40th Anniversary of PostBeeld

Philately

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Freestampmagazine

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July 3, 2023

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At the end of June PostBeeld owners Rob Smit and Caroline Groenhof and current staff celebrated the 40th anniversary of the founding of the company and the opening of the first PostBeeld shop in Haarlem.

In 1996 Rob had the foresight to place the company’s website on the Internet. In 2016, Rob posted an interesting article on the company’s postzegelblog.nl website outlining part of the company’s history to that date. Here’s the English version of that article:

“At the time, this was not as obvious as it may seem. Very few small businesses had a website, let alone a webshop. Even for large companies, the website was often no more than a business card and even domain names of their own brand name were not always registered. See the example below for klm.com in 1997. Google did not yet exist. To find something on the internet, Altavista or Askjeeves worked best.”

"In 1995 I had already thought, considering the possibilities of that new medium, that the future of PostBeeld would lie on the internet. I had always been interested in new technology myself. When the first Texas Instruments programmable calculators came on the market in the 1970s, I immediately bought one. In 1979, when I was 18 and in higher education, I bought my first computer - a Tandy TRS-80 with 16k memory!

Despite the fact that Tandy then had shops all over the Netherlands, there were only two places where you could buy computers. Eindhoven was too far, so I went to Amsterdam with my mother. There was a choice between a model with 4k or 16k memory, a difference of about 300 guilders (then the currency in The Netherlands) in price, but I still went home with the 16k model (at a cost of something like 2300 guilders) and immediately bought a dot matrix printer for 1200 guilders. It was a lot of money that I had earned trading stamps. Of course I could also have bought a collection of stamps for it, but I felt that this purchase was wise.

In retrospect, it was indeed one of the best investments I've ever made. At school I did learn some programming in Basic, but having my own computer at home gave me much more programming knowledge and, above all, a basic understanding of how computers work and what you can do with them. As mentioned, I was at that time trading stamps and quickly built a stamp database. I wrote down the numbers of what I bought and sold. In the evening I sat down at the PC, retrieved the database via a cassette player from a cassette tape, typed in the changes and wrote it back to cassette tape. I always had an overview of what I had and of how much I had sold each stamp."

"In 1983 I opened my shop in Haarlem. The TRS-80 was already hopelessly outdated by then, so a computer with a built-in hard disk and floppy drive was put on the counter, followed in early 1984 by a second in the office, connected to each other via a real network. The TRS-80 still had its own programming language and could not communicate with other computers. In the meantime there was MS-Dos, which made it possible to exchange data between different computers. In 1984 I started building a new database with descriptions in English, the basis of which is still used for our internet site today.

When the internet came into the picture in 1994/1995 I had a shop in Haarlem and a shop in Hoofddorp. The PCs in both stores exchanged changes in stock every evening, so that even then it was always possible to see what was in each shop. We also printed stock lists per country or theme at the request of customers and sent them to collectors in the Netherlands, Belgium, Germany and Switzerland, where we also advertised. The customer could then order from the stock lists, which we naturally processed via the computer. In fact, the database and the working method were already in place for an online store. In 1995 I decided to close my shop in Hoofddorp and to sell via the internet from the Haarlem store.

As mentioned, the database was already there and an internet site was quickly built. No shopping cart yet, no images yet, but a choice of tens of thousands of items that could be found quickly through search options by country, theme, year or price. That was absolutely unique at the time, especially in this industry. The euphoria in the company was therefore great when it started to take off and we even soon received an order from Argentina. As a small local stamp shop, we were now able to help customers all over the world. Internet was great!

A lot of time was invested by me and my employees in further website development and construction. A shopping cart was soon added to the website which made shopping even easier, in 1997 we started adding images. The website was made in several languages. Then in 2002 we introduced Freestampcatalogue.

The rest of the story has actually been visible to everyone thanks to the internet and is still visible via the WaybackMachine (https://web.archive.org/). Below is an overview of what the front page has looked like over the years."

