Discussion - Member to Member Sales - Research Center
Discussion - Member to Member Sales - Research Center
I had started to collect Latin America some 5 years ago, as a new area of interest where many of the stamps were available at very low prices, and one could acquire cheap start up albums. I must say that going there was accidental, after working for many years on a Colonial Cuban collection (my wife was the one with interest in Cuba). Also, in addition to Cuba I was intereste in Haiti and in general French colonies in the Caribbean.
I started in alphabetically with Argentina for A followed by B for Brazil etc... and then became more interested in countries I had visited in the past..(which leaves now just a handful I have yet to organize)
Well for some countries I love the collections. For others, in particular smaller countries that issue too many stamps of poor esthetic quality, I am seriously questioning why, oh WHY? do I collect them.
I found some interesting challenges, apart from the very early and expensive stamps of a majority of countries. There are some recent challenges too, I wrote about the challenge of Mexico Exporta earlier this year, and in the past about Argentina Departmental Officials. Haiti overprints in the early 1900s also is quite a challenge.
I have decided to cap a large number of collections around the 70s or 80s when countries flooded the market with stamps. But I am still unsure about this whole area, and if I should try to complete all countries, or bail out of a number of them.
If you collect Latin America and Caribbean Countries, I am curious what YOU are doing, and why?
What do you collect and what pleasure and challenges does it offer you. What do you like, dislike etc...
rrr...
A partial view of the collection:
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I collect Puerto Rico, Cuba, and The Canal Zone because they fit in with my US collection. Cuba is capped at 1955 because my World Collection is put in the first 3 volumes of Big Blue, the Scott's International. I also collect Peru up to 1955 because I ended up with a huge number of them when I bought a "P Lot" on E-Bay to get Puerto Rico, Philippines and a couple PEI stamps. So my Caribbean/Latin America collection started mainly because my Liberty album for the US contained some of the stamps from the area. It just took off from there!
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My collections for Latin America and the Caribbean counties are based on my efforts for filling an International album set covering 1840-1963 as well as a secondary effort for a standalone International album copyright 1930 plus the Smithsonian Stamp for Every Country album. I am interested in others' collections and their journey in building their collections which defines my current level of interest in knowledge acquisition for this area. In particular I am interested in how others house and display the collections they create.
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After finding it difficult and expensive to fill the remaining issues for Europe i started on a few central and south American countries. I collect Peru as I won a reasonable starter collection in a large lot and find theiir stamps interesting up to about 1970. Chile is fairly inexpensive and i liked the early columbus issues, again i stopped at 1970. Ecuador and Costa Rica I just like the stamps but stopped those at 1960 just to stay within a collecting limit. I tried Brazil and Argentina but their stamps held little appeal and I an slowly getting rid of them. I have just started on Panama to 1960 as the designs and topics they issued are interesting to me.
All collected and hinged into Steiner pages.
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In Latin America I collect only Panama and Mexico. I still have the few stamps I bought over the counter at the post office in Panama when I was young. I have since added considerably to my Panama collection, though I find I still have so much to learn about Panamanian philately.
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My interest in Latin America started more or less in the same way as Bob described: I got stuck with the countries I collected (some West European countries, Dutch colonies, Canada, Australia etc ) and for some reason I started collecting Argentina. It was probably triggered by the fact a guy I knew about 15 years ago had a Argentine wife (no, his name is not Willem Alexander!) and his enthusiasm for the country as well as a considerable amount of duplicates started me off. From there it was like an ink blot. I bought an accumulation that had quite a few Brazilian stamps I decided to keep as a starting point for a collection.
After that came Chile, Peru and Uruguay. I have doubts about the latter, not really taken by the Uruguayan stamps, so I might stop with that country.
On the other hand, I recently got another large amount of South American stamps I have been sorting and selling (with remarkable success I may say) and the quantity of Colombia was such that I might start another collection... So that leaves just a few countries I am not interested in and I think I will keep it that way, even though I find the Venezuelan, Bolivian and Ecuadorian stamps interesting. Paraguay and Guyana is a no go and I sort of intentionally ignored Central America and the Caribbean. I have no ambition to become a worldwide collector!
Jan-Simon
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I too became interested in the LA countries, initially because I wanted to see how they portrayed the pre-Columbian period. I managed to get hold of the SG cats for Central and South America, and after riffling through the entries and the pics, I was hooked. My interest generally is in the images on the face of the stamps (and I know this makes me an accumulator, not a collector!). They generally show first their great men (well, one or two ladies) of their post invasion history, plus some notable scenes (battles and the life of their liberator). Then they move to scenes of life in the country and especially evidence of how developed and successful the country is (loads of bridges and municipal buildings). And some references to the pre-columbian era - monuments or the rulers with a few scenes of their lives.
