What Did You Learn About The World From Your Stamp Collection Today?

I could not soak this stamp. I had to keep it on piece. I learned the word HONGO from this cancel scanned below.

Hongo in Spanish is a mushroom or fungus.

Hongo is a type of bowler hat.

Hongo is a district in Tokyo, Japan

Linus

I had to get out my Tokyo City Atlas to see where that post office is. It's right by the University of Tokyo. I don't think I've ever been in that neighborhood (except passing through on a subway train), but I've certainly been to several places within a kilometer of it.

Erilaz - Sounds like you have spent some time in Japan. I am always looking up districts within cities on maps to see where stamps were postmarked. I have a lot of Hong Kong cancels. Scanned below is a stamp from my collection for Butterfly, Hong Kong, and a map showing its location.

Linus

That's a nice strike!

The slogan box below the postmark basically says: "[Please write the] zip code clearly."

Thanks Dave, for that info and the kind words. I wondered what that box below HONGO was all about. Now I know!

Linus

Happy to help!

Interesting topic.

I learned that the original Benin stamps were issued before that part of Africa became the Colony of Dahomey. After independence, they returned to the name Benin which is retained today. Located on the "Bight of Benin" (Bay of Benin) which is part of the full of Guinea.

I also learned that Brazzaville, Republic of Congo, the only place I have been in West Africa, is named after an Italian born explorer who was naturalized a French citizen. His name was Brazza - found some really cool photos of him on Wikipedia and learned that Brazzaville is the only city named by colonialist which retained its name after independence reportedly because they liked Brazza and how he treated native peoples in their country.

I've been there six times, but cumulatively only 10 weeks, mostly in Tokyo. The last time was six years ago, so I'm eager to return as soon as things get back to normal.

Today I got this postal card written in Volapük, the 35th in my collection. It was mailed on 22 August 1901 from Solms, Texas. I didn't know where Solms was or anything else about it, so I had to look it up. It's in the Hill Country between Austin and San Antonio, just southwest of New Braunfels (and named after the same person, Prince Carl of Solms-Braunfels). The Solms post office was only in existence from 1894 to 1903.

https://www.tshaonline.org/handbook...ies/solms-tx


Unfortunately, the card appears to be only the second half of a two-card message, but it interestingly contains a reference to Esperanto: Oplepadob I jälami vpa ta Esp. "I shall also prepare a defense of Volapük against Esperanto." (Blast this site for not allowing the "i" before "jälami" to remain lower-case! It's not a ******* English pronoun!!!)

Also learned that Fernando Po is also in the Gulf of Guinea.

Does anyone know why stamps from there say "Fernando Poo"? I know the island is now part of the Republic of Equatorial Guinea, formerly Spanish Guinea, but do not understand the "Poo" as opposed to Po.

When searching for some new stamps, I re-discovered stamps imprinted "Rarotonga," which were for Cook Islands. Stamps imprinted as such were only issued between 1913 and 1931. "Cook Islands" as the country name was used both before Rarotonga (from 1892), and since 1931.

Rarotonga is actually the name of the largest island in the Cook Islands group.

A quick check of Wikipedia reveals that Fernao (Fernando) do Po (my keyboard doesn't do tildes or cedillas) was a 15th century Portuguese explorer who discovered some of these islands. Spelling is given both as Poo or Po, but no reason given.

Also in the area are former Spanish islands that are now part of Equatorial Guinea: Elobey, Annobon, Corisco. These islands issued a few stamps as a collective entity. The former Portuguese territory of St. Thomas & Prince Islands is in the area, to the southwest from Bioko, the renamed Fernando Po.

Since Benin/Dahomey was mentioned, the Portuguese had control of a fort in the town of Ouidah (also spelled Ajuda) from the early 1700s to 1961 when the site was occupied by the newly independent government of Dahomey. The fort used stamps from St. Thomas & Prince and had its own cancelling device, for (Fort) Sao Joao Baptista de Ajuda. Covers and stamps do exist with this cancellation. Unfortunately, I have yet to get one.

Good topic.

I'd received a few stamps from France two days ago and got round today to loggin them in and putting them into my album. The problem was, the dealer had used a 1966 stamp on the cover, (Sc. 1168 / Y&T 1498) issued by France to celebrate the centennial of the Parisian pneumatic mail system.
I actually had this in my album already, but had never really seen or thought about it before, so I turned to Wikipedia, and went down a rabbit hole....

Fascinating to see the major cities in Europe and North America, Japan, Australia, South America.... Some with hundred of miles of pneumatic mail systems.

I'd heard of the Parisian system and seen some postal stationery associated with it, but had not realized that Philadelphia (near where I live) had one of these -- the first in the US -- started by Postmaster General John Wanamaker (yes, he of Wanamaker's department store). All the US ones apparently shut down by 1953 before I was born.

There are a couple threads on SCF that touch on pneumatic mail, for example mentioning an article on New York's system: https://goscf.com/t/44208 and another showing a French cover https://www.stampcommunity.org/topi...PIC_ID=11341

Never did get the purchases into my album, but it was a good day nonetheless.
Here's the stamp:

I picked up this Postal Card in an antique store in Galveston, TX for a few cents. There were a bunch in a basket - I wish I would have bought more of them. - I looked this up in my US specialized and found that it was a McKinley postcard from 1902 I believe UX18 - postmark 1905 - I also read up and learned about the Louisiana Purchase Exposition of 1904 in St. Louis as well as the history behind the Lady Managers.

Nora: looks like you got a nice research project there. Who were the Lady Managers, if you don't mind sharing a bit, and what is the connection to Indianapolis?

It interests me because Indy is my home town. Born there in late '49 and lived there until April, 1981 (except for college in northern Indiana). Now in Colorado for almost 40 years.

I bought some stamps from Diego Suarez. This is now a city on the north coast of Madagascar, but was originally visited by a Portuguese sailing ship in the 16th century. The French wanted to use it as a coaling station and aggressively pursued it as a colony over English and American opposition.

Now part of Madagascar.