"In the past 20 years we have had considerable ups and downs in development. In most cases it came down to us having lots of ideas, but finding it difficult to realise them, or with major delays or problems. Our current website runs on a tailor-made Magento system in combination with a back office system that runs on Expression Engine. This combination has already caused many headaches, and we even ran into serious problems last year (2015) when our developer dropped out because the PostBeeld project was seen as too complex and extensive for the company. We now have a developer who spends most of his time working with PostBeeld, which means that we can now apply our new ideas. This is necessary because we still have many plans for further development."

Titanic Postal Workers

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Freestampmagazine

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June 28, 2023

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On 15 April 1912, the RMS Titanic struck an iceberg in the Atlantic Ocean and sank within three hours, with the loss of more than 1,500 lives. Recent events, with the tragic loss of life of those in the OceanGate Expeditions’ “Titan” submersible vehicle whilst attempting to visit the site of the wreck of the Titanic has once more brought the ship into the news. There have been many articles and books written on the subject of the Titanic and its sinking and in 1997 the very successful film “Titanic” was released.

What is not often discussed is the operation of the postal service that existed on the ship. The RMS in the ship’s title stood for Royal Mail Steamer, indicating that the Titanic was contracted to carry mail. Later RMS would become Royal Mail Ship. The Titanic had a Post Office and Mail Room, complete with five workers, deep in the ship. The postal staff’s function was to sort most of the mail which had been brought on board the ship – 3,364 bags in total – and to deal with any letters which were posted on the ship by passengers and crew. The postal workers, British citizens James Williamson and Jago Smith and US citizens William Gwinn, John March and Oscar Woody, were celebrating Woody’s 44th birthday when the ship struck the iceberg. However, they soon realised that the Mail Room was flooding and so attempted to move 200 sacks of registered mail to the upper decks in the hope of saving them. They even forced several stewards to help them, as a survivor later recalled:

“I urged them to leave their work. They shook their heads and continued working. It might have been an inrush of water later that cut off their escape, or it may have been the explosion. I saw them no more.“

Above is the cover of a stamp booklet that contained four of the 65p stamps seen below on the Guernsey/Alderney 2012 issue.

And the Alderney stamps above show: 36p – Leaving Southampton; 47p – Sailing past Alderney; 48p – The grand staircase; 52p – Orchestra plays final tune; 61p – Captain Edward J. Smith; and 65p – Lifeboats leaving the ship.

In 2012 Hungary’s Magyar Posta issued a special embossed stamp sheet in commemoration of the Titanic and the Hungarian Dr. Árpád Lengyel, surgeon of the British steamship RMS Carpathia, the first ship to arrive to help the survivors of the disaster. The sheet shows the Titanic moving towards the iceberg, and parts of the ship are shown within the perforations. In the top right-hand corner of the sheet is a portrait of Dr. Árpád Lengyel with the Carpathia in the background.

The 2012 stamp sheet from the Isle of Man features artwork, actual photographs and memorabilia. Captain Edward John Smith’s portrait can be seen on the 68p stamp.

And to commemorate the centenary of the Titanic disaster the Central African Republic issued two stamp sheets featuring children who survived the sinking of the ship. The English child holding the doll is Eva Hart (1905-1996) with two American girls below and right, Dorothy Gibson and Ruth Elizabeth Becker.

The young boys on the 2700F stamp are Michel ‘Lolo’ and Edmond Navratil (follow this link for the children’s fascinating story https://cherbourg-titanic.com/en/2011/12/les-enfants-navratil-les-orphelins-du-titanic/#:~:text=Michel%20Navratil%20and%20his%20two,children%20into%20a%20life%20raft). The background artwork on the sheet shows part of the interior of one of the ship’s First Class cabins, a cherubin from the main staircase and the ship’s helm. The helm’s full inscription reads “Brown’s Patent Telemotor Rosebank Ironworks Edinburgh”. In the 1870s Andrew Betts Brown invented and patented the “Telemotor”, an innovative mechanism which allowed for the removal of the dozens of complex gears and chains that had previously clogged up space on steamships between the wheelhouse and engine room. Using hydraulic technology, the steam valves of the rudder engines could be connected to the main wheel in the wheelhouse. On massive ships such as the Titanic, where the wheelhouse was situated hundreds of feet away from the engine room, as seen in the diagram below, the telemotor was a crucial piece of kit.