So I decided to look for selected issues for each country such as sport events, and the old monuments like Bolivia's much delayed Tihuanacu issue, early railways - check out Nicaragua, Ecuador, Honduras and Uruguay, postmen (Argentina) and firemen (Panama), the gaucho and the cattle on the Uruguay 1895 issue, the views of the Panama canal, the lovely scenes of life of the indigenous people of El Salvador, and the University fund set of Mexico. And the sexy vision of agriculture in Mexico. And of course Queen Isabella's 500th, which merited an issue in almost every LA country.
This lot will keep me busy for a long time - some of the stamps, though cheap, are very hard to find.
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I rediscovered the hobby (and this place) only within the last six months, and I've focused almost entirely on LA and the Caribbean (I collect 20 countries, with my "serious" focus on Bolivia, Ecuador, Brazil and Argentina). It was kind of a lark, as an acquaintance I'd hadn't seen for a while gifted me his old worldwide collection full of huge gaps in the central and South American countries.
I love the designs, which are familiar from one country to the next (coats of arms followed by famous men followed by commemoratives of historical events, etc.) but I'm especially attracted by the challenges. I love sorting out all of overprints, surcharges over overprints, control marks, perf variations and distinguishing watermarks--challenging but not impossible to resolve (I'm a taxonomist by training so I love to identify and classify things). I also enjoy the variation of postal tax, revenue and telegraph stamps, and am smitten with Ecuadoran revenues and Brazilian vovo's at the moment.
Perhaps because I'm just a naif, I don't see the paucity of interest in Latin American stamps I keep hearing about. The number of Central and South American approval books at SOR has nearly doubled since I joined, and my experiences on eBay don't lead me to believe they are so cheap and readily available (at least in my bubble). SOR has been a great source for these stamps.
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I am the President of the Society for Costa Rica Collectors (www.socorico.org).
I collect Costa Rica as I think the stamps are beautiful, I like the postal history, and I enjoy the revenue stamps. Costa Rica still uses revenue stamps!
I use a pre-printed, good quality album that is produced in Costa Rica. It is in English and Spanish.
My avatar is a 1912 postcard of the Post Office in San Jose, Costa Rica.
David
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I collect British Caribbean up to 1980 or so before they went Diana/Disney.
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I collect Chile used, All British/ex-British Caribbean (all used, a few MNH), Dutch/ex-Dutch Caribbean (used and a few mint), Guyana/British Guiana (anything including used for receipts), Surinam (mint and used), French Guiana. Belize (mint and used).
The problem with the approvals/auctions on here are by the time I see them usually everything I want has gone already.
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More or less I started Latin America when a friend gave me a year ago her father's WW collection in two Y&T albums, from beginning to 1932. As my catalog goes up to 1934, that's fine. I now just have to fill in the blanks. Quite a challenge, and for the moment I have no idea on how expensive this will be.
I find the design attractive but quite often the quality of the stamps (paper, printing, and conservation) is not optimal. I'll see aver time how far I can go. As I am not young this collection will never end, and as one knows there are fewer takers.
Collecting these I have an opportunity to better learn SA history and geography, one of the reasons I collect stamps. For example my recent additions led me to go on the Chaco wars. An ugly period where a lot of poor soldiers died for no real reason (I hope I am not offending some members with a stake in these wars.
Keep safe, Michel
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"The problem with the approvals/auctions on here are by the time I see them usually everything I want has gone already."
I don't have much of a social life so I am home a lot. I check the "new books" and the new auction material several time a day. Several times I've been the first to see a book and sometimes I've picked up some great stuff for really fair prices. A few months back I ended up buying almost a complete book of early Irish overprints for prices I would never get somewhere else. It really pays to be on the ball and look often!
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I am currently focused on two places at either end of Stamporama's definition of Latin America, even though both of them are British colonies, Bermuda and the Falkland Islands, and not what one typically thinks of as Latin America.
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Latin America and the Caribbean figure quite strongly in my collections of stamps and covers of the Second World War, astronomy, and airmail. Three covers that I have purchased are among my collection's gems.
