete …

39. Now, to start wrapping things up. Mobutu finally was forced out of the country in the mid-1990s, decamping to his European mansions, where he died soon after, having  precious little time to enjoy the estimated $15 billion he st0le from his country. In 1997, in an act of embarrassment, or wishful amnesia, or spite, the powers-that-be changed the country’s name back to Republic of the Congo. This did not portend happier times for the much-abused Congolese people, alas. Even though Mobutu was gone, the country was worse than bankrupt, and misrule continued under Laurent Kabila and then his son, Joseph Kabila. This stamp captures the ethos of the post-Mobutu era — “Zaire”: is blotted out with an ugly black rectangle.  The country’s name underneath is an almost-indeciperhable “Rep Dem du Congo.” There is a new value, with the old one covered by another black box. A vulture or hawk perches menacingly amid these dark blots. The eBay seller wanted $29.99 for this odd, apparently unlisted stamp, acknowledging that it might be bogus.

 

40. As it turns out, the Congo had to contend with a number of bogus stamps issued in 1997. These slick, multicolored philatelic items, still carrying the name “Zaire,”  commemorate  folks who had nothing to do with the Congo, like John Lennon, Frank Sinatra and Elvis. The stamps were officially declared illegal by Congolese postal authorities, who alerted the Philatelic Webmasters Organization. This group collaborates with the Universal Postal Union to call out spurious issues. The postmaster in Kinshasa identified  “a certain number of philatelic products still printed with the country’s old name (Zaire).” These stamps would not be admitted for sale or use in the Congo, the note said. You can still find these fake stamps for sale on eBay. Buyer, beware!

41. So we come to the end of this slide show, with an image of an authentic issue of stamps from the  modern-day  Democratic Republic of the Congo. Pretty stamps, eh? Don’t be fooled. There’s nothing  pretty about the way Congo is being run today. I wish I could say otherwise.

42. The Congo today. Note the name changes of provinces, the location of the Angolan province of Cabinda in the far west, and Rwanda and Burundi in the east.

This thrilling selection of stamps arrived in the mail the other day, in a small flat package from South Africa. The stamps are from 1901, during the last days of the South African Republic (ZAR) based in Pietersburg (Transvaal), where tough, stubborn old Paul Kruger concluded  his decades-long conflict with the British and dominance of black Africans. Much blood was shed and misery visited on the people before  Kruger’s forces were defeated. Kruger’s strong convictions, military and political leadership

helped to secure the Afrikaner tradition in South Africa’s culture. This wily Cape Colony farm boy should rank with the most adept of southern Africa’s tribal leaders — except for one thing. Unlike the Zulu, Matabele or  Xhosa, his tribe was a bickering lot of caucasians: Boers, Dutch settlers, Germans, Huguenots and diverse others, some tracing their African ancestry to the 1600s. (Kruger’s German forebear landed in Capetown in 1713.)

Kruger was old enough to take part as a child in the Boers’  Great Trek inland in the 1830s. He was present at the signing of the Sand Hill Convention with Britain in 1852, and was  instrumental in sustaining  the Boer-dominated  ZAR in ensuing decades. These “Pietersburg” stamps — authorized Boer provisionals — were printed by the local newspaper and issued only between March 20 and April 9, 1901.   Kruger had moved his government from Pretoria to Pietersburg to avoid capture by the British. By the time the stamps were placed on sale, the South African Republic was well on its way to defeat by British guns and troops. Kruger narrowly escaped to neighboring Laurenco Marques, Portuguese territory.

The rather undistinguished-looking stamps are listed in the Scott catalogue under Transvaal, the British name for the territory, with a smaller headline announcing,   “South African Republic,” and a special subsection for  “Pietersburg Issues.” Paul Kruger surely would object to this ranking, since his republic, spanning all but six years between 1869 and 1902, was a sovereign nation. The Scott catalogue explains, rather lamely: “Although issued by an independent state, the stamps of the South African Republic are included in this section (i.e. Transvaal) in accord with established philatelic practice.” Sounds like a British tilt, if you ask me. Philatelic protocol, like history, favors the winners.

At first glance, the Pietersburg stamps in the group all look alike. Be not deceived! Join me in a quick tour of this particular philatelic weed-lot — a game of Each-of-these-things-is-slightly-but-distinctly-different-from-the-others. Can you spot the differences?   Here’s a hint: The four stamps in the top row are the same, but different from the two in the second row, which in turn are different from the three in the third row. Now can you spot the differences?

No? OK, look closely at the first-row close-up. Notice the stamp’s elements: the denomination (four pence) in a framed box, above the  large date “1901”; on either side  the inscription: “Z. AFR. REP.” — an awkward contraction  of the country’s name (then again, “ZUID AFRIKAANSCHE REPUBLIEK” is quite a handful of letters to have to strew across any postage stamp); finally, at the top the announcement, “POSTZEGEL” — postage. There is also a handwritten scrawl, but let’s not talk about that just yet.

 

 

 

Now look at the second-row close-up. All the elements are there — but with a subtle change. See it? Look at the number, “1901.” Compare it to the date in the first close-up. Now do you see it? Why, sure! In No. 2, the date is at least one millimeter smaller. It’s a completely different stamp!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

On to Row 3. Again, all elements are present. (Notice the extremely large margin on the blow-up example I have included — a stamp from the side of the plate, I’d guess, probably no extra value.)  What is the difference here? Still stumped? All right … Look closely at the word “POSTZEGEL” at the top of the stamp. Compare it to the same word in close-ups No. 1 and No. 2. Notice anything? Sure! In the top two, the “P” is distinctly larger than the other letters. In No. 3, however, all the letters are the same size. It’s a completely different stamp!

