Discussion - Member to Member Sales - Research Center
Discussion - Member to Member Sales - Research Center
This morning an interesting book arrived in the post - The Landscape of Stalinism - a rarity in that one of its chapters was devoted to a study of the postage stamp. Here is what the cultural historian Evgeny Dobrenko had to say in 2003:
"
Stamps are of interest mostly to collectors, rather rarely to art critics, and almost never to cultural historians. But of all the visual images displayed by a culture, the stamp is the most democratic and accessible. Everyone uses the mail: workers, farmers, art critics, janitors, schoolchildren, professors... "
So, he goes on to argue, the postage stamp was an ideal vehicle for national propaganda.
But is it still, a dozen years later? In the UK the postage stamp at the Post Office has been superseded by the label (unless specifically declined), and the pictorial or commemorative stamp entirely by the definitive on sale at multiple outlets. The UK still issues what it calls 'special stamps', of course, but they are not democratic and not accessible. They are no longer really for sending letters. No-one, Professor Dobrenko, now uses the mail, in quite the way that you implied in 2003.
So what do stamps tell us today? Very little, I'd suggest. Pictorial stamps still 'depict their country', depending on what country that is, but they are produced for the massive profits they make from collectors. We (collectors) are the consumers of their propaganda, which rather defeats the point, does it not?
What do you think?
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We still use stamps here in the US, albeit "Forever" stamps. Stamps here are (with rare exception) no longer about celebrating our country but about getting the attention of the public including the collecting public. Popular or trendy is the byword such as Harry Potter. Popular television chefs and farmers markets (with ridiculously priced bread). Instead of the stamps holding up a mirror to what we think of as great about our country, they are a now a billboard of popular and trendy subjects.
The further advent of the "Forever" stamp was a gimmick to get people to buy lots of stamps because they would never decrease in relative value to the cost of mailing a first class letter.
So . . . all in all, this is a legitimate reflection of an aspect of the United States of America. Sell, sell sell. Use sales gimmicks and tie in to popular culture.
But it is not at all a reflection of what is great about our country.
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12:06:37am
To some extent I agree that stamps may not reflect what is great about a country. But I pause at that point and suggest that they do reflect a good deal about the country, its habits, its culture and its people.
In a nearby assemblage of world wide kilo-ware I have lined up a dozen or so stamps from Norway next to a similar number from Australia. Additional lines were placed almost parallel, at random from the UK, the US, Mexico (Only six), Japan and France.
I see widely different styles and here are my impressions.
Norway Cold, staid, careful
Australia. Healthy youthful active
UK, traditional, historic
US, Tangled
Mexico Relaxed
Japan Scenic
France.Artsy, crafty,
Russia wound too tight
Denmark free, relaxed
How much my impressions are influenced by experiences from travels and literature is hard to judge. However each line of stamps seems to me to have a personality and I interpret that to be a reflection of the nations culture.
I'd love to be able to perform the same experiment with the countries name shielded.
I bet that were the kilo-ware "incognito" I could still sort 1,000 stamps into national groups pretty accurately. I wonder how such a sort would develop if done by someone completely unaware of stamping?
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Should I be taking notes?
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I agree, cdj, that it is sometimes possible to detect a 'national style' in postage stamps, especially if you choose a certain era. But perhaps you (and Zipper!) would also distinguish a 'national message' which a country deliberately wants to send either to its own people or to other countries.
My collection of British Commonwealth stamps of the 1950s presents a view of our colonies as unspoilt, picturesque, and exotic. My Third Reich collection suggests a country keen on cars, architecture, and horse-racing (OK, maybe uniforms as well). Both are deliberately projecting a self-image which conceals as much as it reveals.
I think the point is that while such a self-image may in the 1930s and the 1950s have reached and possibly influenced its intended audience, that no longer happens. In the UK the stamp-issuing authorities are sending their self-advertisement into a void, however much they pretend that anyone outside the hobby cares about their 'special' stamps. There seems no point to any of it, except to make money.
However, postal historians with a sufficiently large collection of covers may tell us that not much has changed over time: ordinary people always used ordinary (definitive) stamps, and stamp collectors sent each other the pictorials (on 'philatelic' covers).
So, were postage stamps ever a genuine vehicle for national self-advertisement or propaganda?
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01:13:14pm
" ... So, were postage stamps ever a genuine vehicle for national self-advertisement or propaganda? ..."
I think so, but as you point out the question would have to be answered by someone who is neither a stamper nor an historian, and definitely not by a postal history buff.
Certainly these days, with all the electronic means of instant communication, the average person seems to be virtually oblivious as to whether or not a stamp is on incoming mail at all, never mind such niceties as a stamps subject or design.
(Micky Mouse issues excepted.)
On one hand, some countries seem to spend a lot of time and effort producing interesting stamps that I feel do represent some kind of self-advertising, even if only in their own estimation, and on the other hand, we have the USPS which often issues real junk stamps and goes to great lengths to create obstacles for people who wish to find interesting stamps to actually use.