Although the Andes Mountains presented a formidable obstacle to aviators, the first successful trans-Andean flight occurred in 1918. Regular airmail over the mountains, however, was not established between Buenos Aires and Santiago de Chile until 1929. This photograph of Santiago certainly shows part of the reason for the city's isolation from eastern South America:
The following airmail cover carried by the famous American aviator Jimmy Doolittle, who was working for the Curtiss aviation company at the time, between Santiago and Buenos Aires. Doolittle was carrying out experimental flights around South America, flying a Curtiss-built airplane. The cover was postmarked in Santiago at 7:00 a.m. on June 12, 1928; the Buenos Aires receiver was struck at 6:00 p.m. on the same day:
This First Flight Cover signed by pilot, Jean Mermoz, the "French Lindbergh," who carried the first official airmail from Buenos Aires to Santiago, Chile. It was postmarked in Buenos Aires on June 12, 1929; the receiver was applied on June 15, 1929. (Sorting out the early history of South American airmail is not simple; if any members of StampoRama can provide more information on these flights, I would like to chat with them.)
This airmail cover was carried by Mermoz on his return flight to Buenos Aires from Santiago. It was postmarked in Santiago on July 18, 1929 and backstamped in Buenos Aires later that same day:
The three-day transit time for the FFC signed by Mermoz is apparently explained by a route which required stops at several communities before undertaking the final leg across the Andes to Santiago, whereas the return flight to Buenos Aires from Santiago appears to have been undertaken in just one day (which was also the case for the Doolittle cover).
Señor A.H. Davis was apparently a manager of the New York, Rio, and Buenos Aires Line that seems to have sponsored the initial airmail flights between Buenos Aires and Santiago. The French Pilot, Antoine Marie Jean de Saint-Exupéry, who shared the spotlight with Mermoz, also carried mail on early South American flights that was addressed to Señor Davis.
This French stamp, issued in 1996, commemorates Mermoz's flight from Buenos Aires to Santiago, piloting a Potez 25 open-cockpit biplane:
Mermoz has been featured on several French stamps. These two were issued in 1937:
Bob
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Thanks Bob, for the marvelous posting!
Not long ago, I read Saint-Exupery's book: Wind, Sand, and Stars, published in 1939. This is a very enjoyable read for anyone interested in aviation pioneering!
From wikipedia:
"In his autobiographical work Saint-Exupéry, an early pioneering aviator, evokes a series of events in his life, principally his work for the airmail carrier Aéropostale. He does so by recounting several episodes from his years flying treacherous mail routes across the African Sahara and the South American Andes. The book's themes deal with friendship, death, heroism, camaraderie and solidarity among colleagues, humanity and the search for meaning in life. The book illustrates the author's view of the world and his opinions of what makes life worth living.
The central incident he wrote of detailed his 1935 plane crash in the Sahara Desert between Benghazi and Cairo, which he barely survived along with his mechanic-navigator, André Prévot. Saint-Exupéry and his navigator were left almost completely without water and food, and as the chances of finding an oasis or help from the air gradually decreased, the two men nearly died of thirst before they were saved by a Bedouin on a camel."
-Paul
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To complement Bob's post, here's a Latin American contribution:
This cover was intended to be flown on the return of the first non-stop South Trans-Atlantic air voyage for Aeropostale ("Le Ligne") on 12-13 May 1930, flown by Mermoz in the Latecoere 28 converted float plane Comte de la Vaulx. Jean Dabry was the co-pilot and Leopold Gimie was the radioman on the flight of 21 hours duration from St. Louis, Senegal to Natal, Brazil. The Comte de la Vaulx:
Unfortunately, the return flight from Natal to Dakar would be typical of the difficulties of transoceanic flight. After three days and thirty-five fruitless attempts, beginning June 8, to get the floatplane laden with fuel and mail bags to lift off the water, Mermoz reluctantly gave up, and the mail was loaded onto a ship for the transatlantic passage.
My cover is one of those travelling by ship on the return voyage, dispatched from Recife, Brazil on June 7 and received in Paris 11 days later.
Mermoz and his crew eventually embarked on the return trip on July 8 on the 53rd attempt. Fifteen hours out, an oil leak developed which forced them to ditch, 700km out of Dakar, Senegal. They (and the mail) were rescued, but the plane sank during the attempt to tow it.
