History – Page 5 – Willem's Planet

November 21, 2024November 21, 2024

Thursday/ Oh Canada 🍁

These stamps from Canada were on an envelope that had arrived from an Ebay seller.

**Provincial Emblems**
Issued Apr. 28, 1965
Perf. 12 | Recess printing | No watermark
981 441 5c Red-brown, deep bluish-green and mauve | Prairie Crocus and Arms of Manitoba
[Source: 1997 Stanley Gibbons Stamp Catalogue, Part 1 British Commonwealth, stampworld.com]

**Rehabilitation**
Issued May 29, 1980
Perf. 12½ | Litho printing by Ashton Potter | No watermark
979 440 17c Gold and ultramarine | “Helping hand”
[Source: 1997 Stanley Gibbons Stamp Catalogue, Part 1 British Commonwealth, stampworld.com]

**Centenary of “Oh Canada” (national song)**
Issued Jun. 6, 1980
Perf. 12½ | Litho printing by Ashton Potter | No watermark
981 441 17c Multicolored | Calixa Lavallee (Composer), Adolphe-Basile Routhier (Original Writer) and Robert Stanley Weir (writer of English Version)
[Source: 1997 Stanley Gibbons Stamp Catalogue, Part 1 British Commonwealth, stampworld.com]

**Canada Day (Maps showing Evolution of Canada from Confederation to Present Day)** Issued Jun. 30, 1981
Perf. 13×12½ | Se-tenant pair, part of a strip of four | Raymond Bellemare Engraving: British American Bank Note Company, Ottawa | No watermark
1015 454 17c Multicolored | Canada in 1905
1015 454 17c Multicolored | Canada since 1949
[Source: 1997 Stanley Gibbons Stamp Catalogue, Part 1 British Commonwealth, stampworld.com]

**Beneficial Insects**
Issued Oct. 19, 2010
Perf. 13×13¼ | Issued in souvenir sheet of 5 |Keith Martin Engraving: Cie canadienne des billets de banque | No watermark
2623 7c Multicolored | Large Milkweed bug (Oncopeltus fasciatus)
2625 9c Multicolored | Dogbane Beetle (Chrysocus auratus)
[Source: stampworld.com]

November 16, 2024November 20, 2024

Saturday/ on the Harvard campus 🎓

Here are a few pictures from in and around Harvard Square and Harvard’s campus.

Rowers on the **Charles River** running through Cambridge.

**Saint Paul’s Parish church**, with its distinctive bell tower, is a Catholic church on Mt Auburn St in Cambridge.

A closer look at the **bell tower of Saint Paul’s Parish.**

**Adams House**, one of twelve undergraduate residential Houses at Harvard University.

The Harvard Lampoon Building (sometimes referred to as the Lampoon Castle), designed by Edmund M. Wheelwright and built in 1909 in the Mock Flemish style.

Inside the **Harvard Coop store**, a bookshop founded in 1882, offering textbooks plus branded Harvard and MIT clothing.

November 11, 2024

Monday/ Veterans Day 🎖️

Happy Veterans Day to all military veterans of the United States Armed Forces.

U.S. #2513 1990 25¢ Dwight D. Eisenhower
Issue Date: October 13, 1990
City: Abilene, KS
Quantity: 142,692,000
Printed By: American Bank Note Company
Printing Method: Photogravure
Perforations: 11
Color: Multicolored
Dwight D. Eisenhower’s official presidential portrait is featured on this stamp honoring the 100th anniversary of his birth.
The background pictures him overseeing his troops in his capacity as five-star general.
A circlet of five stars distinguishes that title.
[Source: mysticstamp.com]

November 2, 2024November 2, 2024

Saturday/ unity makes strength 🪙

It was November of 1899 in colonial Africa— in what is called South Africa today.
The Second Boer War had already started, on October 11.

The British government had rejected an ultimatum issued by the Boer republics of the Transvaal and Orange Free State.
The republics had demanded the withdrawal of British troops from their borders, primarily due to growing tensions caused by the discovery of gold in the Transvaal (Johannesburg today) and the influx of British “Uitlander” (foreigner) miners who were denied political rights by the Boer government.

