Posts Tagged ‘postal history’

Rwanda had become a republic while still under trusteeship, and stayed thus until independence on 1 July 1962.

The majority Hutu population rebelled against the feudal Tutsi rule in 1959-62, leading to the massacre of thousands of Tutsis. Large numbers fled to Uganda. The first President of the republic was deposed in 1973 and was replaced by a military government under general Habyasima, who established a one-party state.

Armed Tutsi exiles repeatedly attempted to invade Rwanda in the 1960s and 70s but were always defeated by the Hutu army. Continued Hutu-Tutsi conflict left thousands dead over a period of 30 years.

In October 1990, Rwanda was invaded by the Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF) of exiled Tutsis and some moderate Hutus, who were against the one party system. The invaders forced the one-party Government to introduce a multi-party Constitution in 1991. When the Government refused to honour the 1992 Peace Agreement, the RPF advanced on Kigali and forced the Government to begin negotiations again. This resulted in a peace accord in August 1993, known as the Arusha accord. This accord provided for a transitional period under a broad-based government including the RPF until the 1995 elections and a presence of United Nations forces in the country during this period.

President Habyarima who had retained the presidency during this period, died on 6 April 1994 in a plane crash, probably caused by a rocket attack by extremists of the Hutu army. This army and militia then carried out a pre-planned act of genocide against the Tutsi minority and moderate Hutus. 500,000 preople were massacred in three months. The civil war began again and the RPF gradually re-established control over the country and forced the defeated government troops and 2 million Hutu refugees out of the country. Finally, on 18 July 1994, the RPF declared victory and established a government of National Unity.

Between 50,000 and 60,000 Hutu refugees died of disease in refugee camps in eastern Zaire (now the Democratic Republic of Congo) in the summer of 1994. French troops with drew from their ‘safe zone’ in the south-west of the country in September 1994 and were replaced by RPF forces that gradually returned most of the refugees in the zone to their homes. UN forces (UNAMIR II), which included British troops, were also deployed to deter revenge attacks by either side.
After November 1994, there was a gradual return of the refugees to Rwanda. It is estimated that 200,000 returnd from Uganda, but by December 1995, 500,000 refugees remained in Tanzania and over a million in Zaire. UN forces left the country in March 1996 and the killings by both sides continued and Hutu attacks in central and western Rwanda were frequent in the first half of 1998.

Rwanda has supported a rebellion in the Democratic Republic of Congo (qv) led by the Congolese Democratic Rally, a Congolese Tutsi Group. Rwandese troops have also been deployed in the Congo.

Local elections took place on 29-31 March 1999, the first for nine years and the transitional National Assembly was extended for four further years in June 1999.

French influence brought by explorer Faidherbe from the River Senegal to the Upper Niger was extended by conquest to the area of Tombouctou (1883) and stretched (without boundaries) as far as that influence could be maintained. The region was given the name Soudan Francais in 1891 with its capital at Kayes.
It was shrunk in 1899 by transferring 11 of the southern provinces to French Guinea, Ivory Coast and Dahomey (though two provinces were returned in 1900). The remainder was broken up into three military districts based on Tombouctou, Bobo Dioulasso and Zinder (Niger). The other territories became Upper Senegal and Middle Niger.

In 1902 the non-military zone became Senegambia and Niger and in 1904 Upper Senegal and Niger. The capital was moved to Bamako.

In 1911 Niger became the only military district and began to separate from the main colony. It became an independent colony in 1922.

Prior to that, in 1919, the colony of Upper Volta had been created by detaching six of the southern provinces from Upper Senegal and Niger and, in 1920, the remainder returned to the original name of French Sudan. When Upper Volta was abolished in 1933, parts of the original provinces reverted to French Sudan. On 4 April 1954, French Sudan joined Senegal to make the Mali Federation.

Upper Senegal and Middle Niger did not issue stamps. Stamps of French Sudan were used until 1903 when they were replaced by the stamps of Senegambia and Niger (q.v.).

In 1920 stamps of Upper Senegal and Niger (q .v.) were overprinted for use in French Sudan when it was reconstituted.

