Mourning Stamps

I came a cross a Belgium mourning stamp of Queen Astrid in my collection. I went and did some research on mourning stamps in general. I found pretty much what I thought I would, but I found some stamps of Princess Diana that was edged in purple not the traditional black. Was there a reason for that? Was it because she wasn't married to Prince Charles at the time?

Donna

Donna
It's all there. http://www.linns.com/howto/refreshe...rcourse.aspx What a coincidence!

Hindenburg Memorial Stamps



While black is the traditional mourning color, other dark colors were used as well. I suspect black would be avoided in modern times as modern sensibility would see it as morbid.

Edited to make more sense.

Bulgaria:
"mourning a dead daughter" in purple

SG2387 (1975) T0737 02s graphics mourning a dead daughter

In ancient times, purple was almost impossible to produce naturally. The earliest form
of colorfast purple dye was produced by squeezing shellfish called the murex sea
mussel or porphura (Greek), and through and elaborate process yielded the dye called
Tyrian Purple. Since this was such an expensive process, the color
purple was limited to the wealthy and/or powerful. The color purple has been
associated with royalty since ancient Roman times where Roman Emperors wore
purple to symbolize the god Jupiter. Other shades of purple were strictly reserved for
the Imperial family and officials. Just possessing the color purple without
authorization could result in severe punishment! It wasn't until the early 1900's that
the same chemical in shellfish dye was also discovered in the roots of reeds growing
in India. This substance called indigo was used for centuries to produce rich blue
shades, but chemists of the early 1900's derived a purple that was easy to mass
produce.

Looking back into American history, the color purple came to represent positions of
honor and valor. In 1782, George Washington created The Purple Heart, the military's
oldest and most admired decoration, when Continental Congress told him he could not
award commissions or advancements to soldiers. This token of valor was originally a
heart made of purple cloth.

The color purple is used in churches and religious sects to represent the holy aspect of
the Advent, the birth of Christ. Lavender is used in Advent wreaths to represent purity
and virtue. In Christianity, purple means penitence. In Hindu belief, purple is the color
of the crown chakra.

timbres667,
Now that is freaky. I had done a image search of the Queen Astrid stamp and as I was scrolling through I saw the image of Princess Diana. I went to the link and see that both of those images are together in the article.

rod,
Thanks for the info on the purple used in mourning. What the article had that timbres667 had
posted was almost not worth reading. Yours was better by far.

smauggie,
That was Hindenburg as in "The" Hindenburg of zeppelin fame?

Donna

This is a totally new theme to me. Thanks for posting Donna!

Amazing history for purple dye Rod!
I knew about the mussels but nothing else.
I have used many things to dye cement.
It is a very interesting subject for me.

So that is why we have the term Indian ink from our school days.

The stamps issued for Princess Diana went on sale long after her death [about 5 months] and so the period of mourning could have been considered over.
By contrast, similar style stamps were quickly printed for the Queen Mother's death in 2002, and these were bordered in Black. The stamps were reprints of an earlier [1990] issue with the addition of the black frame and dates.[and values of course]

Here is a Turtle in mourning.



Londonbus1.....The day can only get better from now on !

Dear readers,
the information came from research many years ago,
when I first began collecting.
The late Mette Heindorff and I were discussing St Zeno
(the ancient letter carrier) and the Etruscans when the topic spun off into the importance of purple.
(illustrating how magically stamps can have you rambling away
in different directions all at once)

Some other interesting bits of stuff about purple:

Source: Webster's Revised Unabridged Dictionary (1913)

Tyrian \Tyr"i*an\, a. [L. Tyrius, from Tyrus Tyre, Gr. ?.]
1. Of or pertaining to Tyre or its people.

2. Being of the color called Tyrian purple.

The bright-eyed perch with fins of Tyrian dye.
--Pope.

Tyrian purple, or Tyrian dye, a celebrated purple dye
prepared in ancient Tyre from several mollusks, especially
Ianthina, Murex, and Purpura. See the Note under Purple,
n., 1, and Purple of mollusca, under Purple, n.
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Jump to: navigation, search
Tyrian purple is a purple dye made in the ancient Phoenician city of Tyre from a
secretion of Spiny Dye-Murex (Murex brandaris), a marine snail. A similar dye,
"Hyacinth Purple" was made from the related Banded Dye-Murex Murex trunculus.

