A stamp here, a stamp there

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This chipped off stamp of Sri Lanka shows the Little Basses Reef Lighthouse, an offshore lighthouse in Sri Lanka that is operated and maintained by the Sri Lankan Navy. It is located on a reef called Kuda Ravana Kotuwa (Fort of Little Ravana), but when the British invaded Sri Lanka (formerly Ceylon) they named it Little Basses (after the Great Basses Reef Lighthouse located close-by).

The two Basses lighthouses, 'Great' and 'Little', are among the most famous offshore lighthouses of Asia. They withstood the force of the tsunami in 2004 with only modest damage.

The Great Basses reef is the site of an early 18th-century wreck of an Indian ship, carrying a treasure of silver rupees.

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Mongolia in central Asia is one of the most sparsely populated countries in the world. It is also the world's second-largest landlocked country, bordered by Russia and China. Approximately 30% of the population are nomadic or semi-nomadic. Majority of its population are Buddhists.

This stamp features the biy dance (or biyelgee) which predominantly uses the upper half of the body, hence also termed as trunk dance. It is performed by Western Mongol groups. In Old Mongolia, it was performed individually by males and females within the tent in domestic celebrations.

The musician in the stamp is playing the traditional Mongolian musical instrument called the morin khuur. The morin khuur is identified by UNESCO as one of the Masterpieces of the Oral and Intangible Heritage of Humanity.

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This stamp features the Lubango Cathedral built in 1939 by the Portugese. Lubango is the capital city of the province of Huila in Angola, a country in South Africa.  

In 1882 approximately one thousand Portuguese settlers came from the island of Madeira to Lubango. These farmers successfully developed the whole region. By 1910 there were over 1,700 ethnic Portuguese living in this settlement. The Portuguese government made it a city and renamed it Sá da Bandeira, after a Portugese nobleman and politician. It was built in a Portuguese style of architecture, and became a notable agricultural, transportation and repair centre for Portugal. After Angola's Independence from Portugal in 1975, the city was once again renamed Lubango.

Since this stamp was printed in 1963, it still bears the older name of the cathedral. Also, Correios is the government-owned company responsible for postal service in Angola.

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The illustration on this Danish stamp dated 1992, is by Jorgen Mogensen (1927 – 2004) an acclaimed comic artist and sculptor (he is credited in small font at the bottom of the stamp). He was a contributor to the Sunday supplement of the daily Danish newspaper Politiken from 1946. It was in this supplement, that he created his best-known feature 'Poeten og Lillemor' ('The Poet and the Little Woman') that is featured on this stamp.

This daily comic about a typical Danish family has been published in several Copenhague-based newspapers, and later on, as a weekly comic as well. Mogensen drew the strip for 53 years.

This stamp is considered to have an anti-smoking theme, much like other stamps from Denmark that address various social issues including AIDS.

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Featured on this stamp from Indonesia is Soekarno or Sukarno (1901 –1970), the first President of Indonesia, who served office from 1945 to 1967. Sukarno was the leader of the country's struggle for independence from the Netherlands in 1949 (see also on this page Juliana Regina, the Queen of Netherlands, under whose reign Indonesia became independent).

During his leadership, Sukarno ordered the construction of large monumental buildings such as National Monument (Monumen Nasional), Istiqlal Mosque and the CONEFO Building (now the Parliament Building) to transform Jakarta from a former colonial backwater to a modern city. 

Sukarno’s intent for this building was for it to house the Conference of New Emerging Forces (CONEFO), a rival to the United Nations for Non-Aligned Movement countries. However, the project was stopped due to a coup attempt on September 30th 1965, when a self-proclaimed organization of Indonesian National Armed Forces assassinated six Indonesian Army Generals. Construction of the building resumed in 1966, but with a renewed intention to use the building for the legislature.

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This worn-out stamp focusses on Citrus sinensis which is the species name for orange, specifically sweet orange (distinguishes it from related species, such as sour orange, Citrus aurantium, and mandarin orange, Citrus reticulata). Citrus sinensis is a small tree in the rutaceae (citrus family) that originated in southern China, where it has been cultivated for millennia.

Iraq specifically cultivates the Jaffa orange, a sweet almost seedless orange variety with a tough skin. The Jaffa orange was developed from the sweet orange, mainly for export purposes. The sweet orange was brought from China to the Middle East/Mediterranean region by Vasco da Gama in the 15th century. The Jaffa orange was then developed from it by Palestinian farmers in the mid-19th century, and the variety gets its name from the city of Jaffa where it was first produced.

Worldwide, Brazil is the leading producer for oranges, followed by US. Other leading producers include India, China, Mexico, and Spain.

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This stamp dated 1973 depicts cattle ranching in Nigeria, the most populous country of Africa and seventh most populous country in the world.

Nigeria comprises 36 states and is inhabited by 500 ethnic groups, roughly half of which are Christians and balance Muslims. 70% of Nigerians are employed in agriculture, which includes livestock ranching. As of 2015, Nigeria is the world's 20th largest economy. It overtook South Africa to become the Africa's largest economy in 2014. The country is often referred to as ‘Giant of Africa’.

Since 2002, the North East of the country has seen sectarian violence by Boko Haram, an Islamist movement that seeks to abolish the secular system of government.

If you focus a microscope on the bottom right corner of the stamp you can read the name ‘Austin Onwudimegwu’. No information is available on this person; one can assume him to be the artist of the stamp.

