Discussion - Member to Member Sales - Research Center
Discussion - Member to Member Sales - Research Center
The first says (at left) "Self-governing Republic", (at foot) "Ribbentrop-Molotov Pact", and (at top) "Solidarity Mail". "Wrzesien" is "September" in the second stamp, and the words at the foot of the last stamp read "The fourth Polish partition" (the other three being back in the 18th century).
These certainly don't look right for a contemporaneous issue. My guess (based on the word "Solidarnosc" and maybe the graphic style) is that they were issued around 1980, but does anyone know for sure?
The reverse looks like this:
...which looks just foxed enough to rule out a modern reprint.
All information gladly received!
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Thanks for that link, Nelson. For those who are interested, it takes me to the Open Society Archives at the Central European University in Budapest. I quote from their website:
"The CEU Library has a comprehensive on-site and digital collections in the social sciences and humanities. The library contains more than 255,000 documents in various formats and includes access to a range of academic databases.[13]
The Open Society Archives at CEU (OSA) is a Cold War research facility, holding over 7,500 linear meters of material, 11,000 hours of audiovisual recordings and 12 terabytes of data[14] related to communist-era political, social, economic and cultural life. OSA’s collection includes an extensive archive of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty transcripts and reports, along with a large collection of underground samizdat literature and materials from Central and Eastern Europe under communism. The archive also houses a growing collection of documents and audiovisual materials on international human rights and war crimes."
However, as far as identification goes, the people at OSA have got very little further than I did in my original query. They put the 'stamps' at mid-1980s; they further say that there is a sheet of six, with the three I show duplicated beneath. However, their illustration belies this, and is arguably (have a look and see if you agree) a paste-up of each individual stamp cut and pasted side by side, then repeated underneath.
OSA state that their source for these labels is the "Records of the Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty Research Institute: Polish Underground Publications Unit: Printed Ephemera." Alas, my efforts to access such a Research Institute online drew a blank.
Anyway, there we go - I do like the illustrations on these 'stamps', and I assume they were produced in the Lech Walesa era as a piece of anti-Jaruzelski agitprop. Why, I even recall sporting a Solidarnosc lapel badge myself in those far-off days!
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Guthrum
I wonder if there are any other somewhat similar labels illustrating other periods of Polish history issued at about the same time ?
The general aura around the issue makes it look like it should be part of the telling of a story - pehaps a subsequent issue bemoaning the loss of Poland's Eastern lands to the USSR at the end of WW2, and some others from earlier episodes in Poland's troubled history.
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Here is an item I've recently bought: three 'stamps' commemorating the partition of Poland in September 1939.
The first says (at left) "Self-governing Republic", (at foot) "Ribbentrop-Molotov Pact", and (at top) "Solidarity Mail". "Wrzesien" is "September" in the second stamp, and the words at the foot of the last stamp read "The fourth Polish partition" (the other three being back in the 18th century).
These certainly don't look right for a contemporaneous issue. My guess (based on the word "Solidarnosc" and maybe the graphic style) is that they were issued around 1980, but does anyone know for sure?
The reverse looks like this:
...which looks just foxed enough to rule out a modern reprint.
All information gladly received!
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re: Polish commemorative label
Thanks for that link, Nelson. For those who are interested, it takes me to the Open Society Archives at the Central European University in Budapest. I quote from their website:
"The CEU Library has a comprehensive on-site and digital collections in the social sciences and humanities. The library contains more than 255,000 documents in various formats and includes access to a range of academic databases.[13]
The Open Society Archives at CEU (OSA) is a Cold War research facility, holding over 7,500 linear meters of material, 11,000 hours of audiovisual recordings and 12 terabytes of data[14] related to communist-era political, social, economic and cultural life. OSA’s collection includes an extensive archive of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty transcripts and reports, along with a large collection of underground samizdat literature and materials from Central and Eastern Europe under communism. The archive also houses a growing collection of documents and audiovisual materials on international human rights and war crimes."
However, as far as identification goes, the people at OSA have got very little further than I did in my original query. They put the 'stamps' at mid-1980s; they further say that there is a sheet of six, with the three I show duplicated beneath. However, their illustration belies this, and is arguably (have a look and see if you agree) a paste-up of each individual stamp cut and pasted side by side, then repeated underneath.
OSA state that their source for these labels is the "Records of the Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty Research Institute: Polish Underground Publications Unit: Printed Ephemera." Alas, my efforts to access such a Research Institute online drew a blank.
Anyway, there we go - I do like the illustrations on these 'stamps', and I assume they were produced in the Lech Walesa era as a piece of anti-Jaruzelski agitprop. Why, I even recall sporting a Solidarnosc lapel badge myself in those far-off days!
Login to Like
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01:18:48pm
re: Polish commemorative label
Guthrum
I wonder if there are any other somewhat similar labels illustrating other periods of Polish history issued at about the same time ?
The general aura around the issue makes it look like it should be part of the telling of a story - pehaps a subsequent issue bemoaning the loss of Poland's Eastern lands to the USSR at the end of WW2, and some others from earlier episodes in Poland's troubled history.
Login to Like
this post