The mint, where the republics produced gold coins for 1899, soon learned that the Kruger Pound dies for the 1899 coins were intercepted by the British in then-Lourenzo Marques in Mozambique (Maputo, today).

On the 2nd day of November 1899 at 10.30am, a single figure 9 was stamped at the bottom of the President’s bust on an 1898 coin, slightly overlapping the design. The coin is known today as ‘the single nine counterstamp’ or simply the ‘Single 9’, and is South Africa’s only one-of-a-kind coin.

This description from Heritage Auctions.com (the coin goes up for auction on Jan 13, 2025 in New York City):
**Republic gold “9” Pond 1898 MS63 Prooflike NGC, Pretoria mint, KM-Unl., Hern-ZP6.**
The indisputable ‘unicorn coin’ in the entire South African series, the “Single 9 Overstamp” 1898 Pond remains unchallenged in its exclusive solitude. A distinct variant of the 130-piece “99” Pond issue, the “Single 9” Pond reportedly changed hands in a private sale in 2010, for a value documented as “multi-million Rand” by Hern. Other industry sources detail a more precise figure of ZAR 20,000,000, which was the equivalent of US$ 2,700,000 at the average 2010 exchange rate. Possibly selected as the candidate for the overstamping for its gleaming ‘Prooflike’ appearance, this rarified treasure has been the prime target of South African experts for over a century.
**Translation:** ‘Zuid-Afrikaansche Republiek’ is ‘South African Republic’ (an area north of the Vaal River and south of the Limpopo River and not to be confused with ‘Republic of South Africa’, which is all of modern-day South Africa and which came about only in May 1961, after the Union of South Africa gained its independence from Great Britain).
The figure on the coin is President Paul Kruger, the leading figure in the movement to restore the South African Republic’s independence, culminating in the Boers’ victory in the First Boer War of 1880–1881. Kruger served until 1883 as a member of an executive triumvirate, then was elected President of the South African Republic.

The gold price as of November 01, 2024 is $2,736.42 per ounce, a record high*.
*In absolute dollar terms. When adjusted for inflation, the early 1980s is still the peak for gold, at some $3,200 per ounce in inflation-adjusted dollars.
**Translation:** ‘Eendragt Maakt Mag’ means ‘Unity makes strength’.

October 16, 2024October 16, 2024

Wednesday/ mail from Maryland 🇺🇸

There was mail from Maryland in my mailbox today.
The cancellation says that ‘As in past elections, the USPS is ready. If you choose to vote by mail, please mail early.’
(Early voting has started in some states, and here in Washington State we will get our mail-in ballots by Friday, or by early next week).

Let’s check out the stamps.

**1999 Celebrate the Century, 1970s – Bicentennial, Watergate, and Earth Day**
Issued Nov. 18, 1999
Perf. 11½| Offset, Intaglio printing | Wmk. None
No 3321| 33c| Multi-colored | 1970s Fashion

**1984 Horace Moses**
Issued Aug. 6, 1984
Perf. 11 |Engraved printing (combination press) |Wmk. None
No 1845| 20c| Orange & dark brown | Junior Achievement founder, Horace Moses
[Sources: stampworld.com, mysticstamp.com]

October 2, 2024October 2, 2024

Wednesday/ US stamps 🇺🇸

These stamps from the USA landed in my mailbox (on an envelope from an Ebay seller that I had bought stamps from).

