Second episode. I hope you like it. 

We learned from a previous post Jerusalem is under siege that from December 1947, Jewish Jerusalemwas under a de-facto siege. At this time there were about 100,000 Jews and about 65,000 Arabs living in Jerusalem, but the vast majority of those Arabs lived in the old city. (Jerusalem is the small red blob on the middle right edge of the stamp).

Transportation to the city from the Jewish area was limited to the only road in existence, and that road was under constant attack. Supplies were in short supply.

The British had enough problems. They had had enough. It was just three short years after the end of World War II; India had their independence and they were already out of there and the Palestine mandate was drawing to an end, so why would they want to get involved and help Jews; despite their requirement under the mandate.

The British had announced that they were closing down their postal services in Jerusalem as of May 5th. However on April 20th, Arabs ambushed a huge 350-strong vehicle convoy on its way to Jerusalem. Many soldiers and passengers were killed. What was the British answer? To close the postal services! As of April 25th there were no more postal services to and from Jerusalem.

Now from other posts in this blog we know that the Jewish community created their own postal system. Read here. This was supposed to take effect as of May 2nd. Houston we have a problem, there is no way to get the stamps to Jerusalem, the roads are closed!

There was heavy fighting between Arabs and Jews in Jerusalem and it wasn't exactly safe to get to a post office anyway. May 8th the Jewish forces seemed to overcome the Arab forces in the Jerusalem area and a semblance of peace evolved. So what do we do now? Let's call our family and let them know. Problem is that this is 1948 and there were very few phone lines and the only method was writing.

Now there is a new problem, they had no stamps as supplies were not coming through. There were also no JNF stamps on hand to use and overprint. So what were they to do?

You know the Partition Plan JNF labels? Well the printer of those stamps, Haoman Press, still had the printing plates. Problem solved, let us add the word Postage and the face value of the stamp. OK then, they decided to issue three values, a 5mil for the printed letter rate, a 10mil for the regular rate and 25 mil for registered.

So Haoman Press printed the stamps and to speed up the process, they had Lipshitz Press add the overprint. This went on sale on May 9th. Amazing, from idea to store within 24 hours! Looks like they really wanted to send mail.

There were long queues of people who wanted to buy these stamps, many of them as souvenirs, and supplies ran out within a few hours. But as it turns out, Haomnan was still printing sheets, but this time they were adding the overprints themselves, in the same process. However they added the overprints in a different way. In the first issue, the word Postage was added at the top and in this issue, they were added at the bottom. This issue was put on sale on May 10th. Collectors know these as First Issue and Second Issue, I wonder why.

May 14th Israeli statehood was declared and on May 16th the Doar Ivri stamps went on sale, except in Jerusalem. A war? A siege? Both.

Pressure was on to open the main post office in Jerusalem and because they were running out of the 5mil stamp, they ordered a reprint. The post office was opened on May 21st and the new overprints were delivered on May 24th. Problem was that the 5 of the 5mils was slightly different. So what name do we give this issue? Third Issue, right? Actually the also became known as Jerusalem Locals I, II and III to differentiate them from the Palestine Mandate overprints.

The history of Jerusalem is always exciting, but the study of stamps in the framework of the struggle makes it more enjoyable.

This is my first attempt. I hope you like it.

 

Today I have another surprise for you. Another very good friend has volunteered to write something for us. So thank you Jean Wang for joining us.

For collectors of medical philately, the pandemic has provided lots of fodder, with so far over 100 official stamp issues, slogan machine cancels and meter marks, pictorial postmarks and postal stationery, among others. The stamp issues have covered a wide variety of pandemic-related themes, including thanking essential workers, promoting public health measures, spreading messages of solidarity and support, and more recently promoting vaccination. Among these, two issues from Austria stand out: a semi-postal souvenir sheet issued in October 2020 and a stamp issued in September 2021.

Both of these COVID-19 issues are made of unusual material, something for which Austria Post has developed a reputation. They have previously issued stamps made of porcelain, leather, glass, fabric, plastic, wood, and an aluminum plastic composite (ski tip), as well as stamps with crystals, seeds, pearls, or rock dust affixed.

Austria toilet paper souvenir sheet

Their first COVID-19 stamp issue, a souvenir sheet titled “Distance that brings us together”, promotes social distancing and depicts a baby elephant (printed in silver foil) as a way to help people judge a distance of 1 meter. To provide perspective, the sheet also illustrates a small insect (1 mm), a fly (1 cm), and a mouse (1 dm - a decimeter is 10cm) (note – objects are not to scale!). Why a baby elephant, you ask? During the first wave of the pandemic, Austria encouraged (and later legally required) people to stay ‘a baby elephant apart’. This symbol of social responsibility was quite popular – in fact, ‘baby elephant’ (or ‘Babyelefant’ as it is commonly written in German) was named Austria’s word of the year for 2020.

What makes the souvenir sheet truly unique, however – and a mandatory item for collectors of unusual stamps – is the material on which it is printed. Austria Post has a somewhat irreverent sense of humor (see, for example, their Brexit stamp on the left, which poked fun at the delayed withdrawal of the UK from the European Union). As a nod to the panic buying of toilet paper that occurred at the beginning of the pandemic by people worried about the impact of lockdowns on their personal hygiene, this souvenir sheet is printed on actual 3-ply toilet paper. The postal agency teamed up with a toilet paper manufacturer to plan and test the production process over many months. To overcome the obvious problems of the material’s fragility and its assured destruction upon getting wet, a self-adhesive film was laminated onto the back; just peel and stick, no licking necessary. 

Some religious people say to you, "May the Lord be with you" or "Go with God", which is pretty nice but if you are a Star Wars fan, you probably say "May the Schwartz be with you". But this is a blog about philately and so we will leave the Force and the Schwartz alone.

Some of us who collect prephilately, whether it is our main topic or just because it fills our thematic collection, have often noticed some letters or abbreviations on mail, often on maritime mail. It is bad enough trying to decipher the address itself but then you get letters that you scratch your head wondering what they are.