Now, quickly, back to the handwritten scrawls, which appear on each stamp. Compare them, and two things are clear: the scrawl is visibly similar on each stamp; and  each one is slightly different — unique, probably. To “cancel” or “certify” these for postage, it seems a Boer bureaucrat — or was it Kruger himself? — had to sign each stamp issued in what remained of the South African Republic/Pietersburg during this three-week period in the spring of 1901. Maybe the same person didn’t sign every stamp, but it sure looks like it. Perhaps the  inscription means “cancelled” or something else. This is the only set of “hand-cancelled” stamps I’ve seen processed this way. (Yes, there are the rare British Guiana hand-cancels of 1854, and the fabled Bermuda Postmaster stamps of 1848 — but let’s not go there.)

Perhaps because of this singular “cancellation” process, together with relative scarcity, if not rampant demand, these Pietersburg stamps retain considerable value — $30 to $40 apiece in catalogues.  I got a bargain online, paying about $40 for the selection of nine stamps that include all three printing varieties. (The catalogue also lists perforated sets, and a few stamps with red scrawls instead of black.)

The Pietersburg stamps occasionally are available online — for a price. Curiously, you can find copies that have been cancelled the traditional way, with a circular date stamp, selling at a discount. Which begs the question: If the stamps already are marked by a hand scrawl, why cancel them again? Was the scrawl not universally recognized? Is it a signature at all? Am I asking too many questions? Yes!

The Scott Catalogue merits a word at this juncture. It acknowledges that “cancelled” copies of the Pietersburg stamps exist, but warns they may be spurious. The editors opine: “Used  copies are not valued, as all seen show evidence of having been cancelled to order.”  Ah! Those freighted words: cancelled to order, or CTO.  This means postal officials devalued, or “remaindered” their own stamps by cancelling them right in the office. Don’t ask me why, or I’ll have to do more research. But the practice has been widespread in philatelic history. Stamps going back to the Victorian era carry the unmistakable markings of in-house cancellation, an intentional practice which supposedly renders the postal “remainders”  worthless. Those stamps tend to bring weaker prices in today’s philatelic marketplace. Over the decades, many nations (though not ours) have produced reams of CTO sets, which I imagine are sold at a discount in shadowy stamp bazaars. The whole CTO thing makes me queasy, so I don’t really care to look into it too deeply. I mean, I want the stamps, but I don’t want to be scammed by worthless paper.

I have been on the lookout for Pietersburg stamps since rediscovering the blank spaces in my British Africa album and wondering about these strange designs and their apparent rarity. After learning the back story, and hearing about the suspect “cancellations,” I have been holding out for copies without the circular date stamps. Now, with his latest find, I seem to have acquired a cache of the real thing: stamps with the unique scrawls (the catalogue calls it “initializing”), no CTOs, all three varieties represented. What a find!  …

Back to Pietersburg in 1901. The ZAR stopped issuing its stamps after just three weeks. For Paul Kruger and the Boers, the end was near. The war against the British was lost, though diehard Boer guerrilla fighters held out in the veld.  British countermeasures included a scorched-earth policy that produced thousands of destitute women and children — and an early incarnation of concentration camps. The aging “Uncle Paul” made his way by ship to Europe. He refused to return to a southern Africa ruled by the British, and died in Switzerland in 1904, aged 78, survived by many of his 17 children.

As you can tell, I am proud to add these unusual stamps to my collection, and may decide to install the small display shown in the photo at the top of this article as-is among the pages of my growing South Africa collection. The evanescent postal history of the Pietersburg stamps spins off  grim and gripping tales of ZAR conflict and resistance. During the first British takeover in Transvaal in 1877, postal authorities overprinted ZAR stamps with the initials “V.R.” — Victoria Regina — then issued a set with the queen’s portrait. When the Boers took charge again in 1884, they overprinted the Victoria series with Afrikaans surcharges before issuing their own stamps. As the British swept into Boer territory again in 1900-1901, they stamped “V.R.I.” on more ZAR sets — though not on those last ones from Pietersburg. (Maybe because of all those worthless CTO sets?)

Kruger’s last stand followed decades of pushing, shoving and shooting between British and Boers — with black Africans caught in the middle. Both sides issued their own stamps or overprints while in power. The Pietersburg story comes from one corner of southern Africa. The philatelic adventures multiply with the varieties of provisional stamps issued in Lydenburg, Wolmaransstad and Rustenburg, and from the “pseudo-siege” and destruction of Schweitzer-Reneke.

Elsewhere, more Philatelic history was being made. From the Cape of Good Hope to Zululand, competition, conflict and conquest — and the stamps reflecting it all —  roiled southern Africa between the 1870s and World War I.