Great Navigators

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Freestampmagazine

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June 20, 2023

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The Spaniard Juan Sebastián de Elcano and the Portuguese Ferdinand Magellan were navigators and explorers who jointly sailed under the flag of both Portugal and Spain. Magellan organised an expedition to the East Indies from 1519 to 1522, which resulted in the first circumnavigation of the Earth, completed by Juan Sebastian Elcano, who took over the command of the last remaining ship of the five that had set out on the expedition after Magellan was killed in the Philippines in an attack on a native settlement. The aim of the expedition was to sail west and find a route around southern America to reach the Spice Islands. The fleet discovered what is now the Strait of Magellan and, enduring much hardship, was the first to cross the Pacific Ocean. Reaching the Moluccas in late 1521, Elcano’s ship – the Victoria – sailed across the Indian Ocean and finally reached the Atlantic. Although the ship arrived laden with spices, the expedition’s original crew of 285 had been reduced to 18 undernourished and weakened seamen. Correios de Portugal, S.A., the Portuguese company that operates the national postal service of Portugal in 2022 produced stamps and the stamp sheet shown here to commemorate the achievement.

Stamps Recently Added to Stock

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Freestampmagazine

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June 16, 2023

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Here we have a very small selection of stamps recently added to PostBeeld’s vast stock. Please visit PostBeeld’s website for a more comprehensive view of newly-added items.

In 1906 Mauritania, at that time a French Colony, issued its first postage stamps. Above we have a set of ‘Postage Due’ stamps from 1906. The same designs were often used for other French Colonies, as seen below on the Senegal stamps also from 1906.

The design of the Mauritania definitive set seen here, depicting natives crossing part of the Sahara Desert, was used from 1913 until 1938.

Mauritania gained independence from France in 1960 and celebrated the fact with its first stamp issues on January 20, 1960.

And this beautiful definitive set from 1960 features traditional activities and animals native to Mauritania.

A lovely trio of bird airmail stamps from Mauritania (1967) featuring (left to right) a Black Crowned Crane, a Great Egret and an Ostrich.

I particularly like the design of the 1929 Switzerland airmail stamps seen above.

The Basel Dove, as seen on the stamp above, was issued by the Swiss canton of Basel on July 1st 1845, with a value of 2½-Rappen. It was the first tricolour stamp in the world and the only postage stamp issued by Basel. At the time each canton was responsible for its own postal service. There were no uniform postal rates for Switzerland until the establishment of a countrywide postal service on January 1st 1849. The Zurich and Geneva were the only other cantons to issue their own stamps. The stamp, designed by the architect Melchior Berri (1801-1854), featured an embossed dove carrying a letter in its beak, with the inscription “STADT – POST – BASEL”. The stamp is printed in black, crimson and blue, making it the world’s first tri-coloured stamp. It was valid for use until September 1854, by which time 41,480 stamps had been printed.

The central design of the stamp sheet produced in 1945 to commemorate the 100th anniversary of the “Basel Dove”features two 10c denomination Swiss stamps with the embossed Basel Dove. The inscriptions read “Pro Juventute” (“For the Children” in Latin), and ”Centenary of the Basel Dove” in German, French, and Italian.

One for the Disney collectors. Issued by Guyana in December 1991 for the Albertville, Canada 1992 Winter Olympics.

Flora stamps from Moldova in 2008 feature, from left to right, the May lily (Maianthemum bifolium), liverwort (Hepatica nobilis) and the white waterlily (Nymphaea alba).