Mermoz was lost at sea on December 7, 1936, flying the Latecoere 300 Croix du Sud flying boat for Air France on a voyage from Dakar to Natal, on what would have been the 74th round trip across the South Atlantic by Aeropostale/Air France. The plane went down presumably due to engine failure. An artist's depiction of Mermoz' final departure:
-Paul
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@ Paul
I too have read Exupery's Wind, Sand, and Stars with a great deal of pleasure. My wife and I also recently read together a biography of Exupery, and one of my favourite books of all time is the children's book The Little Prince which isn't a children's book at all, but a rather cynical fable about the absence of intelligent life on earth. Another worthwhile Exupery book is Night Flight, about the disappearance of a mail plane in South America.
I recently obtained the following photo, apparently published in a French magazine at the time of the Crois-du-Sud's (Southern Cross's) disappearance over the Atlantic:
The cutline reads in translation (according to my limited French and Google Translate): "The Crois-du-Sud before its last trip. Leaving Dakar on December 7, the Cross-du-Sud disappeared at sea on December 7 with its entire crew."
Bob
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I intend to name an exhibit "Wind, Sand, Stars... and Stamps". It will show covers from French colonies, but I am considering extending its focus to the expansion of Aeropostale into Latin America.
I will introduce it with this passage glorifying the dedication of an airline pilot of the time as if he were an ancient Greek hero:
“The mail pouches for which he is responsible are stowed away in the after hold. They constitute the dogma of the religion on his craft, the torch which, in this aerial race, is passed from runner to runner. What matter though they hold but the scribblings of tradesmen and nondescript lovers. The interests which dictated them may well not be worth the embrace of man and storm; but I know what they become once they have been entrusted to the crew, taken over, as the phrase is. The crew care not a rap for the banker or tradesman. If, some day, the crew are hooked by a cliff it will not have been in the interest of tradespeople that they will have died, but in obedience to orders which ennoble the sacks of mail once they are on board ship. What concerns us is not even the orders – it is the men they cast in their mould.” (Exupery, WSS, 34-35)
I have been gathering covers with invoices and love letters, a crash cover, and mail that Exupery might have carried.
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Swinging this topic a bit, here is part of my Caribbean collection, which I am building most aggressively right now:
As you can discern, this is Jamaica, 1860-1890. I've been focusing this collection on the the pre-UPU (1877) period. It all started with a branch from my Scandinavian collection for Danish West Indies. Once I understood the importance of St. Thomas as a hub in Caribbean trade, I got interested in all the other empires that were involved: French, Spanish, Dutch, English, and American, later on.
For this collection, legible cancellations are at least as important to me as the stamps. This Jamaican selection represents quite a number of the British post offices there, 79 of which are documented here:
Great Britain Philatelic Society: England & Wales Provincial Series – Overseas Allocations
There is incredible variety of cancellations to be discovered among the maritime mails of the Caribbean. POs of different nations in a single port, foreign cancellations on stamps, packet boat cancellations, and more.
A nice guidebook is A Caribbean Neptune: The Maritime Postal Communications of the Greater and Lesser Antilles in the 19th Century by Robert Stone, published by the Philatelic Foundation.
-Paul
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Greaden, can't wait to see your exhibit!
A book I acquired some time ago is written in French. I have searched for the English version, in vain. The title is:
COURRIERS DE NUIT
La legende de Mermoz et de Saint-Exupery
by Olivier et Patrick Poivre D'Arvor
Though it may be laborious, what I'm considering is scanning the book, page by page as a .pdf. Then, I can open it in Acrobat, run OCR, and translate it. It's about 265 pages. As a teaser, here's the Table of Contents:
-Paul
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The authors have a knack for catchy, slightly poetic titles.
You may want to learn French! 
(Why not? It is good to learn new things)
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Oh my, I just read that PPDA has become the centre of a French me-too scandal...
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Retired Ap. Book Mod, Pres Golden Gate Stamp Club, Hi Tech Consultant
03 May 2021
05:43:12pm
When I look at the Approval and Auction platforms, and the discussion board, I notice the low level of interest for Latin American Stamps. This was touched upon in an old discussion post.
I had started to collect Latin America some 5 years ago, as a new area of interest where many of the stamps were available at very low prices, and one could acquire cheap start up albums. I must say that going there was accidental, after working for many years on a Colonial Cuban collection (my wife was the one with interest in Cuba). Also, in addition to Cuba I was intereste in Haiti and in general French colonies in the Caribbean.
I started in alphabetically with Argentina for A followed by B for Brazil etc... and then became more interested in countries I had visited in the past..(which leaves now just a handful I have yet to organize)
Well for some countries I love the collections. For others, in particular smaller countries that issue too many stamps of poor esthetic quality, I am seriously questioning why, oh WHY? do I collect them.