Take one more moment to moon over this small, nondescript but dear Pietersburg collection; examine and re-examine the subtle differences and wonder what reasons lay behind the changes (Why a smaller date? Why a smaller “P”?); take note of printing variations, differing paper tones and above all, those enigmatic scrawls. I imagine a florid, nervous man in a sweat-soaked linen uniform and pith helmet, perched nervously on his stool inside the Pietersburg post office in 1901, pen in hand, inkwell at the ready, conscientiously initializing each stamp from the doomed republic as British guns sound in the distance …

ADDENDUM

Transvaal, a South African province until it was partitioned in 1994, covered 110,000 square miles and contained the modern capital city, Pretoria. (South Africa still has three capitals — Pretoria for executive government, Cape Town for parliament, Bloemfontein for the judiciary.)  Its first stamps were issued in 1869 by the Boer-led South African Republic (ZAR). In 1877 British forces occupied the state, but the ZAR was restored in 1884, and lasted until the end of the century, when Britain took over for good. That historical overview cloaks an era of violence, bloodshed, intrigue and ruthless politics as conflicting forces tried to prevail in a land where whites held dominion over indigenous black populations. Stamps from the era are emblems of a turbulent time. Some of these stamps are exceedingly rare and command prices in the hundreds, even thousands.

After spending so much time writing about the Pietersburg sets, issued in the last days and hours of the ZAR, I recalled I still lacked a remarkable set of stamps that would make a resonant visual counterpoint to the last Boer issues. In 1877, as the British initially took over, postal authorities began overprinting ZAR stamps with “V.R.” — Victoria Regina. These overprints took different forms, and included for the first time the name, Transvaal. I suspect some collectors have made it their philatelic mission to assemble and study these overprints. (** see footnote, below.)  Another set of stamps, issued between 1878 and 1880, feature an engraved profile of Victoria — an elegant   portrait of a mature queen in the fourth decade decade of her reign. I decided to go after this small set —  though the stamps aren’t cheap, with catalogue  prices ranging from a couple of bucks to $70-plus. Oddly, the 1/2 penny stamp, the lowest value, is one of the costliest. Needless to say, I didn’t end up with that one, or the top-value 2 shilling, either. I did manage to snag the

others, though It took some doing. I ended up buying from three separate dealers, with a total outlay of nearly $60.

As usual, it was a thrill when the letters arrived. Notice the  colorful stamps the dealers used on their packets. (The stamp on the middle cover has a scuff. This is a great use for flawed mint U.S. stamps — they are still good for postage!)

After a while I opened the envelopes. Here is what the contents look like, just as they spilled out. Dealers and experienced collectors know how to protect and ship stamps. It’s not hard. I don’t recall ever receiving a stamp damaged in transit. The only complaint I have is sometimes, a package will include sticky tape in close proximity to a stamp, which to me is a no-no.

Next, I assembled the stamps I ordered, mounting them on cut-down stock pages to admire on my desk before putting them in my album and forgetting about them for a while. In addition to the Victoria set, the envelopes also contained two more Transvaal stamps I ordered — from 1904, with a profile portrait of Edward VII, who by then had succeeded his late mother. For good measure I also acquired three early Mauritius stamps I need. You never can tell what you’ll end up with when you go shopping online …

The main event, however, is the handsome 1878-80 Transvaal Victoria set  — five values in all, missing only the 1/2d and the 2 shilling. I admit they are not all in great shape. Some are missing perforations, the centering is not great, and one stamp has a thin spot on the back. Yet I still was willing to pay for the set. I mean, think about it: The stamps are nearly 140 years old. They started out being bought at a ZAR/Transvaal post office counter, stuck to an envelope and sent through the mail, involving carriages, trains and sailing ships, possible all three. So what if a couple of them are what is called “space fillers” — that is, they will never have much value because of their flaws. I go back to the emblematic significance of these stamps. They are artifacts from  a long-ago time and place of imperial Britain asserting itself over the Boers. For a while, British rule would be fragile and temporary in a state that continued to be bargained for and fought over — as though it actually belonged to either side.

** Footnote:  See, for example: Philatelic Series CD 81, “The South African Provisional War Stamps,” by B.W.H. Poole (1901).  Contents: Orange River Colony – First Printing, Varieties Of The First Printing, Second Printing, Varieties Of The Second Printing, Third Printing, Varieties Of The Third Printing, Second Issue, Varieties Of The Second Issue; Transvaal – Varieties Of The First Issue, Second Issue, Varieties Of The Second Issue; Mafeking Siege Issue, Varieties Of The Mafeking Siege Issue; British Local Issues – Lydenburg, Rustenburg, Vryburg, Wolmaransstad, Kuruman; Boer Local Issues – Pietersburg, Vryburg, In Dienst; Other Emissions – Krugersdorp, Schweizer Reneke, Commando Brief. Profusely illustrated with photographs of actual specimens. 56 pages.

 

While visiting Daniel, an old friend and Milton Academy high school classmate in Brookline, Mass., June 17-18, 2016, the subject of stamps came up. Daniel went to a coat closet and returned with an old copy book, which he explained was his great-great-grandfather’s journal. He opened the front cover and  drew out a glassine envelope containing three early American stamps — a rare multiple of three of the first three-cent issue (circa 1852), featuring a side profile bust of George Washington. I examined them closely, thrilled to realize they had been sitting in that book for more than 150 years. They were still in pristine condition, as fresh as the day Daniel’s ancestor bought them at a post office for nine cents. Well, he probably bought at least four of them (for 12 cents), cut out one of them, licked the gum on the back and pasted the stamp to a letter, then stored the others for a future use that never arrived..

Daniel told me one of his sources had suggested the stamps might be worth as much at $50,000. I was impressed, though a bit skeptical, and promised to look into the matter. The following is from our subsequent correspondence, which delves into one of the thornier issues in U.S. philatelic lore.