Used stamps of French West Africa 1944-59. Then became part of the Mali Federation.

Mauritania and Morocco occupied the Western Sahara Territory in February 1976 when Spain Formally relinquished control. After a three year war against POLISARIO, Mauritania gave up her claim to the southern sector of the former Spanish Territory.

There was a military coup in 1978 and Mauritania was ruled by a Military Committeeof National Salvation. In April 1991, President ould Tagu announced a politicalamnesty, followed by multi-party elections. The constitution was approved in July 1991. Since that date the country has remained stable.

When a new country is formed, which seems to be very often these days, some provision must be made to handle the mail while stamps are being designed and printed.

Usually the stamps already in use in that country are overprinted with some identification to mark them as being used in the new country. Such is the case with Bangladesh. Bangladesh was formerly East Pakistan, and when they gained their independence and renamed their country, they used the stamps of East Pakistan with an overprint declaring the name of the new country.

These are provisional stamps, and usually provisionals are very costly, since they are used only in an emergency period, being replaced by stamps definitive to the country at the earliest opportunity.

First Day Cavers (FDC as short form) are method of collecting stamps on envelopes that have been mailed with a cancellation showing clearly that the envelope was mailed on the day the stamp was first issued from the place of issue commemorating that stamp.

Each stamp printed for postal service is first placed on sale in the post office of whatever city is pertinent to the issue. If it commemorates a famous person, as an example, the first day of issue would more than likely be the city in which that person was born. If the stamp is in commemoration of some historical or national event or landmark, the first day issue location would be the city nearest the place where the event occurred or the landmark was located.

While the new issue of stamps is sent to post offices all over the country, the postmasters are instructed to withhold the sale of them until the day after the day of issue. This means that if the first day sale is on the first of the month, local post offices in other than the first day city cannot sell the stamps until the second of that month.

First day covers have become a big thing in stamp collecting, and several companies are now engaged in printing very elaborate envelopes for sale as first day covers.

Something of a legend among rare stamps, the so-called “Woodblock” provisional stamps of 1861 were engraved in London and were printed from stereotyped plates that were mounted on a wooden block, hence the nickname.

The stamps were created by a Cape of Good Hope surveyor and were supposedly designed in a triangular shape. The design of a female figure sitting on top of an anchor, which is resting on top of a rock, symbolizing the Cape.

The Woodblock Stamps were printed in 1861 and comes in both 1 penny and 4 penny forms. The 1 penny Woodblock Stamp comes in the color Vermillion while the 4 penny Woodblock Stamp comes in the color Blue. However, as is common during this error, the 1 penny stamp sometimes is accidentally printed with the color blue: and the 4 penny stamp is accidentally printed with the color vermillion.

Just over 24,000 of the One Penny and 20,000 of the Four pence “Woodblocks” were printed. At most, there could be but 220 errors in each case. A rarer shade of the One Penny error exists in pale blue and is valued at around £40,000 in sound used condition.

Printed in 1849, the 1 Kreuzer Black issue was one of the first stamps issued in the German State of Bavaria. Originally printed in panes of forty-five stamps, the tete-beche varieties were created when a few cliches were mistakingly inserted into the printing plate upside-down. It is unknown how many of the stamps were printed in with the inverted plates, but only three tete-beches are known to exist today. Each of the three tete-beche pairs have a different position and no tete-beche varieties are found in any of the complete panes still in existence. A block of twelve stamps featuring a tete-beche variety was originally found in the Ferrari collection. In 1923, at a Paris auction, the block was sold to New York native Alfred F. Lichtenstein, a rarities collector referred to by many as “the philatelist’s philatelist.” Upon his death, his daughter, Louise Boyd Dale, inherited the error block where it was kept by the Anne Boyd Lichtenstein Foundation until 1990. The 1849 Bavaria 1 Kreuzer tete-beche pair has a value in today’s market of $125,000.

