BAY OF PLENTY BEACON Published Tuesdays and Fridays. FRIDAY, MAY 7, 1948 ROMANCE AND POWER OF POSTAGE STAMPS: TALK TO ROTARIANS

Bay of Plenty Beacon, Volume 12, Issue 44, 7 May 1948, Page 4

BAY OF PLENTY BEACON Published Tuesdays and Fridays. FRIDAY, MAY 7, 1948 ROMANCE AND POWER OF POSTAGE STAMPS: TALK TO ROTARIANS

The weekly gathering of the Whakatane Rotary Club on Tuesday night was entertained by Cr King-sley-Smith with an interesting talk on philately. The subject was such a vast one that the speaker gave only a few of the most notabe philateiic oddities. The most notable he said was the “Death Mask” series, struck in 1910 by the ruler of the Serbian States King Peter. The story actually goes back to the days of Cara Gorg, the Serbian patriot who freed . the Serbs from Turkish rule and is looked on as the founder of the Yugoslav nation. Since that day every ruler has attempted to trace his origin back |o Cara Gorg. The next step in the stbry was when King Peter of Serbia caused the assassination of Czar Alexander and took control of the state. After he had fought a victorious war against the Turks in 1910, he thought he would try and link his ancestry with that ef the Cara Gorg. To do this he had a set of stamps struck with his and Cara Gorg’s head on it. This, the speaker said, was where he was careless, for he entrusted the engraving of the block to a supporter of Alexander. The engraver submitted a design that was passed by Peter with a flaw in, it that correctly showed the heads of Cara Gorg and Peter, yet when turned upside down it showed the battered face of the assasinated Alexander.

Mr Kingsley-Smith also showed how stamps act as advertisements for a country’s commercial and scenic attractions and how they can direct a country’s feelings. The Americans as an example struck a set of Cuban stamps that were aimed, by their picture faces, at showing the Cubans, of whose political leanings they were /not sure, the futility of allying with the Axis powers. General De Gaulle also struck a set glorifying the French patriots during his return to power. Russia after her revolution, typified the fall of the powerful Romanoff Regime by making a rough stamp of a.star and over-stamping all the existing Russian stamps. Stamps, Mr Kingsley-Smith continued, had also caused wars. The war between Paraguay and Bolivia was started by the Paraguayan government making a stamp depicting the Gran Chaco which was claimed by both countries, in the Paraguay territory. The war lasted for over 9 years and'has only been really settled in the last few years. New Zealand is noted the world over for the beauty of the scenes depicted on her stamps and also, the speaker concluded, for the number of flaws in her stamps. .This alone makes them sought after the world over.