June 21, 2016

Daniel, … I have been searching for more background on your precious stamps, which happily you showed me just before we left on Sunday. Wow! They are beauties. My catalog has them listed as No. 10, with all sorts of prices (some in the thousands), depending on varieties. The value increases with the condition. You have one “gem” (four margins, never-hinged original gum, good centering and color), and two very-fine specimens, also never-hinged.  As a multiple of three, the stamps only increase in value. … I shall keep looking for more info, but if you are really curious, have them professionally appraised by a reputable Boston firm. No need to unload them in a hurry, though — stamps like these seem to be holding their value and are a decent investment —  particularly considering the original purchase price of nine cents. Meanwhile, I plan to send you shortly some philatelic materials you might use to protect your stamps properly (don’t be nervous —  they seem just fine as they are, though to me it seems shockingly informal and casual …) …

Here’s an idea — would you or Maria take a picture of the stamps (through the envelope would be fine)? Then email the image to me. I plan to go to the Syracuse Stamp Club meeting Friday night (a bigger collection of originals you could never hope to see), and I expect I would get some interesting responses in showing around the photo. And I would report back to you …

June 23, 2016 (forwarded correspondence from Daniel)

Ben,  I  showed Fred Fiske one of my Milton classmates the three cent stamps circa 1852 discovered in my great, great grandfather’s journal (btw also George Buffington’s** step great great grandfather.)  Fred is intrigued as were you and as you can see from the email below (ed: i.e., a copy of my note, above), Fred  is a member of a secret philatelist society in Syracuse NY.  Not to get off track but grandpa reports in his journal he met the Emperor of the Austrian Hungary Empire in Vienna and declares the Hapsburgs  the ugliest family he has ever seen, looking like monkeys in fine clothes.  …   Daniel    ** (Ed: George Buffington is also a friend and Milton classmate.)

June 24, 2016

Hi Daniel — Here is the image of a stamp from my collection featuring the last emperor of the Austro-Hungarian empire, Franz Joseph, in 1914, at the outset of World War I. I loved your report from your great-great-grandfather’s visit to the emperor, I guess in the mid-1800s. What were your ancestors up to in those days? Does this next-generation guy still look like a monkey? Sort of, I guess …

By the way, I am embarrassed to say I had the date of the stamp club meeting wrong. The third Friday of the month is not today, but last week! So I will have to wait until the first Friday of next month, July 1, to attend the next stamp club meeting. Meanwhile, however, I have found that a catalogue from 2006 lists your stamp. Scott No. 10, mint, at $2,500. More to come …  Best, FMF

p.s. Since we have some time, I would suggest you make another try to photograph your valuable stamps. The shot you sent me was good — clear and sharp — but it cut off the crucial left side of the multiple, which shows that the top left stamp is a gem — four margins, etc.  If I had that to show around next Friday, I would be like the bee’s knees …

Best, FMF

June 26, 2016

Fred,  Another shot trying to feature stamp on left.  …  My great great grandfather who wrote the journal where I found the stamps was Thomas Van Buren. He spent three months traveling through Italy and Austria in 1853, part of the time with his uncle, President Martin Van Buren, and his cousin Martin Jr.  They visited the Pope, the Hapsburg emperor and others. I read elsewhere that Martin used to laugh the Europeans assumed he was of noble birth, whereas the family was just poor farmers.  Anyway, Grandpa went on to be a California state senator, a NYS assemblyman,  a Civil War General and the consul general to Japan from 1872 to 1884.  Your old friend Daniel

July 15, 2016

Daniel, … My apologies for not getting back to you about the stamps. Amid the house-moving and the upset rumpus, I have missed a couple of stamp club meetings. I am determined to go on Saturday to the annual Stamp Club Picnic at a member’s house on Cross Lake, which is in Jordan, a small community northwest of Syracuse. The prospect of Stamp Club members cavorting in bathing suits (including me) is a daunting one, likely to frighten children and small animals. Yet I intend to persist, in order to quiz some of the more knowledgeable members about your fine multiple of U.S. No. 10.      Best, FMF

July 18, 2016

Hi Daniel — Saturday was beautiful, and so was the year-round vacation home of our host, Dick Nuhn of the Syracuse Stamp Club, on the shore of Cross Lake in northwestern Onondaga County (about 20 miles from here). There was a good turnout of stamp club members for the annual outing, with hamburgers, brats and spiedies, and a table of salads, as well as desserts. Bravo! The lake was charming — a smaller version of Lake George, of Champlain, or something. The Seneca River flows through it, so it’s part of the Erie Canal system, capable of transporting barges and other shipping and pleasure vessels from the Hudson clear to the St. Lawrence Seaway and the Canadian Maritimes …

One of my main purposes — in addition to eating, schmoozing and taking a dip in the refreshing lake waters — was to show around my photos of your three-cent of 1853 multiple on my Macbook. I displayed the stamps before Dick, our host, as well as Mike and Ralph, two early U.S. stamp experts; also Al Swift, who knows a thing or two on the subject, and several others. At one point, Dick took Mike and me into his log house, up a spiral staircase and across a catwalk to a balcony nook with a sweeping view of the lake. This is where he has his stamp collection, which sprawls from one side of the house to the other in vast profusion.  Here is some of what they said:

First, Dick looked up Nos. 10 and 11 in a recent Scott catalogue (2006, and prices may have gone up in the last decade). No. 10, described as “orange brown,” catalogued at about $3,200 — this, for a mint (unused) copy which, like the upper left one of your three examples, displays a clear border on all four sides (your other two are cut off just inside one border). Yours, of course, are “never hinged,” which makes them considerably more valuable. Having three together also is worth a premium — a pity you didn’t have the fourth one to make a square block, one of the observers said, which of course would have added even more value.

