Greece [ 10th post ] Egypt [ 7th Post ]

New Entries

From time to time , a post appear where there is no need for conversation about technical details, Artists or other catalog pleasantries...today's post is one of those, with small talk and many stamps...

Excellent engraving work of Bradbury Wilkinson & Co. Ltd. The series commemorates the Centenary of Lord Byron's Death...in 1974 there is another series about Byron,and we could ask "why 2 series about an Englishmen in Greece??".. well, he is remembered by the Greeks as a Hero of one of the Wars against the Ottoman Empire...  there is another small detail I want to talk about ,and it is related with the background piece of cardboard that I use in my scans... it is usualy a piece of light kraft brown cardboard, but in this group of Greek stamps, I have made some experiences with one of those black stock cards we sometimes use to store our stamps and keep them away from the excessive moist and sun light..

1924 "Death Centenary of Lord Byron" (2) [Recess (Bradbury Wilkinson & Co.,Ltd,London)] Sc(316,317)

In this second series we have some representations of Greek Mythology «1st) Narcissus 2nd) Apollo and Daphne [Laurel] 3rd) Venus and Adonis [hibiscus] 4th) Pan and Pitys [Pine Tree] 5th) Iris 6th) Tulip 7th) Cyclamen 8th) Crocus» label in my " Hellas 2014" catalog..it seems that the plants shown represent also Mythological entities...
Something I want to tell you is that this series is just one of many others ,work of Anastasios Alevizos , commonly known as Tassos,one of the Greatest Greek Stamp Designers .
1958 "Nature Protection" (8) [Des ( Anastasios Alevizos (Tassos))][Litho] Sc(624,...,631)

now we have a series about a Spanish painter, called "El Greco", due to his Greek ascendance... it is known that I really don't appreciate this kind of series , with paintings of great Artists,because they are not the work of any "Stamp" Artist,there is no real creativity in the stamp unless that of the painting represented...but ,this series is from a period of time that I like and want to have completed in my collection... well , here it is..
1965"El Greco" (5) [Litho] Sc(813,...,817)

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

it is now time of showing some of the Egyptian new entries to the collection...

This is a beautiful Express Mail Stamp from 1926/1929.. there are some details to talk about in relation to this stamp...there is a first issue [Photo] printed and then appeared this one in 1929 that it is [Photo (frames)][Litho (Vignette)] ,with some modifications in the Arabic inscriptions...
in 1943/1944 there was another issue with the label "Postes Express" also [Photo][Litho] printed...
1929 "Express Mail" (1) [Photo][Litho] Sc(E2)

1953 "Electronics Exposition, Cairo" (1) [Photo] Sc(365)

This is a 1963 stamp with a topic very used in that year...it is a commemoration of the UNESCO Campaign to Save Nubian Monuments and they were issued many,many series about this subject by numerous different countries... 
Nubia was a region of the Ancient Egypt ,close to the source of the Nile and its fabulous monuments and temples had to be moved away from the expected rising waters of the Nile due to the construction of a well needed dam in the Nile... the monuments would be submerged  for ever , if this kind of procedure was not taken in that precise moment ...it was a huge task , removing stone by stone entire buildings of Pharaonic proportions.., and reconstruct them at another place ,again stone by stone... Fantastic!!!

Rescue of Nubian Monuments
1963 "UNESCO Campaign SAVING Nubian Monuments" (3) [Photo] Sc(591)

1964 "Olympic Games, Tokyo" (4) [Photo] Sc(646,...,649)

This is a commemoration of the 1400th Anniversary of the Koran... it is a beautiful stamp that it is issued together with another stamp with the same design  but with fv of 30M..."both stamps were issued together se-tenant in sheets of 4 ,separated by a half stamp size label" [transcript from 1986 Stanley Gibbons Middle East]...

1968 "AIR MAIL / 1400th Anniversary of the Holy Koran" (2) [Photo] Sc(C119)

This is the Post Day series of 1968,with 3 beautiful Pharaoh Dresses present in pictures that survived time in temple walls and ceilings of Ancient Egypt Monuments and buildings... of course,it is not necessary to say that a good engraver work would turn these stamps into real Art items...who knows what could have taken form in the skilled hands of Schirnbock, Mouchon, Slania or other Great Engraver..1968 "Post Day : Pharaohs Dresses" (3) [Photo] Sc(728,...,730)

The idea of showing Pharaohs Dresses was repeated in the following year of 1969 in other Post series ...