**200th Anniversary of the US Constitution**
Issued Aug. 28, 1987
Perf. 10 hor. on 1 or 2 sides Photogravure
Booklet with 4 panes of 5 stamps printed in cylinders of 120
2355 A1720 22c |Multi-colored |Preamble to the US Constitution
2355 A1721 22c |Multi-colored |Preamble to the US Constitution
2355 A1722 22c |Multi-colored |Preamble to the US Constitution
2355 A1723 22c |Multi-colored |Preamble to the US Constitution
[Source: 2003 Scott Stamp Catalogue Vol. 1]

**Classic Books**
Issued Oct. 23, 1993
Perf. 11 Litho. & Engr.
Booklet with 4 panes of 5 stamps printed in cylinders of 120
2787 A2126 29c |Multi-colored |The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn*
2785 A2124 29c |Multi-colored |Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm**
[Source: 2003 Scott Stamp Catalogue Vol. 1]

***The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn** is a novel by American author Mark Twain that was first published in the United Kingdom in December 1884 and in the United States in February 1885. [From Wikipedia]
****Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm** is a classic American 1903 children’s novel by Kate Douglas Wiggin that tells the story of Rebecca Rowena Randall and her aunts, one stern and one kind, in the fictional village of Riverboro, Maine. {From Wikipedia]

September 11, 2024September 11, 2024

Wednesday 🖤

The years are rolling by, and it has now been 23 years since the terrorist attacks that had claimed the lives of some 3,000 people in New York City, Shanksville (in Pennsylvania), and at the Pentagon.

Picture and reporting from the New York Times.

August 1, 2024August 1, 2024

Thursday/ free at last 😘

This is wonderful news.

Reporting from the Washington Post, above.
That is Evan Gershkovich to the left of President Biden, hugging his mother Ella Milman. The prisoner swap with Russia ultimately involved 24 detainees and 7 countries.
From CNN online:
Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich, former US Marine Paul Whelan and Russian-American journalist Alsu Kurmasheva have landed in the United States, following a historic prisoner exchange between Russia and the West. The returnees were greeted with tears and embraces by their joyous families at Joint Base Andrews in Maryland, where President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris were also on the tarmac to welcome them after their plane touched down about 20 minutes before midnight on Thursday.

July 8, 2024July 9, 2024

Monday/ it’s hard to stop 🛑

.. being President of the United States*— or to collect stamps.
*President Biden sent a cease-and-desist letter of sorts to House Democrats today, telling them to support him in the election.

In the mean time it’s Christmas in July for me, because my latest two purchases from the UK landed on my porch today.

These are old labels used for registered letters or mail pieces in South Africa.
(Obsolete: printed barcodes without the sending city or town’s name on the label, are used nowadays).
I am still deciding if some of them will make it into one of my stamp albums.
Look for the label **VERWOERD- BURG 1** at the bottom of the picture.
Verwoerdburg in Gauteng Province, now goes by Centurion. It was named for H.F. Verwoerd, prime minister of South Africa widely seen as the architect of apartheid. Verwoerd was assassinated in 1966.
Then there is TECOMA— not to be confused with Tacoma, Washington State 😁— a post office in East London, Eastern Cape Province, that has been permanently shuttered.

This is just part of a massive collection of mint issues from the 50s , 60s and 70s for South Africa and South West Africa (now Namibia).
I have almost all of these already, but some in my album are used stamps with heavy cancellation marks, and I can add a few control blocks to my collection (four stamps with the margins from the original printed sheet).

July 6, 2024

Saturday/ 9 days, and still a crisis 🚨

I watched the much-anticipated George Stephanopoulos interview with President Biden, and thought: no, that won’t do it.
To the question “Did you ever watch the debate afterwards?” Biden’s answer was, “I don’t think I did, no.”
About getting out of the race, Biden offered “If the Lord Almighty came down and said: ‘Joe, get out of the race,’ I’d get out of the race”. That does not do it for me, either.

Reporting from today’s The Washington Post.
This piece ends with the following:
**The House returns to Washington on Monday**, and Sen. Mark R. Warner (D-Va.) is looking to rally fellow senators to call for a change. Multiple people publicly vouching for Biden, at the behest of the White House and campaign, privately say there’s no path.
**His family is still with him.** The race is still single digits. And Biden remains hopeful. As he likes to say, America can do anything if its people work together — “There’s not a single thing we can’t do.”
**But in private, people around him have detected some shift.** He admits the danger now, can sound more somber at times.
One person who spoke to him over the Fourth of July holiday said, “I think he is focused on recovering, but I personally think he’s still in the denial phase of grief.”