Now to No. 11, which is identical in every way to No. 10, except for the ink — and the value. No. 11’s color is described as “dull red,” and the catalog value for a good mint copy is about $300 — one-10th the value of No. 10. As an observer noted, there are many shades of each variety, so it can be devilishly hard to discern clear differences between “orange brown” and “dull red.”  When stamps are cancelled with a clear date, it’s sometimes easier to distinguish varieties, since an earlier cancellation would rule out the later variety. But in the case of mint stamps, that’s obviously no help. I read elsewhere that the impression on No. 10 may be sharper than No. 11. The impression on your stamps, Daniel, is very crisp, and I still lean toward  them being No. 10, the more valuable variety. But I could not get any of my consultants to make a definitive identification.

I think we have stumbled on one of the more enduring challenges in U.S. philately: No. 10 or No. 11?  An expertising article I consulted online (“Identifying Scott No. 10 and No. 10A,” at http://www.uspcs.org) notes “(it) probably is the most frequently misidentified 19th century U.S. stamp. The problem of No. 11 and 11a … being advertised as No. 10 or 10a … seems to be chronic … .”

Trying to get to the bottom line with my stamp club buddies was tougher than pulling perforations. First I had to get them to accept, if only in theory, that this was No. 10 (gold) rather than No. 11 (dross). Then there was the matter of three-stamps-not-a-block but still-a-rare-multiple, not to mention mint-never-hinged. Multiply $3,200 by three and you already are up to $9,600 — not bad for a nine-cent investment by your ancestor, Daniel. Add the multiple and never-hinged factors and you get well beyond $10k, toward $20k. “But my friend was advised it might be worth $50k,” I announced. “What do you think?”  Mike took another look and allowed, “Maybe.”  At least he didn’t rule it out. He also didn’t make an offer. Dick said he once was presented with what the seller said was a cancelled No. 10. “I paid 35 bucks for it, but I’m still not sure if it’s really No. 10.” He showed me his copy, and I displayed for comparison purposes a photo from my father’s collection of what he claimed were No. 10 and No. 11. (By the way, these are all cancelled copies, which are much less valuablle than yours, Daniel.)

So there you have it. They wouldn’t say yes, they wouldn’t say no, just a definite maybe. Mike advised getting the darn thing appraised by an expert, like Mr. Sigismundo (sp?), a stamp expertiser from Central New York. I’ll bet there are several in the Boston area you could locate through the U.S. Philatelic Classics Society …     In philatelic solidarity, I remain,  FMF

July 19, 2016  (From Dan to Fred)  Thanks for learned thoughtful piece.  An endless search. More later

http://www.theswedishtiger.com/10-scotts.html  (ED: This link is to a site passed along  gets so far into the weeds over Nos. 10 and 11 as to drive ardent philatelists to drink, to distraction, discouragement or disconsolation. Is there any end to the depths of this hobby?

Sept. 3, 2016

email from FMF to D. Gerrity (copy to G. Buffington).  Subject: two more observations on Nos. 10,11. Forgive the return to a subject that it seemed we might have exhausted some time ago, but here goes:

1) One reason why a multiple of these early U.S. stamps may be more valuable than not, I recently learned, is that in those days, folks mainly took their mail to the post office, unstamped. They bought only the stamps they needed, stuck them to the envelopes and mailed them. That is, they didn’t keep a supply at home. Why bother?

2) It seems the valuable No. 10 stamp went on sale in July, 1851. After May of 1852, nearly all the 3-cent stamps used were the less-valuable No. 11.  What just struck me is the following: As I recall, you removed the envelope containing these stamps from a journal you said belonged to your great-etc. grandfather. So might there be a clue in the journal as to when he bought the stamps? If it was before May of 1852, there is a better-than-ever chance it was the valuable No. 10. Are there lots of journal entries? When exactly did he go abroad? (i.e., he couldn’t have bought U.S. stamps while he was traveling!) Does he mention sending a letter to someone? Or buying the stamps? (perhaps that is not the sort of thing one would note in one’s journal, but still …)

Now to let you get on to more pressing matters …

Philatelically yours,  FMF

p.s. I hope you and yours are well.

Sept. 3 also, from George Buffington —  Dear Fred and Dan:

This sounds like a lot of effort.  Can’t you just look at them and tell the difference? Well, I looked on the web and found the helpful thoughts below.      Love George  (ed: TEXT FOLLOWS)

Don’t look for design differences in the stamp. There aren’t any. The key is the ink color.

Scott #10 is described as orange-brown and Scott #11 is described as dull red. If you haven’t seen these stamps before, they are not too difficult to distinguish.

Scott #10 is very orange appearance in color. Copies of Scott #10 tend to be very bright too. Scott #11 is more red in appearance. If you have copy of Scott #224, then Scott #11 is more like the color of ink used for Scott #224. It’s not a perfect match, but #11 is darker in appearance.

Also, the impressions of Scott #10 are sharper in detail. Scott #10 came from earlier versions of the printing plates before there was much plate wear. Scott #11 came from later printings and the printing plates show some wear. Scott #11 isn’t as crisp appearing.

Using a magnifier, watch for recutting too. Scott #10A and #11A have the inner frame lines recut. Scott #10 and #11 are not recut.

About 5% of the stamp population is Scott #10 or #10A and 95% is Scott #11 or #11A. Watch your copies of Scott #11. You may just run into the more valuable Scott #10.