1969 "Post Day : Pharaohs Dresses" (4) [Photo] Sc(752,...,754)

From 1969 we have still these two series, the first related to Cairo's Millennium , where some of the Capital city Art achievements are exhibited and the 2nd (single stamp series) is related with the opening of the Cairo Opera House...1969 "Cairo Millennium" (4) [Photo] Sc(807a,...,807d)
1969 "Centenary of the Opening of the Cairo Opera House" (1) [Photo] Sc(813)

a beautiful stamp where the subject is the inauguration of the  of the Solar Bark Museum in Giza...
it was constructed near 1985 (??..)(why this stamp in 1974.. I don't get it..!)  with the task of displaying the Khufu ship for use of  King Cheops in the Afterlife...
1974 "Air Mail / Solar Bark Museum" (1) [Photo] Sc(C164)

Well , I hope you liked the post... I will make another one , this time with Turkish stamps, briefly..

SeeYou

Egypt [6th Post] Switzerland [2nd Post]

 New Entries

EGYPT

Today I have 3 series from the 20's and 30's in Egypt...all of them are commemorative series of events taking place at Cairo, during those Years...this first series is commemorating the International Geographical Congress....the Vignette show us God Thoth writing King Fuad name in the walls...as You know, Kings and Pharaoh's were somehow related to the Gods in the Ancient Egyptian Mythology...

1925 "International Geographical Congress, Cairo" (3) [Litho] Sc(105,...,107)

The illustration of these stamps represents some workers occupied in some sort of Ancient Agriculture procedure...

1931 "14th Agricultural and Industrial Exhibition,Cairo" (3) [Litho] Sc(163,...,165)

As You can imagine , there is not much I can say about these stamps...the technical information is not much so I better reserve myself to the discription of the illustration... the stamp show us a medal commemorating the Abolition of Capitulations .

1937 "Abolition of the Capitulations at the Montreux conference" (3) [Litho] Sc(217,...,219)

...............................................................................................................................

.......................................................................................................................................

The "Mouchon" Background

This small "Mouchon"task I proposed to myself , is revealing itself very rewarding with much of information about the work of the French Engraver...Now I have discovered two more beautiful stamps from 1895 both work of Mouchon [design and engraving]...They are from Ethiopia and are without doubts very good stamps, one of them presenting the background we are searching for...

"Stone" Background

These are stamps from the first series of Ethiopia ; the first at the left, presenting us Menelik II and the other, at the right, the "Lion of Judah"... while in Menelik's stamp,we have a normal lined Vignette's background, in the other we have our "small stone's" background very much like the other stamps I have presented from 1895 and 1896...There is here nothing to difficult our comprehension : this is another of the stamps we are looking for.!..And the mystery became denser ...

One thing we can say for sure : this is the best period of his work, with some of the most beautiful and well accomplished stamps... 

...........................................................................................

SWITZERLAND

............................................................................................

In this small section about Swiss stamps,I am going to focus on the so called "Pro-Juventute" series, that started to be issued in 1913 and continued until our days...Today I will show stamps from 6 series of the 30's , 40's,50's and 60's..All of the stamps belonging to these series, have an additional value to be paid by the buyer,and this value usually goes to Benevolent Societies.. We must note that until 1937 the additional value to pay doesn't appear in the stamp itself... 

These series doesn't have a similar number of stamps, but usually they have 4 or 5 stamps each...A particularity I want to highlight is that in each series, one or two stamps are engraved and [Recess] printed ,while the others are [Photo] Printed...

I often talk about the necessity of applying different  scan resolutions to [Recess] or [Photo] stamps...now , and before starting with the Pro-Juventute stamps,I want to show how this affects the final image...

[Photo 300ppp]

[Recess 600ppp]

[Photo 600ppp]

 [please click the pictures]

 Here we have 3 stamps, the left one is [Photo] printed, the right one is [Recess] printed ; now lets click on both stamps... You can see that the right image is larger and much more detailed than the left one ... in fact the right one is an image with the scan settings at 600ppp and the left image is taken with 300ppp...I only use the 600ppp because the stamp support it, without any distortion or lack of detail... but if we now click in the center image we will see a [Photo] stamp taken with 600ppp, and we have a larger image ,but the stamp printing simply doesn't support this resolution, so the image have distortions , it is blurred and with evident lack of detail ... 

