Saturday, March 24, 2012

Words on a Stamp

Janet Klug has come up with a new topic for stamp collectors to consider - Words on Stamps.


Fig.1
In one of her many Linns Stamp News "Refresher Course" columns, Janet writes, "In 1975, South Africa issued a stamp to celebrate the first newspaper published in Afrikaans (Scott 449). The stamp is pictured in Figure 1. It features the front page from the inaugural issue of Die Afrikaanse Patriot, published Jan. 15, 1876. Even though the stamp is a fairly standard commemorative size, you can read every word in both Afrikaans and English — and it includes a lot of words."

Fig. 2
"South Africa's stamp wordiness continued in an intriguing way in 1987 with a stamp that has the words 'The Bible' translated into 76 different languages spoken throughout Africa. This stamp (Scott 702) is pictured in Figure 2."

In her column she cites several other examples of stamps that have a lot of words in their design.

Click here to view.
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posted by Don Schilling at 12:01 AM