I think that the word "ever" is the opening to an age where stamps were, such as the 1930s and '40s a vehicle for national advertisement. Was there not a war in South America caused by the map drawn on a stamp, Chile (???), Uruguay (???), or Bolivia (???).
Today the average American high school graduate might not notice if Canada's stamps showed Ontario extending to the Gulf of Mexico, assuming that they can even find the Gulf of Mexico in the first place.
The more I think about it, the more I think that there is no concrete all encompassing answer to that question and a simple 'yes', 'no', and 'perhaps' would have to suffice.
.
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I think the era of propaganda on stamps is over. Stamps were a valuable advertising commodity back in the days before TV and even radio or telephones. Back in the early 1900s the big fad was postcard collecting because they had colorized photos and people could collect national monuments and scenes of far away places. Hard to believe the world was so unsophisticated, but things we take for granted today were not invented yet.
Today it seems USPS issues stamps that they think the general public will buy. They are following revenue rather than their age old practice of only honoring important events and people on stamps.
And the general public today? Oblivious! A few years ago we took our Christmas cards to a town in PA that had the same name as our last name. The postal clerk hand cancelled them nicely for me. Do you know that not a single person we mailed these to even noticed?
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Thanks for those thoughtful replies, gentlemen, and of course I think you are right. It is interesting that you both have the same opinion of your country's present issuing policy as I have of mine - and rather a shame, though I guess we all collect earlier years when commercialism hadn't got so badly out of hand. I wonder if French or German collectors feel the same about their current stamps?
As a matter of interest, my choice for the stamp that best depicted my country was this one:
...which chimes nicely with cdj's impression of British stamps as 'historic'. It was part of a set with a 'museums' theme, but for me it had more to do with the beginnings of our history.
btw, the 'war' mentioned was Nicaragua-Honduras, and I found this interesting article about it:
http://bigthink.com/strange-maps/381-the-stamp-that-almost-caused-a-war
...although they illustrate the stamp in question with a pretty ropey specimen!
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Recently, on Another Website, we were invited to post a picture of "the stamp which best depicts your country" - no easy task for the thoughtful collector, especially from the UK. Is that what stamps are supposed to do, depict their country? Yes, I concluded, that has certainly been the case for the past 85 years or so, and perhaps still is for many countries. (Not the UK, of course - we disdained that sort of thing until the 1960s.)
This morning an interesting book arrived in the post - The Landscape of Stalinism - a rarity in that one of its chapters was devoted to a study of the postage stamp. Here is what the cultural historian Evgeny Dobrenko had to say in 2003:
"
Stamps are of interest mostly to collectors, rather rarely to art critics, and almost never to cultural historians. But of all the visual images displayed by a culture, the stamp is the most democratic and accessible. Everyone uses the mail: workers, farmers, art critics, janitors, schoolchildren, professors... "
So, he goes on to argue, the postage stamp was an ideal vehicle for national propaganda.
But is it still, a dozen years later? In the UK the postage stamp at the Post Office has been superseded by the label (unless specifically declined), and the pictorial or commemorative stamp entirely by the definitive on sale at multiple outlets. The UK still issues what it calls 'special stamps', of course, but they are not democratic and not accessible. They are no longer really for sending letters. No-one, Professor Dobrenko, now uses the mail, in quite the way that you implied in 2003.
So what do stamps tell us today? Very little, I'd suggest. Pictorial stamps still 'depict their country', depending on what country that is, but they are produced for the massive profits they make from collectors. We (collectors) are the consumers of their propaganda, which rather defeats the point, does it not?
What do you think?
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re: What Do Stamps Tell Us Today?
We still use stamps here in the US, albeit "Forever" stamps. Stamps here are (with rare exception) no longer about celebrating our country but about getting the attention of the public including the collecting public. Popular or trendy is the byword such as Harry Potter. Popular television chefs and farmers markets (with ridiculously priced bread). Instead of the stamps holding up a mirror to what we think of as great about our country, they are a now a billboard of popular and trendy subjects.
The further advent of the "Forever" stamp was a gimmick to get people to buy lots of stamps because they would never decrease in relative value to the cost of mailing a first class letter.
So . . . all in all, this is a legitimate reflection of an aspect of the United States of America. Sell, sell sell. Use sales gimmicks and tie in to popular culture.
But it is not at all a reflection of what is great about our country.
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Silence in the face of adversity is the father of complicity and collusion, the first cousins of conspiracy..
07 Mar 2015
12:06:37am
re: What Do Stamps Tell Us Today?
To some extent I agree that stamps may not reflect what is great about a country. But I pause at that point and suggest that they do reflect a good deal about the country, its habits, its culture and its people.
In a nearby assemblage of world wide kilo-ware I have lined up a dozen or so stamps from Norway next to a similar number from Australia. Additional lines were placed almost parallel, at random from the UK, the US, Mexico (Only six), Japan and France.
I see widely different styles and here are my impressions.