Now that I talked about this small detail ,let's go and see some Swiss stamps...

The engraver of most of the 30's and 40's ad 50's  issues of Switzerland was Karl Bickel (this post about Karl Bickelis incomplete... some of the stamps here presented are missing there...) and he also was a prolific stamp designer , with the first stamps issued in 1923...

[Recess] Printed Stamps

[Photo]Printed Stamps

These stamps are the final work of 4 Stamp Designers...(1,3,4,5).some of the beautifully designed girls,are designed by Carl August Liner ; (2) was done by H. Zaugg and there is not much difference from the Liner girls...amazing works...(6,7,8,9,10,11)  representing some Alpine flowers and Insects are created by Hans Fisher ; (12,13,14,15,16,17,18,19) were designed by Werner Weiskonig...the last group of stamps (20,21,22,23,24) , representing animals,were done by  Hans Erni....

To end this post,,I just want to present another Swiss series,this time from 1914...it is a series about Swiss mountains,with emphasis in 3 mountain pics ... these stamps are beautifully engraved by J. Sprenger and A. Burkhard ; the Designs are from one of the most influential Swiss Artists from the early days of the Century...I am talking of Eugene Grasset, ,with a small number of Stamps Designed but Famous one's...

I must say that there is a small number of considerations to have in mind...the engraver A. Burkhard only engraved the 5F stamps,,but if You notice the name appearing in the bottom right of the stamp is J. Sprenger...this is one of the two signs we have to separate the original stamp and it's redrawn in a 1928/1931 series (the one i have is a Deep blue redrawn)[in the original series this 5F stamp is Ultramarine blue..]...in the original 1914 series , the 3F stamp present us a Deep blue Green variety ,much more valuable in it's MNH form...

1914/1918 "Swiss Mountains" (3) [Des (Eugene Grasset)][Engr (J. Springel)(A. Burkhard 5F)][Recess] Sc(182,206,184)

well,it is the end of another post...I think , that the next one will be ,finally,about the 1922 USA portrait series...I've got many stamps from this series  and the work is partially done...let's see what happens..!

SeeYou

stamps from Egypt [5th Post]

New Entries

I had some doubts about today's post...in the end I think the stamps I have to show from Egypt are sufficient for a small post... All the stamps I will show are [Photo] or [Litho] printed and this is not something I feel very proud ,because all the level of detail is decreased to it's minimum... it is something that we all should regret because a major part of the Egyptian stamps deserved much better ... but it is what we have and we must be happy with it...!

Most of the Egyptian stamps until the 60's were printed internally by Egyptian Printing companies...the exception is made to the period from 1879 to 1922, where some series were printed by British Companies 

[A]  in 1882 British Troops landed in Egypt to secure the Suez Canal against the Nationalist movement led by Arabi Pasha.... 

[B] in 1914 after the War with Turkey had begun , Egypt was declared as a British Protectorate , the Khedive (Viceroy)  Abbas Hilmi was deposed and his uncle was declared Sultan of Egypt... 

[C] in 1922 Egypt was declared to be an independent Kingdom and the Sultan Ahmed Fuad became King Fuad I....].. 

below are presented some of the most important dates, Rulers and Political Systems of Egypt from 1863 to 1971...

...................................................................................................................................................................

Khedive Ismail : 1863/1879

Khedive Tewfik : 1879/1892

Khedive Abbas Hilmi : 1892/1914

Sultan Hussein Kamil : 1914/1917

Sultan Ahmed Fuad : 1917/1922

King Fuad I : 1922/1936

King Farouk I : 1936/1952

King Ahmed Fuad II : 1952/1953

Republic : 1953

UAR : 1958 /1961(or 1971) [Syria abandoned the UAR in 1961 but Egypt kept the Designation until 1971]

Arab Republic of Egypt : 1971

...................................................................................................................................................................

Let us start with some stamps from King Farouk I..

stamps from an Airmail series of  1947... the design  presents a portrait of the king at the top right and an Airplane Douglas "Dakota" flying over a Delta Barrage...

1947 "Airmail" (12) [Photo] Sc(C42,C44)

here we have some stamps Overprinted with the label ""King of Egypt and the Sudan, 16th October 1951" ; about this Overprint , SG says "On 8 October 1951 the Egyptian Parliament  passed a decree abrogating the Anglo-Egyptian Condominium Agreements for the Sudan and proclaimed Farouk I as "King of Egypt and the Sudan"... After the Revolution of 26 July 1952 , the Independence of the Sudan was arranged after Anglo-Egyptian Negociations"... this overprint was used on King Farouk postage and Air Mail stamps from several different series...