July 4, 2024July 4, 2024

Fourth of July 🗽

Happy Independence Day.

These are from my small collection of US stamps.
These coil stamps were still printed with engraved plates. Nowadays the vast majority of American-issued postage stamps are printed by using offset-lithography.

**Flag Over US Supreme Court**
Coil stamp Issued Dec.17, 1981
Perf. 10 vert. |Engraved |No Watermark
1895 A1281 20c Black, dark blue and red

**Flag Over Capitol Dome**
Coil stamp Issued Mar.29, 1985
Perf. 10 vert. |Engraved |No Watermark
2115 A1498 22c Blue, red and black

**Flag Over Mt. Rushmore**
Coil stamp Issued Mar.29, 1991
Perf. 10 vert. |Engraved |No Watermark
2523 A1878 29c Blue, red and claret
[Source: Scott 2003 Standard Postage Stamp Catalogue, Vol. 1]

July 1, 2024July 1, 2024

Monday/ the Supreme Court rules, finally 😡

From the Washington Post staff:
Former presidents are immune from prosecution for their official actions taken while in the White House, but they don’t have immunity for unofficial acts, the Supreme Court ruled Monday.
“A former president is entitled to absolute immunity from criminal prosecution for actions within his ‘conclusive and preclusive constitutional authority,’ ” the ruling says. “There is no immunity for unofficial acts.”
It seems highly unlikely that the 45th president will go to trial on charges of trying to subvert the 2020 election before voters cast ballots in this year’s presidential contest, in which Donald Trump is the presumptive Republican nominee.

So .. what is an ‘official act’, and what is not? The Supreme Court did not say and Chief Justice John Roberts acknowledged it could raise “difficult questions.”

The reality is that this Supreme Court with its three Trump-appointed justices has already provided de facto immunity for Trump prior to the November election. The Court dragged its feet as long as it possibly could, before issuing this ruling, thereby delaying the start of Trump’s other three criminal trials (the Jan. 6 case, the documents case, and the Georgia election interference case) by at least six months.

Cartoon by Dennis Goris @DennisGoris on X.

June 29, 2024August 26, 2024

Saturday/ drive to Port Townsend 🏰

We drove up to Port Townsend from Hansville today— about an hour’s drive.

**Port Townsend** (pop. 10,148) is a city on the Quimper Peninsula (on the greater Olympic Peninsula) in Jefferson County.
[From Wikipedia]

The view this morning from **Hansville on the Kitsap Peninsula** across Hood Canal at low tide. Across the canal is the Olympic Peninsula, with the Olympic mountains in the distance.

Crossing the Hood Canal Floating Bridge (constructed in 1961) to get to the Olympic Peninsula.

A quick stop at the **Chimacum Corner farmstand and nursery**, on the way to Port Townsend.
These are Sunny Days Ruby Echinacea, basking in the sun.

We stopped by Saturday’s farmer’s market in Port Townsend.

This little marina is by **Sea J’s Cafe** just south of Port Townsend’s downtown.

This is the beach at **Point Hudson**, with Whidbey Island in the distance.

The pebble and stone beach at **Point Hudson** also features a few uprooted trees and driftwood.

For thousands of years before the settlers came to Port Townsend, the **S’Klallam** (“strong”) people lived in villages along the north coast of the Olympic Peninsula.

These little wildflowers by Point Hudson are **mallows** (Malva sylvestris).

The **Mount Baker Building** in downtown Port Townsend was built in 1889 and renovated in 1999. It was sold in 2020 for $6.8 million.
At the time of its construction, negotiations were underway for the railroad to link Port Townsend to the rest of the country. Real estate price skyrocketed, the population of the town doubled, and Port Townsend dubbed itself “The Inevitable New York.” The railroad never arrived and the boom went bust. As a result, Port Townsend was left with many spectacular buildings and residences, some of which were never finished.