I found some interesting challenges, apart from the very early and expensive stamps of a majority of countries. There are some recent challenges too, I wrote about the challenge of Mexico Exporta earlier this year, and in the past about Argentina Departmental Officials. Haiti overprints in the early 1900s also is quite a challenge.
I have decided to cap a large number of collections around the 70s or 80s when countries flooded the market with stamps. But I am still unsure about this whole area, and if I should try to complete all countries, or bail out of a number of them.
If you collect Latin America and Caribbean Countries, I am curious what YOU are doing, and why?
What do you collect and what pleasure and challenges does it offer you. What do you like, dislike etc...
rrr...
A partial view of the collection:
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06:01:29pm
re: Collectors of Latin America and Caribbean Countries...where are you?
I collect Puerto Rico, Cuba, and The Canal Zone because they fit in with my US collection. Cuba is capped at 1955 because my World Collection is put in the first 3 volumes of Big Blue, the Scott's International. I also collect Peru up to 1955 because I ended up with a huge number of them when I bought a "P Lot" on E-Bay to get Puerto Rico, Philippines and a couple PEI stamps. So my Caribbean/Latin America collection started mainly because my Liberty album for the US contained some of the stamps from the area. It just took off from there!
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re: Collectors of Latin America and Caribbean Countries...where are you?
My collections for Latin America and the Caribbean counties are based on my efforts for filling an International album set covering 1840-1963 as well as a secondary effort for a standalone International album copyright 1930 plus the Smithsonian Stamp for Every Country album. I am interested in others' collections and their journey in building their collections which defines my current level of interest in knowledge acquisition for this area. In particular I am interested in how others house and display the collections they create.
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07:41:05pm
Auctions - Approvals
re: Collectors of Latin America and Caribbean Countries...where are you?
After finding it difficult and expensive to fill the remaining issues for Europe i started on a few central and south American countries. I collect Peru as I won a reasonable starter collection in a large lot and find theiir stamps interesting up to about 1970. Chile is fairly inexpensive and i liked the early columbus issues, again i stopped at 1970. Ecuador and Costa Rica I just like the stamps but stopped those at 1960 just to stay within a collecting limit. I tried Brazil and Argentina but their stamps held little appeal and I an slowly getting rid of them. I have just started on Panama to 1960 as the designs and topics they issued are interesting to me.
All collected and hinged into Steiner pages.
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re: Collectors of Latin America and Caribbean Countries...where are you?
In Latin America I collect only Panama and Mexico. I still have the few stamps I bought over the counter at the post office in Panama when I was young. I have since added considerably to my Panama collection, though I find I still have so much to learn about Panamanian philately.
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Auctions - Approvals
re: Collectors of Latin America and Caribbean Countries...where are you?
My interest in Latin America started more or less in the same way as Bob described: I got stuck with the countries I collected (some West European countries, Dutch colonies, Canada, Australia etc ) and for some reason I started collecting Argentina. It was probably triggered by the fact a guy I knew about 15 years ago had a Argentine wife (no, his name is not Willem Alexander!) and his enthusiasm for the country as well as a considerable amount of duplicates started me off. From there it was like an ink blot. I bought an accumulation that had quite a few Brazilian stamps I decided to keep as a starting point for a collection.
After that came Chile, Peru and Uruguay. I have doubts about the latter, not really taken by the Uruguayan stamps, so I might stop with that country.
On the other hand, I recently got another large amount of South American stamps I have been sorting and selling (with remarkable success I may say) and the quantity of Colombia was such that I might start another collection... So that leaves just a few countries I am not interested in and I think I will keep it that way, even though I find the Venezuelan, Bolivian and Ecuadorian stamps interesting. Paraguay and Guyana is a no go and I sort of intentionally ignored Central America and the Caribbean. I have no ambition to become a worldwide collector!
Jan-Simon
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re: Collectors of Latin America and Caribbean Countries...where are you?
I too became interested in the LA countries, initially because I wanted to see how they portrayed the pre-Columbian period. I managed to get hold of the SG cats for Central and South America, and after riffling through the entries and the pics, I was hooked. My interest generally is in the images on the face of the stamps (and I know this makes me an accumulator, not a collector!). They generally show first their great men (well, one or two ladies) of their post invasion history, plus some notable scenes (battles and the life of their liberator). Then they move to scenes of life in the country and especially evidence of how developed and successful the country is (loads of bridges and municipal buildings). And some references to the pre-columbian era - monuments or the rulers with a few scenes of their lives.