1947 "Overprint 'King of Egypt and Sudan 16th October 1951' on King Farouk I stamps" (18) [Photo] Sc(300,304,307)

These are some stamps that were missing in the collection, from one of the most famous Egyptian series..the focus is on the Nile and its major role in Agriculture and in all the defense worries of the Country trough out history .. the Nile is the greatest river of all the region and the fertility it's floods bring to the lands always were a major threat to the integrity of the Territory due to the greed of some other Regional Powers ..this series also have designs of Sultan Hussein Mosque in Cairo ( < 20m and >100m) and of Queen Nefertiti (< 100m and > 500m) ...

1953/1956 "Various Designs" (18) [Photo] Sc(322,323,327,329)

some King Farouk stamps with the King's Portrait overprinted with 3 horizontal bars...it is somehow strange the fact of the coexistence of thin and thick lines in the same overprint... once again I will transcribe what my old SG catalog tell us about this overprint .. ["After King Farouk's Abdication in July 1952, stamps with his portrait remained on sale... On 20 April 1953, shortly before the proclamation of the Republic, stamps with this overprint began to appear, and a decree was issued demonetizing the unoverprinted portrait stamps. Arrangements were made for stocks in private hands to be returned to post offices for exchange..Three Government Printing works did the Overprinting , and this fact accounts for variations in the bars..."]

As you can see, stamps from several different  King Farouk's series were overprinted , including some of the Air Mail stamps...

1953 "Overprint ''horizontal Bars' on some King Farouk's Series" (23)(9 Air Mail) [Photo] Sc(344,346,348,349,351,352,355,C74,C75)

Another design representing a farmer and the Agricultural work...it is a complete series of 5 small stamps...

1954/1955 "Farmer" (5) [Photo] Sc(368,...,372)

A group of stamps from another definitive series... we must know that a great part of these designs were already used in previous series, but they are part of this new series with new colors and above all with just one word in English (UAR)[ in previous issues the word 'Egypt' also appeared...(only the 3m stamp continue to present the same color...)]..there are vertical and horizontal (like the 30m stamp..) stamps and the designs represent motifs from Egypt as well as Syria...beautiful series..!

1959/1960 "Various Designs" (17) [Photo] Sc(474,476,477,478,479,481,482,483,484,486,487)

A complete series representing President Nasser... 

1971 "1st Death Anniversary of President Nasser" (4) [Photo] Sc(873,...,876)

Now and to end this small post, I will present a group of Individual Commemorative stamps celebrating the life of several famous Personalities from different fields of  Egyptian society...

 [Left] 1962 "Death Centenary of Dr. Theodore Bilharz" (1) [Photo] Sc(553)


[Right] 1984 "50th Death Anniversary of Mahmoud Moukhtar " (1) [Des (L. el Sawaf)][Photo] Sc(1246)

[Left] 1977 "50th Death Anniversary of Saad Zaghloui" (1) [Des (S. Saida)][Photo ] Sc(1040)


[Right] 1967 "50th Death Centenary of Higasi (Lyric Stage Empresario)" (1) [Photo] Sc(723)

 [Left] 1967 "Arab Publicity Week /  Gamal El Dine El Afghani " (1) [Photo] Sc(716)



[Right] 1973 "Taha Hussein Commemoration" (1) [Des (L. el Sawaf)][Photo ] Sc(949)

 [Left] 1958 "35th Death Anniversary of Sayed Darwich (Composer)" (1) [Photo] Sc(453)



[Right] 1991 "Famous Egyptian Personalities / Dr. Zaki Mubarak" (1) [Photo] Sc(1479)

 [Left] 1996 "Famous Egyptian Artists / George Abyad" (1) [Litho] Sc(1635)



[Right] 1997 "Birth Centenary of Mahmoud Said (Artist, Photographer)" (1) [Litho] Sc(1645)

[Left] 1958 "50th Death Anniversary of Qasim Amin (Reformer)" (1) [Photo] Sc(445)



[Right] 1965 "60th Death Anniversary of Shaikh Abdo (Mufti)" (1) [Photo] Sc(669)

well, this was a small post , but I hope it will contribute to your decision of collecting also the beautiful stamps of Egypt...

SeeYou