Scott #10 and #11 have been extensively plated too. The bible is “The 3 cent Stamp of the United States 1851-1857 Issue” by Dr. Carroll Chase. Subsequent work has updated some of Dr. Chase’s information, but his book is still largely complete.

Margins on these stamps are very small. If you see a pair of these stamps, you’ll understand why. There was almost no space between the stamps. Cutting them apart with scissors was not exact. Wide margins on these issues are difficult to find.

Sept. 4

email  from FMF to George Buffington:

George, you are as usual an inspiration to me.

First, with your common-sensible response on the Nos. 10, 11 controversy: just look at them and tell the difference.

It reminds me of my old late Mother, as well as Pa, who were happily liberal on political matters, but kind of skeptical when it came to the esoterica of mental health therapy. “Why,” my mother would say, “if you don’t know who you are, get out your Social Security card, hold it up in front of your face and look in the mirror.”

Well, yes. The thing is, philately is different from psychotherapy, for starters. Here are several further considerations, based also on the helpful expertise you supplied in your attachment:

1) The color controversy has long since baffled me. There are so many hues between orange brown and dull red that I have retreated from that line of inquiry, for now at least  …

2) I am equally befuddled by references to “plating” — as if the average collector could figure out which PLATE a particular stamp came from.

3) As for “recutting” — what the heck?

4) It turns out even expert stamp collectors are hard to pin down on this one. (I refer to my Bonus posting on Nos., 10 and 11, in which I was unable to get a single member of the Syracuse Stamp Club I interviewed to declare Daniel’s triple No. 10 or No. 11.)

5) The other thing is, it’s lots of fun to delve into all of this. Otherwise, how would I have known about Daniel’s fabled relative (and yours?) and his traveling/stamp-buying habits in the winter of 1852? With the evidence to date, I stick to my booster assessment that his is a rare multiple of No. 10, worth thousands!

Love, FMF

Sept. 4,

follow-up email to George, copy to Daniel. By the way, I checked No. 224, which your attached expertise statement suggests as a useful color guide to distinguish No. 11 from No. 10. It so happens there is a copy in my Pa’s collection, which I am holding. Comparing colors strengthens my conviction that Daniel’s is No. 10. …          Love, FMF

It’s always exciting for a collector when the next envelope comes in containing stamps purchased for the collection, whether from an auction, a stamp dealer or even the U.S. postal service. When the mail is from a foreign land (and in the era of eBay auctions and global internet sales, this is common), it’s particularly fun to find an envelope in the mail festooned with exotic philately. Stamp dealers tend to use interesting postage on their shipping envelopes. (They are using up some of their extra stock.) Some  stamps used for postage turn out to be worth  collecting — which helps to ease the pain of the “shipping and handling” charge added to the internet order price.

So it was an added thrill the other day to receive a packet with an array of interesting stamps on the cover — including the $2.90 priority mail stamp from the 1990s that has a catalog value of more than $6, cancelled. (The reason for the extra postage was that the seller,  embarrassed because he got my address wrong, re-sent the envelope via express mail; not necessary, but appreciated!)

Inside the envelope were three gorgeous engraved stamps I had ordered from a dealer through his online site. The bill for all three stamps was $50, plus postage and handling, but since there was a 15 percent discount for orders of $50 or more, I felt quite set up. The 3d. blue from St. Helena, picturing the badge of the colony, completes my long set of the George VI definitives from the 1930s (see illustration).

 

 

 

 

 

 

The one-pound stamp from Cyprus completes my George VI set from that country, same era. For a description of the pleasure that awaits in adding these two stamps to complete the sets on the pages of my British Africa and British America albums, please refer to a post in January 2017 on the joys of “filling spaces.”

 

The third stamp from the envelope, the handsome five shilling engraving of the entrance to Government House in Gibraltar, is an incremental addition to my Elizabeth II set from 1953. — I’m still missing the 10 shilling and L1 stamps from the set, which are quite dear.  Back in 1961, as a foresighted 13-year-old, I gathered my meager resources and sent a money order to Gibraltar, hoping to purchase most of that early set, which today is selling for $100 or more. As it happened, my letter arrived just months

after a new and rather garish set of definitives was released, replacing the stamps I had hoped to buy, so I got those instead. The garish set hasn’t done too badly, increasing nicely in catalog value. Still, I miss having a mint, never-hinged, post office-fresh 1953 set.

One other comment about the 1953 Gibraltar set — and the aforementioned Cyprus set from the 1930s as well. Unlike the all-mint set from St. Helena pictured up top, these two other sets contain both mint and postally used stamps. This may seem unremarkable, until you learn that such sets have considerably less market value, and perhaps less collector appeal. Catalogues list prices for sets that are all-mint, or all-used. Mixed mint and used sets are a philatelic mongrel to the traditional collector: neither phish nor phowl.

You may ask: If mixed sets are worth less than all-mint sets, and maybe even some all-used sets, why collect such mishmashes? Why not hold out for the more marketable commodity? Besides, don’t all-mint sets look prettier than sets with some stamps mint, others cancelled?

Good questions, to be sure. The prettiness argument is tough to counter, because it’s true. Mint and used stamps mounted together can look like a jumble — particularly in my albums, where I use black plastic strips to guard my mint stamps and plain stamp hinges to mount my used stamps. Indeed, you may not be convinced by my response in defense of mixed sets that follows.  Please believe, however, that it is heart-felt. You see, I have decided to strive for philatelic completeness over philatelic correctness. I abhor those empty spaces in my album pages, and get pleasure from having entire sets assembled —  mint, cancelled, even mixed. If I had a choice, I would go for the all-mint set, of which I have many. I also believe that a mixed set — with good mint stamps mingled among the used varieties — generally will be  worth  more than an all-used set. If I am looking for an elusive stamp to complete my mint set, I might go for a cancelled version. The mint one might be hard to find, or overpriced. Or I’m just too cheap to shell out the bucks. Or impatient. I dunno.