The **James & Hastings Building** with its carved stone trimmings from the Victorian era was built in 1889, and restored in the 1990s and early 2002. It is at the corner of Tyler Street and Water Street.

The ornate **N.D. Hill Building** (constructed 1889) at 635 Water Street was designed by noted Seattle architect Elmer H. Fisher.
It is principally Italianate in design, but also shows Grecian and Romanesque influences.

Here is the elegant four-story Hastings Building at 839 Water Street— built in the Victorian style, and completed in 1890.

June 19, 2024June 19, 2024

Wednesday/ happy Juneteenth 📜

(Gabriel Campanario / The Seattle Times)

Juneteenth is a day of remembrance dedicated to the last enslaved Black Americans, who were freed in Galveston, Texas, on June 19, 1865, more than two and a half years after the Emancipation Proclamation was signed by President Abraham Lincoln.

On June 17, 2021, President Joe Biden signed into law the Juneteenth National Independence Day Act making Juneteenth a federal holiday. It was the first federal holiday to be added to the calendar since Martin Luther King Jr. Day in 1983.
– From the Seattle Times

June 6, 2024June 6, 2024

Thursday/ D-Day, 80 years later 🏅

Initially set for June 5, D-Day was delayed due to poor weather.
With a small window of opportunity in the weather, Eisenhower decided to go—D-Day would be June 6, 1944.
Paratroopers began landing after midnight, followed by a massive naval and aerial bombardment at 6:30 a.m. American forces faced severe resistance at Omaha and Utah Beaches.
Despite challenges, including mistaken landings and fierce opposition, Allied forces established a critical beachhead in Normandy.
– Text from the National WWII Museum’s website

There are 9,388 graves in the American Cemetery in Colleville-sur-Mer high above the beaches of Normandy.
Most are marked by white Latin crosses, with a handful of them Stars of David commemorating Jewish American service members.

Sergeant Mullins, who now lives in Garberville, California, took a moment this week to kneel at his buddy’s grave in **the American Cemetery in Colleville-sur-Mer**.
In 1944, a few days into the fighting that had started on D-day, Mullins looked up from his foxhole and, two foxholes away, saw Pfc. William H. Lemaster, peeking over the edge. It proved to be the last act of this young man from West Virginia. A German sniper’s bullet killed him instantly.
[Photo by Laetitia Vancon and text from reporting by Roger Cohen, for the New York Times]

June 5, 2024June 6, 2024

Wednesday/ stamps from the UK 🇬🇧

These UK stamps arrived on the outside envelope of my latest order of South African stamps from a seller in Great Britain.

**150th Anniversary of Metropolitan Police**
Issued 1979, Sept.26 Perf.15×14 Phosphorised paper
1108 585 |15p |Grey-black, magenta, brown, slate-blue, deep brown & Greenish black |River Patrol Boat
[Source: Stanley Gibbons Stamp Catalogue Part I British Commonwealth Volume 1]

**Christmas 1979**
Issued 1979, Nov.21 Perf.15×14 Phosphorised paper
1108 585 |15p |Orange-vermilion, steel blue, drab, grey-black, deep blue-green & gold |The Annunciation
[Source: Stanley Gibbons Stamp Catalogue Part I British Commonwealth Volume 1]

**Christmas 1989— 800th Anniversary of Ely Cathedral.**
Issued 1989, Nov.14 Perf.15×14 One phosphor band
1462 924 |15p |Gold, silver and blue |14th-century Peasants from Stained-glass Window
[Source: Stanley Gibbons Stamp Catalogue Part I British Commonwealth Volume 1]

**Queen Elizabeth II Definitives**
Issued 2002, Feb.6
Re-issue of 1952-54 definitive series stamps of Dorothy Wilding portrait of QE II
Booklet sheets w. new values & syncopated perforation (elliptical holes)
522 T157 33p Brown |George Knipe design
525 T158 37p Magenta |Mary Adshead design
530 T160 1st Class |Green |E. Dulac design
[Source: Stanley Gibbons Great Britain Concise Stamp Catalogue 2009]

May 30, 2024May 30, 2024

Thursday/ guilty on all counts 👨‍⚖️

A jury in Manhattan convicted Mr. Trump of 34 counts of falsifying business records in the first degree, a crime that under New York State law carries a possible sentence that ranges from probation to four years in prison.
-Reported by William K. Rashbaum for the New York Times, May 30, 2024

Artist John Cuneo’s “A Man of Conviction”, artwork that will appear on the cover of an upcoming The New Yorker magazine.