So I decided to look for selected issues for each country such as sport events, and the old monuments like Bolivia's much delayed Tihuanacu issue, early railways - check out Nicaragua, Ecuador, Honduras and Uruguay, postmen (Argentina) and firemen (Panama), the gaucho and the cattle on the Uruguay 1895 issue, the views of the Panama canal, the lovely scenes of life of the indigenous people of El Salvador, and the University fund set of Mexico. And the sexy vision of agriculture in Mexico. And of course Queen Isabella's 500th, which merited an issue in almost every LA country.
This lot will keep me busy for a long time - some of the stamps, though cheap, are very hard to find.
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04:09:50pm
re: Collectors of Latin America and Caribbean Countries...where are you?
I rediscovered the hobby (and this place) only within the last six months, and I've focused almost entirely on LA and the Caribbean (I collect 20 countries, with my "serious" focus on Bolivia, Ecuador, Brazil and Argentina). It was kind of a lark, as an acquaintance I'd hadn't seen for a while gifted me his old worldwide collection full of huge gaps in the central and South American countries.
I love the designs, which are familiar from one country to the next (coats of arms followed by famous men followed by commemoratives of historical events, etc.) but I'm especially attracted by the challenges. I love sorting out all of overprints, surcharges over overprints, control marks, perf variations and distinguishing watermarks--challenging but not impossible to resolve (I'm a taxonomist by training so I love to identify and classify things). I also enjoy the variation of postal tax, revenue and telegraph stamps, and am smitten with Ecuadoran revenues and Brazilian vovo's at the moment.
Perhaps because I'm just a naif, I don't see the paucity of interest in Latin American stamps I keep hearing about. The number of Central and South American approval books at SOR has nearly doubled since I joined, and my experiences on eBay don't lead me to believe they are so cheap and readily available (at least in my bubble). SOR has been a great source for these stamps.
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re: Collectors of Latin America and Caribbean Countries...where are you?
I am the President of the Society for Costa Rica Collectors (www.socorico.org).
I collect Costa Rica as I think the stamps are beautiful, I like the postal history, and I enjoy the revenue stamps. Costa Rica still uses revenue stamps!
I use a pre-printed, good quality album that is produced in Costa Rica. It is in English and Spanish.
My avatar is a 1912 postcard of the Post Office in San Jose, Costa Rica.
David
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re: Collectors of Latin America and Caribbean Countries...where are you?
I collect British Caribbean up to 1980 or so before they went Diana/Disney.
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re: Collectors of Latin America and Caribbean Countries...where are you?
I collect Chile used, All British/ex-British Caribbean (all used, a few MNH), Dutch/ex-Dutch Caribbean (used and a few mint), Guyana/British Guiana (anything including used for receipts), Surinam (mint and used), French Guiana. Belize (mint and used).
The problem with the approvals/auctions on here are by the time I see them usually everything I want has gone already.
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09:09:21am
Approvals
re: Collectors of Latin America and Caribbean Countries...where are you?
More or less I started Latin America when a friend gave me a year ago her father's WW collection in two Y&T albums, from beginning to 1932. As my catalog goes up to 1934, that's fine. I now just have to fill in the blanks. Quite a challenge, and for the moment I have no idea on how expensive this will be.
I find the design attractive but quite often the quality of the stamps (paper, printing, and conservation) is not optimal. I'll see aver time how far I can go. As I am not young this collection will never end, and as one knows there are fewer takers.
Collecting these I have an opportunity to better learn SA history and geography, one of the reasons I collect stamps. For example my recent additions led me to go on the Chaco wars. An ugly period where a lot of poor soldiers died for no real reason (I hope I am not offending some members with a stake in these wars.
Keep safe, Michel
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10:36:11am
re: Collectors of Latin America and Caribbean Countries...where are you?
"The problem with the approvals/auctions on here are by the time I see them usually everything I want has gone already."
I don't have much of a social life so I am home a lot. I check the "new books" and the new auction material several time a day. Several times I've been the first to see a book and sometimes I've picked up some great stuff for really fair prices. A few months back I ended up buying almost a complete book of early Irish overprints for prices I would never get somewhere else. It really pays to be on the ball and look often!
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re: Collectors of Latin America and Caribbean Countries...where are you?
I am currently focused on two places at either end of Stamporama's definition of Latin America, even though both of them are British colonies, Bermuda and the Falkland Islands, and not what one typically thinks of as Latin America.
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re: Collectors of Latin America and Caribbean Countries...where are you?