I have accumulated a considerable number of complete sets with mint and used stamps together. For early sets — George V and before — such mixed sets are not as big a deal.  Older  stamps are harder to find, and complete sets are rather rare. But I love all my mixed sets, old and newer. My basic motive in accumulating these mixed sets is that I am not willing to wait around for the exact stamp I need to pop up at the right price. Life is too short. Complete sets are more interesting than incomplete sets, even if the stamps are mixed. (They all must be in good condition, however!) If the coveted mint stamp appears and is affordable, of course I will pounce on it. If I can only find (or  afford) a cancelled copy that fills out my otherwise mostly mint set, I’ll be tempted.

Part of me says: Fred, why are you doing this? Where are your standards? Don’t you realize you are settling for a mixed set, whose value is tainted? Then I also figure: Who knows? Maybe mixed sets won’t always be the pariah of the philatelic world.

There, I said it. I’ll stick to my story that collecting mixed sets is OK. One, you get the pleasure of completeness, now. Two, it’s still a solid investment, and could turn out even better. The future of stamp collecting is so dicey that in a few years the difference between mint and cancelled may grow less significant than the stamps themselves. Then it will be complete sets that collectors of the future will want … that is, if the whole hobby doesn’t turn to dust with the last generation of true stamp collectors …

Just one more point to discuss here. There must be thousands of stamps in my British Africa collection alone, plus thousands more from British America, British Europe, the Congo, my American and European collections, and so on. I have accumulated enough stamps over the decades to fill three shelves of a small bookcase to overflowing with my albums, stockbooks, binders and catalogues.  How much is my collection worth? Certainly not its weight in gold. I imagine if instead of my giant, “magpie” collection (from here and there, including this and that), I had focused on buying several choice items, I probably would have been making a better investment. Stamps that already are rare are getting rarer, and their prices are strong and getting stronger. (Even though stamp collecting as a hobby is dying, etc., etc. Go figure.) I did not choose to be that kind of collector — probably because I started young, when it was easiest and most rewarding to accumulate large quantities of cheap stamps. The stamps I acquire now usually are not as cheap. They allow me to fill out sets, some of which I started collecting in my youth. There’s satisfaction in that. Years go by, and the albums grow richer with complete sets — and continue to grow more valuable. It is ever-more-entertaining to leaf through pages of philatelic history, bedecked with more and more orderly rows of these colorful, artistic, revealing postal artifacts …

 The inscription on a Canadian stamp that includes a map of the world
reads: “We hold a vaster empire than has been.” On the stamp, territory within the British Empire, circa 1898, is colored red. The empire’s reach is impressive, with great swaths covering North America (Canada), India. Australia and a good share of the African continent; plus generous red daubs in the Caribbean, east Asia and across the Pacific.

To complete the engraving, the artist added one more inscription: “Xmas 1898.”  Some collectors consider this the first Christmas stamp, a tradition that has carried on fitfully over the decades, beginning in earnest with yearly issues only in recent years. If you insist that the 1898 issue was indeed the first Christmas stamp, then please answer this question: Why did it take decades for the next one to arrive?

Here’s a story that offers a colorful explanation for the Christmas reference. In philatelic lore, Canadian Postmaster General William Mulock was making the case that the 1898 stamp should be issued Nov. 9, to “honor the prince” — that is, on the birthday of the Prince of Wales, also known as the king in waiting. Hearing the suggestion, the Dowager Queen was said to have asked peevishly: “What prince?” (As it turned out, Edward VII would ascend to the throne upon the death of his dear mater Victoria in early 1901. Was she just cross with Mulock that day, or did she not wish to be reminded of who was biding his time in the wings?) Mulock, sensing his faux pas, quickly came up with an inspired rejoinder: “Why, madam, the Prince of Peace.” This met with Victoria’s approval, and so the first Christmas stamp, such as it was, was born.

There were two other purposes for the stamp. One was to mark the inauguration of the Imperial Penny Postage rate (which apparently was equivalent to 2 cents in Canada, the value on this stamp). The other was to commemorate the remarkable sexagenary (60th year) of Queen Victoria’s rule.

Ten years earlier, the Welsh poet Sir William Morris composed an ode, “A Song of Empire,” to mark Victoria’s 50th Jubilee in 1887. The line quoted on the 1898 stamp came from these verses:

We hold a vaster empire than has been!

Nigh half the race is subject to our Queen!

Nigh half the wide, wise earth is ours in fee!

 

The statistical apex of territorial claims in the British Empire actually would not come until 1921. At that time, the empire had influence over 33.7 million square kilometers. Half of the globe’s dry land was “theirs in fee.” The empire’s population of more than 458 million souls constituted one-fifth of the Earth’s people.

