Are there collectors of Esperanto stamps out there? Esperanto is the unusual subject featured in this series.

Esperanto is the world’s most widely spoken constructed language. Developed in the late 19th century, it was intended to be an auxiliary language for international communication.

Esperanto was first proposed in 1887 with the publication in Warsaw, Poland, of a book in Russian entitled Международный языкъ: предисловие и полный учебник (International Language: An Introduction and Complete Manual). Esperantists now know this as La Unua Libro (The First Book). The book’s author appeared under the pseudonym D-ro Esperanto, a name which in the international language means ‘Doctor Hopeful’.

The book, which was rather a booklet, contained a theoretical introduction to the language and six example texts, some of which were translations and others were original. It also contained the 16 basic rules of the language’s grammar and a short dictionary with 917 entries. It soon became widely known that the author was a young medical doctor from Warsaw, L. L. Zamenhof, born in a Jewish family that lived in the part of Poland then part of the Russian Empire. The author’s pseudonym later became used as a name for the language itself. The work appeared shortly after 1887 in Polish, German, French and English. Many of the stamps seen in the article include a portrait of Zamenhof.

Esperanto clubs and societies were soon established. By 1889, the first periodical, La Esperantisto (The Esperantist) was founded. Since then, more than 14,000 journals and magazines have been published about the history of the Esperanto movement, as documented in 2019 by Bibliografio de periodaĵoj en aŭ pri Esperanto (A Bibliography of Periodicals in or about Esperanto).

The first international Esperanto meeting took place in 1904 in Calais (France), where several dozen French and British Esperantists met to study the possibility of organising a more formal event. The first international association, the Tutmonda Esperanto-Ligo (World Esperanto League) was established the following year, which convened, also in 1905, the first World Congress in Boulogne-sur-Mer, France.

Since then more than 100 World Esperanto Congresses have been held on successive years, except during both World Wars, and including those in 2020 and 2021 which were virtual, due to the pandemic. 

The Esperanto movement became organised quite early. The Universala Esperanto-Asocio (UEA, World Esperanto Association) was established in 1908, aspiring to unite the language’s users outside national organisations, working for mutual help and the practical use of the language. The UEA was founded by two young Swiss men, Hector Hodler and Edmont Privat.

Some time later, in the 1920s, sectors of the then thriving workers’ movement saw the possibilities of Esperanto for the advancement of the so-called proletarian internationalism and they created their own Esperanto organisations.

In the context of the World Congress which took place in Prague in 1921 a new organisation was founded by workers who proposed to use Esperanto as a tool in their struggle.

The organisation was called Sennaciecia Asocio Tutmonda (SAT, World Anational Association), and it accommodated (and it still does) many diverse tendencies in the wide field of labour ideologies, such as socialists, communists and anarchists among others. SAT has long played a major role in the spread of Esperanto among the popular classes; it has its own peculiar character and performs a valuable cultural work.

The movement has been through times of crisis as the result of political persecution, of world globalisation and the hegemony of the USA after the Second World War. All this, plus the concept of English as the new lingua franca of humankind, resulted in a loss of interest about Esperanto.

But, in recent times, there has been a new surge of interest about the language, associated especially with the opportunities for communication afforded by the new technologies. The number of international contacts and meetings has grown considerably, and co-operation between people from different countries has reached levels that the early Esperantists could barely imagine.

The Netherlands’ PostNL issued the NL crypto stamp 4 – Hermes on September 18, 2025, in an edition of 15,000 pieces. The crypto stamp was released in collaboration with other national postal companies in Europe and was entitled “Mythical Greek Gods”. For previous issues, PostNL had already partnered with the postal companies of Austria, Luxembourg, Belgium and Portugal. As with the previous issues, the NL crypto stamp 4 – Hermes (the messenger of the gods and patron of commerce) features the value designation R for domestic registered mail up to and including 20 grams.

Athena, Goddess of wisdom and strategy, is seen on the Belgian stamp bearing the value indication 3 World of €9.00 for mail up to and including 100 grams with international destinations.

The Austrian stamp, showing the Goddess Hera (who represents unity and loyalty) bears the value €9.90 for letterbox parcels in Europe.

Luxembourg has Artemis (Goddess of the hunt and wild nature) and the stamp bears the value indication €10.30 for packages up to and including 10 kg within Luxembourg.

And the Portuguese stamp, depicting Poseidon (God of the sea) with the value of €9.90, can be used, among other things, for mail up to 500 grams with international destinations.

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