An earlier fauna issue from Moldova (1996) shows, on the 0.09Leu the common moorhen (Gallinula chloropus); 0.10L a grey goose (Anser anser); 2.20L turtle dove (Streptopelia turtur); and the wild duck (Anas platyrhynchos).

Fine butterfly and moth stamps from Morocco 2019.

And above a joint issue Mexico/Colombia (2018) and below another, Mexico/Canada (1995), featuring native fauna.

And lastly, a very fine definitive set from Seychelles issued in 1969, depicting scenes and characters from the islands’ history.

Isle of Man 2023 – a Special Year

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Freestampmagazine

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May 30, 2023

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This set of four stamps feature the Isle of Man’s renowned ‘three legs’ triskelion, one of the oldest continually-used national symbols in the world. The ‘three legs of Man’ symbol can be seen everywhere on the Island, on historical buildings, coins and banknotes and commercial company branding. This is the first Isle of Man stamp issue to feature the monogram of King Charles III, Lord of Mann. The Sovereign’s monogram, consisting of the initials of the monarch’s name, Charles, and title, Rex – Latin for King, is shown beneath a representation of the Crown.

The stamp booklet above commemorates a century of Manx racing on the Isle of Man Mountain Course. The stamps were created in collaboration with author David Wright and local graphic designer and illustrator Tracey Dean. The Manx Grand Prix, or MGP, as it is now known, was originally a single race named the Amateur Motorcycle Championship aimed at amateur riders, as opposed to the mostly professional riders who competed in the Tourist Trophy (TT) races on the same world-famous 37¾-mile Isle of Man Mountain Course.

Waterfalls are the subject of this 2023 issue. These stamps feature, in order of value high to low, the spectacle of the long narrow ribbon of the Rhenass Falls; Glen Maye; in a secluded inland location on the west coast is the Spooyt Vane (White Spout), the highest waterfall on the Island, at around 50 metres (164 feet); the Inneen Vooar (the Big Girl) is one of the highest falls on the Island at over 40 metres (130 feet); the Laxey Quarry Falls and on the Island’s east coast Ballaglass Glen.

The six stamps above showcase the works of Isle of Man-based artist Michele Tramontana. A key member of the Manx art scene, Michele has lived on the Island for over 50 years. The top row of 80p stamps featuring the artist’s watercolour paintings are entitled Still Waiting, Sun Setting Peel and Douglas Harbour. Below, left to right are Low-tide Castletown, Ramsey Upper Harbour and Sun Setting Port Erin.

Alderney – Jules Verne Story Commemorated

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May 23, 2023

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Around the World in Eighty Days is a travel adventure novel by French author Jules Verne (1828-1905), that was published in book form in 1873. Jules Verne is often referred to as being the father of science fiction – his books are full of descriptions of incredible technological advances, many of which have come to fruition since he wrote about them in the 19th Century. He made his mark beyond the world of literature and film, inspiring generation of inventors, explorers and scientists. In 1954 the United States Navy launched the world’s first nuclear-powered submarine, Nautilus, named after the underwater craft featured Verne’s novel “20,000 Leagues Under the Sea”. For over a century, adventurers have followed in the footsteps of Verne’s fictional hero Phileas Fogg by attempting to circumnavigate the globe in record-breaking times.

To celebrate the 150th anniversary of the publication of Around the World in 80 Days, which is possibly the most popular of his “Voyages Extraordinaires” series of novels, the British Channel Island’s Guernsey Post has issued the Alderney stamp set seen here. Alderney stamps are released annually as commemorative issues, backed up by a definitive set every decade. The stamps are produced by Guernsey’s Postal Administration and are updated when new values are required.

The stamps were illustrated by Keith Robinson, who has depicted some of the key events from main character Phileas Fogg’s globe-trotting adventure with his French manservant, Passepartout.