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Tole painting is the folk art of decorative painting on tin and wooden utensils, objects and furniture. The term tôle, derived from the French tôle peinte, means ‘painted sheet metal’. This style of decorative art spread from Europe to the United States in the 18th century, and was popular in US kitchens in the 18th and 19th centuries.

This 5 cent American Toleware stamp features artist Lou Nolan’s painted detail of a black toleware coffeepot from the Winterthur Museum in Delaware. Curators at Winterthur believe that it was manufactured in Philadelphia between 1850 and 1875. 

Lu Nolan was a longtime stamp artist who designed more than a dozen stamps for the U.S. Postal Service. He died in 2008.

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This stamp commemorates the participation of the Democratic Republic of Congo (earlier known as Zaire) at the Summer Olympics held in Los Angeles in 1984. It contested in athletics and boxing events at the Games.

Congo first participated in the Olympic Games in 1964, and has sent athletes to compete in most Summer Olympic Games since then. It has never participated in the Winter Olympic Games like most tropical nations, since their typical climate is not conducive for winter sports. As of 2014, no athlete from Congo has ever won an Olympic medal. 

DR Congo is the second largest country in Africa after Algeria. It is extremely rich in natural resources, but political instability, a lack of infrastructure and a culture of corruption have limited development in the region. The most popular sport in Congo is soccer.

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Juliana Regina (1909 – 2004) was the Queen of the Kingdom of Netherlands between 1948 and 1980. She was the only child of Queen Wilhelmina and Prince Henry. She was married to a German aristocrat and had four daughters. Her oldest daughter, Princess Beatrix succeeded her as the Queen. During her reign both Indonesia (Dutch East Indies) and Suriname became independent from the Netherlands. She is commemorated in space, in the name of the asteroid 816 Juliana. Her life, dotted by many personal upheavals and controversies, is worthy of being reproduced on silver screen! To know more on her do visit this Wiki page.

Another interesting piece of trivia: Gulden is a historical German and Dutch term for gold coin. Funnily enough, it originates from a Persian word ‘Guldan’ which means flower pot.

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This stamp comes all the way from the central European country of Romania, known for the forested region of Transylvania. The Eremias is a type of lizard in the family of wall lizards, that is native to Asia and Europe where it lives in deserts or steppes (large unforested grasslands). The Eremias Arguta Deserti is a particular species of steppe runner in Romania, that was declared extinct in the region for almost 40 years. However, a study conducted in 2007 in a Nature Reserve in Romania proved that it still exists. Though its population continues to be extremely threatened due to destruction of its natural habitat.

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Dzong in the local language of Bhutan means ‘fortress’. The Dzong architecture is distinctive, particularly found in the Tibetan Buddhist kingdoms of the Himalayas. The architecture is massive in style with towering exterior walls surrounding a complex of courtyards, temples, administrative offices, and monks' accommodation.

The Domkhar Dzong palace (pictured in this stamp) is located just above the village of Domkhar in Bhutan. It was built by the second king of Bhutan in 1937 as a summer palace for his eldest Queen and himself. In 2014, it was restored to be the residence of the 5th king of Bhutan. The palace is out of bounds for visitors.

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Fujeira (now spelt as Fujairah) is one of the seven emirates that make up the United Arab Emirates. What makes it different is that its coastline is solely of the Gulf of Oman, without any territory on the Persian Gulf. It is considered a beautiful part of the emirates with several archaeological sites. 

This stamp, released in 1972, is unique in that it is an erotic painting by the French artist Paul Gauguin (1948 - 1903) whose art became popular only after his death. Many modern artists such as Picasso and Matisse were influenced by his artistic style. The painting is titled Tahitiennes Sur La Plage (loosely translated to ‘Tahitian women on the beach’). Some of Gauguin’s best works were from his stay in Tahiti, the largest island in the French Polynesia, which he considered one of his favourite artistic destinations. 

Earlier this year, an 1892 painting by Gauguin of two Tahitan girls (titled ‘When Will you Marry?’) was bought by the state of Qatar from the Swiss Rudolf Staechelin Family Trust for  £200 million - the largest amount ever paid for a single work of art. It will be hung in its state-run museums.

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The Red Admiral is one of 25 species of butterflies found in New Zealand, and of 20,000 species found the world over. It is identified by its dark brown, red and black pattern of wings (different from the Yellow Admiral that has, of course, dark brown yellow and black wings). It loves summers, and in Maori (or the local Polynesian language of NZ) it is called ‘kahakura’ which means red cloak. 

Incidentally, the Red Admiral butterfly featured in Russian author Vladimir Nobokov’s novel Pale Fire, which has an unusual structure of a 999-line poem. It is an attempt in metafiction. Nobokov, widely known for his controversial book Lolita, was an amateur lepidopterist (one who specializes in the study of moths and butterflies).

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The first stamp in my collection comes from the tiny island of Mauritius in the Indian Ocean. It dates back to 1969, a year after Mauritius got its independence from the British colonial rule. Any Indian from afar would recognize the face on the stamp as that of young Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi, the Father of our Nation. But why such reverence by Mauritians?

The story goes that hundreds of Indo-Mauritians, ill-treated by the British as cheap labour for sugar plantations in Mauritius, migrated to Natal in South Africa and there joined the young Gandhi in his Satyagraha campaign for social, economic and political rights of the downtrodden. Subsequently, Gandhi encouraged them to work for the upliftment of the Mauritians (a struggle he himself embarked upon in India). His association with Mauritius and its early leaders continued till his final years, and greatly influenced his writing. Till this day, Gandhi’s birthday is celebrated in the Republic of Mauritius and he’s widely regarded as a beacon in shaping the country’s history.