Latin America and the Caribbean figure quite strongly in my collections of stamps and covers of the Second World War, astronomy, and airmail. Three covers that I have purchased are among my collection's gems.
Although the Andes Mountains presented a formidable obstacle to aviators, the first successful trans-Andean flight occurred in 1918. Regular airmail over the mountains, however, was not established between Buenos Aires and Santiago de Chile until 1929. This photograph of Santiago certainly shows part of the reason for the city's isolation from eastern South America:
The following airmail cover carried by the famous American aviator Jimmy Doolittle, who was working for the Curtiss aviation company at the time, between Santiago and Buenos Aires. Doolittle was carrying out experimental flights around South America, flying a Curtiss-built airplane. The cover was postmarked in Santiago at 7:00 a.m. on June 12, 1928; the Buenos Aires receiver was struck at 6:00 p.m. on the same day:
This First Flight Cover signed by pilot, Jean Mermoz, the "French Lindbergh," who carried the first official airmail from Buenos Aires to Santiago, Chile. It was postmarked in Buenos Aires on June 12, 1929; the receiver was applied on June 15, 1929. (Sorting out the early history of South American airmail is not simple; if any members of StampoRama can provide more information on these flights, I would like to chat with them.)
This airmail cover was carried by Mermoz on his return flight to Buenos Aires from Santiago. It was postmarked in Santiago on July 18, 1929 and backstamped in Buenos Aires later that same day:
The three-day transit time for the FFC signed by Mermoz is apparently explained by a route which required stops at several communities before undertaking the final leg across the Andes to Santiago, whereas the return flight to Buenos Aires from Santiago appears to have been undertaken in just one day (which was also the case for the Doolittle cover).
Señor A.H. Davis was apparently a manager of the New York, Rio, and Buenos Aires Line that seems to have sponsored the initial airmail flights between Buenos Aires and Santiago. The French Pilot, Antoine Marie Jean de Saint-Exupéry, who shared the spotlight with Mermoz, also carried mail on early South American flights that was addressed to Señor Davis.
This French stamp, issued in 1996, commemorates Mermoz's flight from Buenos Aires to Santiago, piloting a Potez 25 open-cockpit biplane:
Mermoz has been featured on several French stamps. These two were issued in 1937:
Bob
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07:56:23am
re: Collectors of Latin America and Caribbean Countries...where are you?
Thanks Bob, for the marvelous posting!
Not long ago, I read Saint-Exupery's book: Wind, Sand, and Stars, published in 1939. This is a very enjoyable read for anyone interested in aviation pioneering!
From wikipedia:
"In his autobiographical work Saint-Exupéry, an early pioneering aviator, evokes a series of events in his life, principally his work for the airmail carrier Aéropostale. He does so by recounting several episodes from his years flying treacherous mail routes across the African Sahara and the South American Andes. The book's themes deal with friendship, death, heroism, camaraderie and solidarity among colleagues, humanity and the search for meaning in life. The book illustrates the author's view of the world and his opinions of what makes life worth living.
The central incident he wrote of detailed his 1935 plane crash in the Sahara Desert between Benghazi and Cairo, which he barely survived along with his mechanic-navigator, André Prévot. Saint-Exupéry and his navigator were left almost completely without water and food, and as the chances of finding an oasis or help from the air gradually decreased, the two men nearly died of thirst before they were saved by a Bedouin on a camel."
-Paul
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12:59:09pm
re: Collectors of Latin America and Caribbean Countries...where are you?
To complement Bob's post, here's a Latin American contribution:
This cover was intended to be flown on the return of the first non-stop South Trans-Atlantic air voyage for Aeropostale ("Le Ligne") on 12-13 May 1930, flown by Mermoz in the Latecoere 28 converted float plane Comte de la Vaulx. Jean Dabry was the co-pilot and Leopold Gimie was the radioman on the flight of 21 hours duration from St. Louis, Senegal to Natal, Brazil. The Comte de la Vaulx:
Unfortunately, the return flight from Natal to Dakar would be typical of the difficulties of transoceanic flight. After three days and thirty-five fruitless attempts, beginning June 8, to get the floatplane laden with fuel and mail bags to lift off the water, Mermoz reluctantly gave up, and the mail was loaded onto a ship for the transatlantic passage.
My cover is one of those travelling by ship on the return voyage, dispatched from Recife, Brazil on June 7 and received in Paris 11 days later.