The map depicted on that Canadian stamp from 1898 is still impressive. As an aside, notice how Canada happens to be centrally located under the crown. Did Queen Victoria not notice that Postmaster Mulock was making a not-so-subtle political point with his stamp? The inscription begins, “We hold a vaster empire …” That could mean the royal “we,” of course. Or it could suggest a broader imperial covenant that shares responsibility for the empire’s dominion with some of its most loyal subjects — like Canadians,  who happen to bestride a transcontinental nation at the center of the world, “wearing” a crown, no less (at least according to this stamp) …

Depending on how you feel about empires in general, the British Empire in particular, you may be as horrified as you are impressed by its vast reach. Look at that little island off the northwest coast of France. England? Posh! That puny principality had the audacity to go out and impose itself on half the world, then claim some sort of ownership, or stewardship, rights and fees and privileges amounting to domination of one sort or another. What presumption! What bloody gall! The white man’s burden? The master race? What dangerous malarky!

Why this quest for global domination? The proclaimed mandate was to spread civilization, freedom, rule of law, Christianity and commerce. The reality was oh, so different. You can argue that the British Empire was the “best” empire (compared with, say, the Belgians, the Portuguese, the Spanish …) If so, it was only the least oppressive of the lot — and that’s just by a slim margin. Don’t get me started on the racism, intolerance, repression, cruelty, rights deprivation, genocidal policies and other flaws of imperialism. I may never stop …

Instead, please entertain another thought about the British Empire, as depicted on that stamp from Xmas 1898. A thought that encompasses the sheer stubborn force of the imperial hand — the hand with which Belgian King Leopold’s men hacked out a path through the Congolese jungle for the first train from Matadi to Leopoldville. The force that sent navigators, swashbucklers, adventurers, soldiers, entrepreneurs, scientists and soon enough, administrators and bureaucrats to every corner of the world.  By 1898, the familiar saying that “the sun never sets on the British Empire” was literally true: When the governor general in Ottawa was sound asleep, the viceroy in Delhi was enjoying high tea — and vice-versa.

Imagine a civil service based in Whitehall, the London hub of the Foreign Office, where immaculately groomed mandarins supervised the affairs of empire on six continents (Antarctica came later). Was it possible to set standards for the orderly conduct of public business that could be upheld effectively in places as diverse as Nigeria, North Borneo and the Bahamas? To the extent that it was possible, might it not be considered a remarkable achievement?

As a stamp collector, I have long wrestled with the idea of the British Empire imposing civic order on the world. Not just oppressive domination, but also a sensible way of doing things — predictable, engaging, connected, occasionally even elegant in its protocols. Naturally, I am also talking about philatelic order. That is, the way stability and uniform standards in philately embody the unifying principles of empire.

And so, dear reader, I offer the set of illustrations that follows,  rendering that “vast empire” as a series of unified stamp designs replicated across continents and seas. Pictured here is an example of the stamps that were in circulation in 1897 or thereabouts, issued for use in far-flung precincts of  the British Empire, all bearing a likeness of Queen Victoria. As you observe the similarities and subtle differences in the portraits and borders, explored in the next commentary, you can get a sense of how these stamps helped to draw together the British Empire; how they created an identity, a self-image, sustaining a unity of purpose, a commitment to stability and civic  order, even pride in being part of this global enterprise. As you contemplate this mosaic of empire reflecting the image of an aging queen, consider these lines from Sir William Morris’s ode:

… And where her rule comes all are free

And therefore ’tis, O Queen, that we

Knit fast in bonds of temperate liberty

Rejoice to-day, and make our solemn Jubilee.

Yeah, yeah. I know the British Empire never lived up to these bonnie words by the Welsh poet. The claim that “all are free” under Victoria’s rule falls well short of the truth, along with Livingstone’s claim to be a guileless Christian missionary, Stanley’s pose as a crusading journalist, or Leopold the  philanthropist.

Yet if there is a sliver of inspiration to be found in the moral purpose that once helped to fuel the colonial juggernaut; if you can imagine the thrill of exploring, bringing order, building new civic spaces … then that may be enough to draw you on to these iconic images of imperial Britain at its vastest.

A note on the Photo Gallery: Victoria’s Empire 

What I have tried to do in the following series of illustrations is to present a fine-grain glimpse of the British Empire by grouping similar designs in portraits of Queen Victoria on stamps printed for use in the Home Country, and those available in the farthest colonial outposts during her long reign. What I already am discovering is that although there are significant similarities between stamps from the same era and with the same general characteristics, there are also subtle differences, It turns out there is not exactly a one-size-fits-all approach by the designers — at least, not during the Victorian era. In the 20th

century, the British  began issuing “omnibus” series — identical designs across dozens of territories to celebrate, for example, King George’s silver jubilee in 1935, the coronation of George VI in 1937, the Peace Issue of 1946, and the Universal Postal Union set of 1949. Omnibus commemorative issues continued into the modern Commonwealth years.

Now I invite you on a leisurely tour of stamp designs during the Victorian era. Let’s start at the very end — the final years. The sexagenary, diamond jubilee, 60th year of her rule (1897), was celebrated in song and circumstance. Special sets of stamps were issued in a few colonies (British Guiana, Canada, Newfoundland). Another set was issued by more than a dozen colonies, similar in size and number to the regular definitive series of earlier decades, only this time with an image more uniform than ever before,

across colonies and continents. The typographed design — a compact miniature profile bust of the queen in a border, placed atop a tablet containing the value — was adopted with slight variations around the world. It’s the first omnibus set, in effect.

This extraordinary postal event illustrates how philately helped to unite the British imperium. Imagine these stamps, so similar in appearance, being purchased in a post office in Ceylon, British Honduras, Gambia or elsewhere, affixed to an envelope, stamped with a local postmark, and sent on its way to another part of the world — like a gossamer thread, stitching together a durable and colorful fabric of empire.