So Trump is now a convicted felon.
His sentencing hearing is scheduled for Jul. 11, four days before the start of the Republican convention.
(Will the Republican Party nominate a convict for President?)
Even if Trump is given jail time (possible* but not likely), his lawyers will keep him out of jail by starting a lengthy appeals process, and posting bail money.

*His Secret Service detail will go to jail with him, basically. They are required by law to protect him 24/7.

Graphic by the Washington Post showing the dates and types of business records that Trump used to defraud the American people in the 2016 election.
As for calling it a ‘hush money trial’ : it was actually an ‘election fraud conspiracy trial’, which is why the falsification of these business records were charged as **felonies**.

May 27, 2024May 27, 2024

Monday/ Memorial Day 🇺🇸

It is Memorial Day: the day for honoring and mourning the U.S. military personnel who died while serving in the United States Armed Forces.

April 10, 2024April 11, 2024

Wednesday/ birds of a feather 🐦

South African Constitution (1996) Art. 47.1.e.
1. Every citizen who is qualified to vote for the National Assembly is eligible to be a member of the Assembly, except ..
e. anyone who, after this section took effect, is convicted of an offence and sentenced to more than 12 months imprisonment without the option of a fine, either in the Republic, or outside the Republic if the conduct constituting the offence would have been an offence in the Republic, but no one may be regarded as having been sentenced until an appeal against the conviction or sentence has been determined, or until the time for an appeal has expired. A disqualification under this paragraph ends five years after the sentence has been completed.

This year, general elections will be held in South Africa on 29 May to elect a new National Assembly as well as the provincial legislature in each province.

It’s been 30 years since Nelson Mandela was elected South Africa’s first democratic president. The African National Congress has in been in power all this time.

Let’s just say that after Mandela left office in 1999, the ANC has not exactly covered themselves in glory.
Jacob Zuma (elected in 2009) and his ANC cronies in particular, engaged in racketeering, money laundering, and fraud on a grand scale.

Zuma spent time in jail 2021, but only two months of his full sentence of 15 months. This was due to a ‘remission’ program approved by the current president, Cyril Ramaphosa (the equivalent of a ‘pardon’ in the US).

Now 82 years old, Zuma is back in politics. He wants to become president again.
South Africa’s election court ruled that he cannot be disqualified by the 12 month rule in Art. 47.1.e. of the South African constitution.

**Cartoon of an imagined phone call between candidates for presidential elections in America and in South Africa.**
Zuma broke from the ANC and is the de facto leader of a brand-new political party called uMkhonto weSizwe (abbr. MKP, and meaning ‘Spear of the Nation’).
Here’s Antony Sguazzin reporting for bloomberg.com:
Support for South Africa’s ruling African National Congress is plunging and a party backed by former President Jacob Zuma may become the country’s third-biggest after next month’s election, a new opinion poll shows. The ANC, which has ruled South Africa since the end of apartheid, may garner just 37% of the vote on May 29, while Zuma’s uMkhonto weSizwe Party, or MKP, may get 13%, the Social Research Foundation said in comments sent to Bloomberg on Wednesday, citing a poll it carried out this month.
[Cartoon by Niel van Vuuren for Beeld newspaper]

April 6, 2024April 7, 2024

Saturday/ here comes the Dromedaris 🐪

I spent a few hours on my South African stamp collection today, poring over my Scott stamp catalog to find the fine— but distinct— differences between the various issues of the ubiquitous 1 p Dromedaris stamps issued in 1926, 1932, 1940 and in 1951 (shown below).