Verne was a true visionary, as we are reminded in Around the World in 80 Days, where he wrote that “Anything one man can imagine, other men can make real.”

Barbados, Commemorating London 1980

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Freestampmagazine

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May 16, 2023

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Barbados produced two fine and quite unique stamp minisheets for the 1980 International Stamp Exhibition held in London. As seen above, the 50 cent stamps show the uniforms that were, in 1980, the outfits worn by postwomen and postal inspectors. The 28c stamps feature a postman in uniform from earlier times.

But why the various shades of colour on the stamps? Well, the sheets were designed specifically to highlight the printing process being used to create the stamps and in this case, it was the layering of five colours to make a final, sixth, full-colour stamp. The margins also featured attractive illustrations of important objects associated with the postal service at that time.

Black Heritage – Part 16

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Freestampmagazine

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May 9, 2023

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Our last Black Heritage series article brought us up to the year 2019. Now we’ve reached 2023 and the 46th stamp in the series issued by America’s United States Postal Service. So we begin with 2020’s stamp that featured Gwen Ifill (1955-2016), an American journalist, television newscaster, and author. In 1999, she became the first African-American woman to host a nationally televised U.S. public affairs programme, “Washington Week in Review”.

August Wilson (1945-2005) was an American playwright. He has been referred to as the “theatre’s poet of Black America”. He is best known for a series of ten plays, collectively called The Pittsburgh Cycle, which chronicle the experiences and heritage of the African-American community in the 20th century. He won Pulitzer Prizes for two of the Pittsburgh Cycle plays – “Fences” and “The Piano lesson”.

*USA 2022*. Photo of stamp courtesy of USPS

Edmonia Lewis (1844-1907) was the first African-American and Native American sculptor to achieve national and then international prominence. Her work is known for incorporating themes relating to Black people and indigenous peoples of the Americas into Neoclassical-style sculpture.

So we arrive at 2023’s stamp that commemorates Ernest James Gaines (1933–2019), an American author whose works have been translated into many languages, including Chinese, Spanish, German, Russian and French. Four of his works were made into television films. Gaines’ eighth novel “A Lesson Before Dying”, published in 1993, was nominated for the Pulitzer Prize and won America’s National Book Critics Circle Award. The novel is based on the true story of Willie Francis, a young Black American man best known for surviving a failed electrocution in the state of Louisiana in 1946.

Recently Added Stamps

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April 25, 2023

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This set of five charity stamps shown above were issued by Italy in 1935 to benefit and commemorate the work of Benito Mussolini’s Fascist National Militia. The 20+10 cent stamp shows volunteer militia members round a ceremonial fire; 25+15c has a standard bearer; 50+30c depicts a guard at a monument; 1.25 Lire+75c features militiamen marching through the Arch of Constantine in Rome; and the 50+50c has a symbol of the air force.

The four stamps seen here were produced by Italy in 1935 to promote the international Air Show, the first of its type to be held in Italy. Portraits of Leonardo da Vinci, who centuries earlier had come up with designs for flying machines, feature on the 50 Cent and 1.25 Lire stamps.

From Suriname in 2022 we have six stamps with “Wayang” puppets. Wayang is an Indonesian traditional form of puppet theatre. Also from Suriname below are two more stamps from 2022. Rembrandt paintings are the subject, the top stamp is “The stoning of Saint Stephen” adjoined by a historical stamp whose subject is disputed by art historians.

The 45th anniversary of the death of Elvis Presley was commemorated in 2022 by St. Vincent & The Grenadines with the above stamp sheet.

The most-travelled Pope in history is Pope John Paul II. In 1989 Tanzania issued 12 stamps featuring scenes from his South America, Austria and Africa trips.

Paraguay also issued this stamp to commemorate the 1985 South America visit.

This Vatican City six-stamp set was issued to commemorate Pope John Paul II’s 1995 travels, when he visited the Philippines, Papua New Guinea, Australia, Sri Lanka, the Czech Republic, Poland, Belgium, Slovakia, Cameroon, South Africa, Kenya and the United States.