Mermoz and his crew eventually embarked on the return trip on July 8 on the 53rd attempt. Fifteen hours out, an oil leak developed which forced them to ditch, 700km out of Dakar, Senegal. They (and the mail) were rescued, but the plane sank during the attempt to tow it.
Mermoz was lost at sea on December 7, 1936, flying the Latecoere 300 Croix du Sud flying boat for Air France on a voyage from Dakar to Natal, on what would have been the 74th round trip across the South Atlantic by Aeropostale/Air France. The plane went down presumably due to engine failure. An artist's depiction of Mermoz' final departure:
-Paul
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re: Collectors of Latin America and Caribbean Countries...where are you?
@ Paul
I too have read Exupery's Wind, Sand, and Stars with a great deal of pleasure. My wife and I also recently read together a biography of Exupery, and one of my favourite books of all time is the children's book The Little Prince which isn't a children's book at all, but a rather cynical fable about the absence of intelligent life on earth. Another worthwhile Exupery book is Night Flight, about the disappearance of a mail plane in South America.
I recently obtained the following photo, apparently published in a French magazine at the time of the Crois-du-Sud's (Southern Cross's) disappearance over the Atlantic:
The cutline reads in translation (according to my limited French and Google Translate): "The Crois-du-Sud before its last trip. Leaving Dakar on December 7, the Cross-du-Sud disappeared at sea on December 7 with its entire crew."
Bob
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03:43:31pm
re: Collectors of Latin America and Caribbean Countries...where are you?
I intend to name an exhibit "Wind, Sand, Stars... and Stamps". It will show covers from French colonies, but I am considering extending its focus to the expansion of Aeropostale into Latin America.
I will introduce it with this passage glorifying the dedication of an airline pilot of the time as if he were an ancient Greek hero:
“The mail pouches for which he is responsible are stowed away in the after hold. They constitute the dogma of the religion on his craft, the torch which, in this aerial race, is passed from runner to runner. What matter though they hold but the scribblings of tradesmen and nondescript lovers. The interests which dictated them may well not be worth the embrace of man and storm; but I know what they become once they have been entrusted to the crew, taken over, as the phrase is. The crew care not a rap for the banker or tradesman. If, some day, the crew are hooked by a cliff it will not have been in the interest of tradespeople that they will have died, but in obedience to orders which ennoble the sacks of mail once they are on board ship. What concerns us is not even the orders – it is the men they cast in their mould.” (Exupery, WSS, 34-35)
I have been gathering covers with invoices and love letters, a crash cover, and mail that Exupery might have carried.
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03:45:39pm
re: Collectors of Latin America and Caribbean Countries...where are you?
Swinging this topic a bit, here is part of my Caribbean collection, which I am building most aggressively right now:
As you can discern, this is Jamaica, 1860-1890. I've been focusing this collection on the the pre-UPU (1877) period. It all started with a branch from my Scandinavian collection for Danish West Indies. Once I understood the importance of St. Thomas as a hub in Caribbean trade, I got interested in all the other empires that were involved: French, Spanish, Dutch, English, and American, later on.
For this collection, legible cancellations are at least as important to me as the stamps. This Jamaican selection represents quite a number of the British post offices there, 79 of which are documented here:
Great Britain Philatelic Society: England & Wales Provincial Series – Overseas Allocations
There is incredible variety of cancellations to be discovered among the maritime mails of the Caribbean. POs of different nations in a single port, foreign cancellations on stamps, packet boat cancellations, and more.
A nice guidebook is A Caribbean Neptune: The Maritime Postal Communications of the Greater and Lesser Antilles in the 19th Century by Robert Stone, published by the Philatelic Foundation.
-Paul
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03:55:35pm
re: Collectors of Latin America and Caribbean Countries...where are you?
Greaden, can't wait to see your exhibit!
A book I acquired some time ago is written in French. I have searched for the English version, in vain. The title is:
COURRIERS DE NUIT
La legende de Mermoz et de Saint-Exupery
by Olivier et Patrick Poivre D'Arvor
Though it may be laborious, what I'm considering is scanning the book, page by page as a .pdf. Then, I can open it in Acrobat, run OCR, and translate it. It's about 265 pages. As a teaser, here's the Table of Contents:
-Paul
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Auctions - Approvals
re: Collectors of Latin America and Caribbean Countries...where are you?
The authors have a knack for catchy, slightly poetic titles.
You may want to learn French!
(Why not? It is good to learn new things)
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Auctions - Approvals
re: Collectors of Latin America and Caribbean Countries...where are you?
Oh my, I just read that PPDA has become the centre of a French me-too scandal...
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