Pondering Frog, the Philosophic Toad has kindly sent in this excellent pair of scans of old space stamps, which featured in the Dutch comic TV2000 20th May 1967. I was all of 6! Beautiful stuff, thanks!
First page is actually a competition, since the Netherlands didn't have a space-themed stamp at the time. First prize a whole 50 Guilders to be spent on stamps or drawing materials. :)
Second page explains about other countries' space stamps, plus the fact that the USA only had four at the time (compared to 104 from the USSR alone), because depicting living persons on stamps is prohibited by US law and they only do a limted number of special stamps. "One race the US can't win" as the article puts it, but luckily plenty of stamps from other countries to make up a nice collection.
I've looked at these pages many times without understanding what the article was saying, so thank you for the explanation, Paul ^_^
Was 50 Guilders a lot back then? And do you know what the rationale is behind that prohibition of depicting living persons on on stamps in the USA?
Can't answer for the others, but I'm not seeing an advert or any other hiatus during login. Do you sign in via a google account or one of the others, such as Wordpress or AIM?
50 Guilders was serious money to somebody our age back then, Toad. To give you an idea, I just grabbed the most relevant and contemporary item within reach, being a Thunderbirds Extra annual that then sold for HFL 1.95 - equate that to the price of a British copy and there you are.
No idea why living people are banned from official US paper. Had a google and apparently a bill was passed in 1866 to that effect. Most plausible explanation I found was "that a person still alive or just recently deceased may have a passing but intense claim to fame, a popular appeal that would be difficult or awkward for the government to deal with, but this will not stand the test of time and the US would look absurd in a few years when people looked at this person's stamp and say 'they commemorated *this* guy'?"
As to the ads, I get so annoyed that I haven't noticed what they advertise. I log in with my google account fwiw. But I did notice the title in the window header changes to "omleiding" (Dutch for "detour") so perhaps it's just a local thing to raise traffic, similar to epay putting in international sales results by default on their (seriously underperforming) belgian site. I'll calm down and see what it's about when I try and get this message submitted...
... which I just did, and hit the back button. It's an ad for blogger. And then I log in, promptly get an error page and have to hit back a few times to get back here. But at least the login stays put and my message is still here. But still a bl**dy nuisance!
Heh, that's brilliant to see, thanks Toad!
ReplyDeleteFirst page is actually a competition, since the Netherlands didn't have a space-themed stamp at the time. First prize a whole 50 Guilders to be spent on stamps or drawing materials. :)
Second page explains about other countries' space stamps, plus the fact that the USA only had four at the time (compared to 104 from the USSR alone), because depicting living persons on stamps is prohibited by US law and they only do a limted number of special stamps. "One race the US can't win" as the article puts it, but luckily plenty of stamps from other countries to make up a nice collection.
Best
--
Paul
btw,
ReplyDeleteam I the only one that gets an advert or some other annoying interruption inbetween the verification and being allowed to sign in? bl**dy nuisance.
I've looked at these pages many times without understanding what the article was saying, so thank you for the explanation, Paul ^_^
ReplyDeleteWas 50 Guilders a lot back then? And do you know what the rationale is behind that prohibition of depicting living persons on on stamps in the USA?
Can't answer for the others, but I'm not seeing an advert or any other hiatus during login. Do you sign in via a google account or one of the others, such as Wordpress or AIM?
50 Guilders was serious money to somebody our age back then, Toad. To give you an idea, I just grabbed the most relevant and contemporary item within reach, being a Thunderbirds Extra annual that then sold for HFL 1.95 - equate that to the price of a British copy and there you are.
ReplyDeleteNo idea why living people are banned from official US paper. Had a google and apparently a bill was passed in 1866 to that effect. Most plausible explanation I found was "that a person still alive or just recently deceased may have a passing but intense claim to fame, a popular appeal that would be difficult or awkward for the government to deal with, but this will not stand the test of time and the US would look absurd in a few years when people looked at this person's stamp and say 'they commemorated *this* guy'?"
As to the ads, I get so annoyed that I haven't noticed what they advertise. I log in with my google account fwiw. But I did notice the title in the window header changes to "omleiding" (Dutch for "detour") so perhaps it's just a local thing to raise traffic, similar to epay putting in international sales results by default on their (seriously underperforming) belgian site. I'll calm down and see what it's about when I try and get this message submitted...
... which I just did, and hit the back button. It's an ad for blogger. And then I log in, promptly get an error page and have to hit back a few times to get back here. But at least the login stays put and my message is still here. But still a bl**dy nuisance!
... that should've been "epay putting in international SEARCH results by default on their (seriously underperforming) belgian site."
ReplyDeletegrrr