The Faroe Islands experienced a solar eclipse on March the 20th 2015 – a special event as the previous eclipse seen there was in June 1954. Posta Faroe Islands produced the stamps on the sheet above for the occasion.

Above is a lovely stamp sheet produced by Finland in 1999. The theme is summer night birds and features: Thrush Nightingale (Luscinia luscinia); Käki, the common cuckoo (Cuculus canorus); European Nightjar (Caprimulgus europaeus); Corn Crake (Crex crex) and the Eurasian Bittern or Great Bittern (Botaurus stellaris).

The Åland Islands commemorated the 75th anniversary of the Islands’ autonomy in 1988. This stamp sheet features the sculpture “Havets Folk” (People of the Sea). The statue is situated in Mariehamn, the Islands’ capital and site of the Government and Parliament of Åland.

Fine ship stamps from Åland, issued in 1988. They show, left to right: the ketch “Albanus”, the schooner “Ingrid” and the barque Pamir (the last commercial sailing ship to round Cape Horn, in 1949)

Two mini-sheets from Romania 1994, the top four stamps show edible fungi and below are four poisonous varieties.

PostBeeld adds hundreds of new stamps to its stock daily and stamps seen here represent a very small selection of items from each country. To see more, and to see recently-added stamps from other countries worldwide, I recommend frequent visits to our freestampcatalogue.com website.

Made in Finland

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Freestampmagazine

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March 28, 2023

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Today we highlight Finnish innovations depicted on stamps over the last 30 years. This “Made in Finland” stamp sheet contains six domestic no-value indicator stamps that showcase many Finnish innovations that were born out of a need to make daily life easier. The stamps showcase six Finnish items that are now famous internationally: the heart rate monitor, the sugar substitute xylitol, the Rapala wobbler fishing lure, the Abloy lock, the pedestrian safety reflector and the winter tyre introduced into the market in 1934 by Suomen Gummitehdas Osakeyhtiö, the company that later on became Nokian Tyres.

These 1998 stamps feature, from top left; garden cutters designed by Olavi Linden; Zoel/Versoul guitars – Kari Nieminen’s “Versoul” guitars have been played by the likes of Billy Gibbons from ZZ Top, Ronnie Wood from the Rolling Stones and Pete Townsend from The Who. Kari Nieminen launched the Finnish guitar company Versoul in 1995 with just two acoustic models. He now offers more than 50 different models, including electric guitars; Ergo II/Silenta hearing protectors; a Ponsse Cobra HS 10 tree harvester; a Suunto Compass; and Exel ski poles – Exel was the first company to introduce carbon technology to the ski pole industry. The breakthrough took place in 1976 at the Innsbruck Winter Olympics, where 100% of top skiers used Exel carbon poles.

Two stamps from 1994 featuring successful Finnish industries. The 2,30 stamp features wood processing – the production of a wide range of products from planks to pulp and paper, a major sector of industry in Finland; an important discovery by Artturi Ilmari Virtanen (1895-1973) who in 1945 became a Nobel Prize laureate in chemistry for his research and inventions in agricultural and nutrition chemistry; Assa Abloy – a global leader in the manufacture of locks and locking systems; Finland was also once famous as a builder of ice-breakers, vessels needed by Finland’s ports every winter to clear shipping lanes through the sea ice seen here is the ice breaker MS Fennica. The stamp on the right features a Vaisala radiosonde – an electronic device that is used to measure meteorological variables in the atmosphere; the Rapala fishing lure; the mobile phone developed in the late ’70s by Nokia and television manufacturer Salora – in the 1980s Salora was incorporated into Nokia and as an indication of the progress made by the late ’80s, Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev was famously pictured using the latest handheld Nokia mobile phone to contact the Kremlin while on a visit to Helsinki in 1987; top right of the stamp is a wind power plant.