If you’re a stamp collector, then there may be stamps of different values in your collection. There are probably rare and valuable stamps that you’d like to own. But if you’re new to the world of stamp collecting, you may not be aware of the rarest and most valuable stamps. There are lots of them; however here is a list of some of the best:

Error Stamps: An error stamp is a stamp that has some kind of mistake. This could mean that it is unhinged or a detail on the stamp is incorrect. Stamps that aren’t usually valuable can become very much so if they contain errors.

The Benjamin Franklin 1908 Stamp: This rare one cent stamp, when found unused and hinged in perfect condition, can be worth $100,000!

1868 Canadian Stamp: This two-cent ultra rare stamp features a picture of Queen Victoria. There are only two of these stamps that are known to be in existence today!

Hawaiian Missionary Stamps: These stamps are the state of Hawaii’s very first stamps and are known as Missionary Issue. There were four stamps originally issued, with three values: two cents, five cents, and thirteen cents. It is almost impossible to find these stamps in undamaged condition.

1911 25c Vin Fiz Airpost Stamp: There are only 12 of these stamps recorded to be in existence. The only example shown to go to a foreign destination fetched $88,000!

British Guiana One Cent Magenta Stamp: This amazing rarity is probably the most valuable stamp in the world. It was first discovered in 1873, and auctioned to millionaire John Dupont for over $900,000. There is only one other known copy of this stamp in the world, which is currently undergoing tests for authenticity.

Swedish Three Skilling Banco: These stamps were normally made in green, but in 1885 a yellow stamp was found that was deemed to be a printing error. In 1996, this stamp sold for over two million dollars!

You may never get your hands on one of these rare stamps, but there are many others that are accessible to most every stamp collector. By reading stamp catalogs and magazines, you can learn more about them. Do some research and find out which rarities you’d like to pursue. You never know what you may find!

The Cards issued by the government with stamps already printed on them are really not post cards, but postal cards. The distinction being that post cards are without stamps, and are usually scenic cards printed to advertise some place or event and sold as tourist items. While collecting post cards is a big hobby, too, wee are concerned Postal Cards are sold at post offices.

Postal Cards are made in two ways, as a regular card, having a stamp printed in the upper right hand corner, and with or without the admonition that the stamped side of the card is for the address only and as a message reply-card. In the latter case the card is double, folded on a roulette line so the two parts can be easily separated Each card has a stamp printed on it, and one card is for your message; the other card is for the recipient’s reply to you, the postage already having been paid by you when you purchased the reply card. Such message reply-cards should be preserved intact. They have more value than if the two parts are separated.

Postal Cards are now made in both regular mail and air mail types. Usually, but not always, the air mail types have red and blue border of diagonal bars to attract attention to the fact that it is being sent via air.

The first issue of Brazil – the Bullseye, so nicknamed from the design’s resemblance – comes fourth chronologically in order of issue of adhesive postage stamps. First, in 1840, came the Penny Black and two-pence Blue of Great Britain; in 1842 came the New York Dispatch; and, in March 1843, came the Fours and Sixes of Zurich. The Bullseyes first appeared on August 1, 1843.

In conception, however, the Bullseyes are entitled to rank second only to the British issue. It was on November 30, 1841 that the Brazilian Government was authorized by Law No. 43 to create stamps. That law came about through the efforts of J.D. Sturtz, a German who had been a Brazilian consul to Prussia. Enlisting the aid of a British charge d’affaires in Brazil, he urged the adoption of prepayment by means of stamps, following the innovation in Britain.

Eventually emerging from carefully preserved, if musty, official records were the prime fact that, in 1841, the Brazilian customs authorities seized an engraving machine from one Pedro Ludwig, confiscated it and used it in the service of the mint. On Christmas Eve 1842 a transferring machine and accessories were bought by the Mint from one Eduardo Lemerick.

Production of the plates involved engraving a flat die with figures and background – a different die for each value; 30, 60, and 90 reis. The printing of the Bullseyes ceased at the end of 1843. Continued sale of the stock on hand was authorized on August 22, 1844, but use after 1850 is scarcely known. The numbers of Bullseyes calculated to have been issued are 30 reis – 856,617; 60 reis – 1,335,865; 90 reis – 341,125. Those figures do not include the remainders on hand which were burnt at the Mint on March 30, 1846.