The dye was expensive: Aristotle assigns a value ten to twenty times its weight in
gold! The fast, non-fading dye was an item of luxury trade, prized by Romans, who
used it to colour ceremonial robes. Pliny the Elder described the dyeing process of two
purples in his Natural History. The Roman mythographer Julius Pollux, writing in the
second century CE, asserted (Onomasticon I, 45—49) that the purple dye was first
discovered by Heracles, or rather, by his dog, whose mouth was stained purple from
chewing on snails along the coast of the Levant. The myth has been discredited as
mere cultural boasting. Recently, the archaeological discovery of substantial numbers
of Murex shells on Crete suggests that the Minoans may have pioneered the extraction
of Royal purple centuries before the Tyrians. Dating from colocated pottery, suggests
the dye may have been produced during the Middle Minoan period in the 20th–18th
century BCE.

The main chemical constituent of the Tyrian dye was discovered by Paul Friedländer
in 1909 to be 6,6'-dibromoindigo, a substance that had previously been synthesized in
1903. However, it has never been synthesized commercially.





The Queen in Royal Tyrian Purple 1954
(apologies for poor scan)

Sometimes at auction I win a lot that looks like it is somebodies total stamp collection. Nothing unusual in that.

But next to the more expensive stamps is a price written by someone that is very feeble. The writing very hard to read.

It makes me picture a husband and father on there last legs trying to help the wife desperately before they pass on.

This was the only part to stamping that I saw as mourning.
It has a very strange effect on me and I treat these buys with great respect.
They are more common than I ever thought.This whole issue started me to think and I put together Aust KGV stamps explained so if the worst happen to me my family could have as much help as possible to sort out my collection.

It is amazing what some threads make us think about. Humbly John

Well to prod you out of your melancholy John

How about stomping up and down on shellfish soaked in urine?

Worst Jobs in History

This week plucky Tony Robinson continues his look at The Worst Jobs in History with a rundown on the worst royal jobs. As Tony takes on the work traditionally done at court we learn of the miserable lot of food tasters, whipping boys, falconers, and laundry women who beat Elizabethan laundry with paddles similar to cricket bats.

Tony has a go at knitting chain mail; marvelling at the intricacies and tedium of fashioning one link, let alone a suit which used 200,000. Then there was the lance-makers' task of carving hundreds of lances for jousting tournaments or the shining of shoes for Edwardian hunting parties. Armourers, fire-workers, grooms of the chamber, hall boys and royal messengers all had their moments of misery.

But the most unpleasant job of all fell to the unfortunate lackeys who were responsible for the rich purple dye for the monarch's coronation robes. The purple maker created the royal colour by stomping up and down on rotting shellfish which had been soaking in human urine.

Rod many moons ago for about 6 months I use to dive for mussels for a living at 14 years and cleaned them in a cement mixer. The smell of the rejected ones after a day or two in the sun is unbelievable, totally full of maggots. But to add urine and stomp them into dye is totally revolting.
The smell would not be able to be washed off.
I can not think of a more unpleasant job. Even a piggery would be better and that is really saying something. Plus the purple would not be able to be washed off. Even a tannery would not beat it. Yes we get it easy these days.

From Wikipedia:

Paul Von Hindenburg enjoyed a long career in the Prussian Army, retiring in 1911. He was recalled at the outbreak of World War I, and first came to national attention, at the age of 66, as the victor at Tannenberg in 1914. As Germany's Chief of the General Staff from 1916, he and his deputy, Erich Ludendorff, rose in the German public's esteem until Hindenburg came to eclipse the Kaiser himself. Hindenburg retired again in 1919, but returned to public life one more time in 1925 to be elected as the second President of Germany.

Though 84 years old and in poor health, Hindenburg was persuaded to run for re-election in 1932, as he was considered the only candidate who could defeat Adolf Hitler. Hindenburg was re-elected in a runoff but nonetheless played an important role in the Nazi Party's rise to power, dissolving parliament twice in 1932 and eventually appointing Hitler as Chancellor in January 1933. In February, he issued the Reichstag Fire Decree which suspended various civil liberties, and in March he signed the Enabling Act, in which parliament gave Hitler's administration legislative powers. Hindenburg died the following year, after which Hitler declared the office of President vacant and, as "Führer und Reichskanzler", made himself head of state.

The famed zeppelin Hindenburg that was destroyed by fire in 1937 was named in his honor.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_von_Hindenburg

smauggie! The first world war created our most amazing issue of stamps being the Australian King George V penny reds.
Germany had the only red dye in that time. It created over 200 different red shades for the stamp printer of the day. All because we could not get red dye out of Germany at that time. I do not know of another stamp issue like it.
Penny reds are my favorite stamps. KGV

Amazing KG5, I wasn't aware of that (the red colour)
one never stops learning .

The Tuvaluans (especially on Funafuti) made a purple dye from the sap in the trunk of the banana tree. They use it on ceremonial dancing skirts and pandanus woven mats.