Norway Cold, staid, careful
Australia. Healthy youthful active
UK, traditional, historic
US, Tangled
Mexico Relaxed
Japan Scenic
France.Artsy, crafty,
Russia wound too tight
Denmark free, relaxed
How much my impressions are influenced by experiences from travels and literature is hard to judge. However each line of stamps seems to me to have a personality and I interpret that to be a reflection of the nations culture.
I'd love to be able to perform the same experiment with the countries name shielded.
I bet that were the kilo-ware "incognito" I could still sort 1,000 stamps into national groups pretty accurately. I wonder how such a sort would develop if done by someone completely unaware of stamping?
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Dogs are my favorite people. I hang with this one as often as I can.
07 Mar 2015
12:40:26am
re: What Do Stamps Tell Us Today?
Should I be taking notes?
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re: What Do Stamps Tell Us Today?
I agree, cdj, that it is sometimes possible to detect a 'national style' in postage stamps, especially if you choose a certain era. But perhaps you (and Zipper!) would also distinguish a 'national message' which a country deliberately wants to send either to its own people or to other countries.
My collection of British Commonwealth stamps of the 1950s presents a view of our colonies as unspoilt, picturesque, and exotic. My Third Reich collection suggests a country keen on cars, architecture, and horse-racing (OK, maybe uniforms as well). Both are deliberately projecting a self-image which conceals as much as it reveals.
I think the point is that while such a self-image may in the 1930s and the 1950s have reached and possibly influenced its intended audience, that no longer happens. In the UK the stamp-issuing authorities are sending their self-advertisement into a void, however much they pretend that anyone outside the hobby cares about their 'special' stamps. There seems no point to any of it, except to make money.
However, postal historians with a sufficiently large collection of covers may tell us that not much has changed over time: ordinary people always used ordinary (definitive) stamps, and stamp collectors sent each other the pictorials (on 'philatelic' covers).
So, were postage stamps ever a genuine vehicle for national self-advertisement or propaganda?
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Silence in the face of adversity is the father of complicity and collusion, the first cousins of conspiracy..
07 Mar 2015
01:13:14pm
re: What Do Stamps Tell Us Today?
" ... So, were postage stamps ever a genuine vehicle for national self-advertisement or propaganda? ..."
I think so, but as you point out the question would have to be answered by someone who is neither a stamper nor an historian, and definitely not by a postal history buff.
Certainly these days, with all the electronic means of instant communication, the average person seems to be virtually oblivious as to whether or not a stamp is on incoming mail at all, never mind such niceties as a stamps subject or design.
(Micky Mouse issues excepted.)
On one hand, some countries seem to spend a lot of time and effort producing interesting stamps that I feel do represent some kind of self-advertising, even if only in their own estimation, and on the other hand, we have the USPS which often issues real junk stamps and goes to great lengths to create obstacles for people who wish to find interesting stamps to actually use.
I think that the word "ever" is the opening to an age where stamps were, such as the 1930s and '40s a vehicle for national advertisement. Was there not a war in South America caused by the map drawn on a stamp, Chile (???), Uruguay (???), or Bolivia (???).
Today the average American high school graduate might not notice if Canada's stamps showed Ontario extending to the Gulf of Mexico, assuming that they can even find the Gulf of Mexico in the first place.
The more I think about it, the more I think that there is no concrete all encompassing answer to that question and a simple 'yes', 'no', and 'perhaps' would have to suffice.
.
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re: What Do Stamps Tell Us Today?
I think the era of propaganda on stamps is over. Stamps were a valuable advertising commodity back in the days before TV and even radio or telephones. Back in the early 1900s the big fad was postcard collecting because they had colorized photos and people could collect national monuments and scenes of far away places. Hard to believe the world was so unsophisticated, but things we take for granted today were not invented yet.
Today it seems USPS issues stamps that they think the general public will buy. They are following revenue rather than their age old practice of only honoring important events and people on stamps.
And the general public today? Oblivious! A few years ago we took our Christmas cards to a town in PA that had the same name as our last name. The postal clerk hand cancelled them nicely for me. Do you know that not a single person we mailed these to even noticed?
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re: What Do Stamps Tell Us Today?
Thanks for those thoughtful replies, gentlemen, and of course I think you are right. It is interesting that you both have the same opinion of your country's present issuing policy as I have of mine - and rather a shame, though I guess we all collect earlier years when commercialism hadn't got so badly out of hand. I wonder if French or German collectors feel the same about their current stamps?
As a matter of interest, my choice for the stamp that best depicted my country was this one:
...which chimes nicely with cdj's impression of British stamps as 'historic'. It was part of a set with a 'museums' theme, but for me it had more to do with the beginnings of our history.
btw, the 'war' mentioned was Nicaragua-Honduras, and I found this interesting article about it:
http://bigthink.com/strange-maps/381-the-stamp-that-almost-caused-a-war
...although they illustrate the stamp in question with a pretty ropey specimen!
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