Of the finds of Bullseyes the most important has been a vertical strip of three; the upper two stamps are the 30 reis value and the lowest is 60 reis, with a dividing line which separated the different values on the plate. Formerly in the collection of Charles Lathrop Pack, the strip is known as the ‘Pack Strip’. In March 1963 at auction by Stanley Gibbons the pack strip realized £8,250. Auctioned again by Stanley Gibbons in February 1969, the Pack Strip realized £11,500. It was sold in the Robert Siegel auction at Ameripex ’86′ on May 25th for $275,000. Another, but defective multiple of different values se tenant is known.

A complete pane of eighteen of the 90 reis was found in Brazil about 1898. Among other finds, the most noteworthy is a unique complete sheet of sixty of the 60 reis from the plate which was ready on July 11, 1843. At Stanley Gibbons’ auction in Frankfurt on 18 May 1978, the sheet realized $82,381. A 30 reis interpane block of four realized $168,000 at the Habsburg-Feldman auction in Zurich November 18, 1989 of the Amazon Collection which had been assembled over half a century. Colonel Napier had theorized correctly about the existence of the third plate which was proven by the later discovery of this block. The collection had earned the Grand Prix of the Court of Honour at London 1980.

The extraordinary thing about the first Brazilian stamps, issued on August 1, 1843, was that, some how, the authorities acquired Perkins, Bacon-style equipment – including a transfer roller – and engraved dies from which they prepared plates of 54 stamps, each plate comprising panes of 18 of each value -30, 60, and 90 reis. The designs featured large, ornamental figures of value within oval settings; hence their nickname, ‘bullseyes’, and the arrangement of the stamps in the sheet permitted se-tenant pairs, that is, stamps of two different denominations joined together in a pair. A classic example was the ‘Pack Strip’ – it was owned by an American collector, Charles Lathrop Pack – which was a vertical strip of three containing a pair of the 30 reis se-tenant with the 60 reis, the most famous item in Brazilian stamps. The stamps bore no country name or other inscription.

These stamps were followed in 1844 by smaller, rectangular designs with italic or inclined numerals of value, the Inclinados or ‘snake’s eyes’, and in 1850 by smaller versions of the original ‘bullseyes’ which became known as the ‘goat’s eyes’ or if blue instead of the customary black color, ‘cat’s eyes’. Small high-value stamps appeared in 1861 – it was not until 1866 that Brazil honored Emperor Dom Pedro II with his portrait on stamps. There are two interesting theories as to why that honor was delayed. One was that, in 1843, there was no one in the Rio Treasury who was sufficiently skilled to engrave such a portrait in the time available; the other was that there was objection to the prospect of the Emperor’s likeness being obliterated by postmarks!

On the 15 fennigi stamp of the Republic of Poland in its last issue of 1919 appears the face of Paderewski, whose unusual career at once attracts attention and admiration of all.  It is probably the only instance in history where a noted musician has been honored with his picture on a postage stamp, although of course it was not his fame in that line which prompted his country to so honor him.

Paderewski was born in Podolia, Russian Poland, on November 6th 1860. He was nominated Professor of Music in the Warsaw Conservatory at the early age of eighteen.  He also held a Professorship at the conservatory at Strasburg but his favorite line of musical endeavor was that of a pianist.  As a pianist he made his debut in 1887, and his fame spread rapidly until the whole world soon paid him its homage as one of the greatest pianists who ever lived.

Probably every musical centre of the knows him as a musician, but during the troublous days of the World War he turned his talents to other laudable things, that of helping his distressed country to throw off the yoke of servitude imposed by Germany, Austria and Russia.  He toured the American Continent for funds to help the distressed people of his native land and to further their cause for liberty.  When the German army was heing cleared of Poland he returned there and it was probably more to his wisdom and skill in statecraft that the Republic was so successfully organized.  He served as its first Premier and held the ship of state at the most crucial period of its history and acquitted himself with a capability which shows him to be equally skilled in statesmanship as in the manipulation of the keys of a piano.