Big Blue 1840-1940 Stamp blog

bigblue1840-1940.blogspot.com/2014/12/ClassicStampsofPeru.html

The War of the Pacific (1879-1883) was devastating for Peru, as they were defeated by the Chileans. (One can argue the Bolivians had even a worse result, as they lost the Litoral Province and their sea access to Chile.)

Lima was occupied (1881), and the nitrate rich territory of Tarapaca was acquired by Chile. It took until 1929 to solve the Arica province (to Chile) and the Tacna province (to Peru) territorial disputes.

bigblue1840-1940.blogspot.com/2015/01/ClassicalStampsofthePhilippines.html

The Philippines are a group of 7,107 islands in the western Pacific Ocean, and were initially colonized by the Spanish after their "discovery" by Ferdinand Magellan in 1521.

As part of the Spanish Empire for 300 years, the inhabitants adopted Roman Catholicism, while Manila, the capital, became part of the Manila-Acapulco galleon trade between the 16th and 19th centuries.

Stamps were introduced in 1854, and closely follow in design those of Spanish Cuba, except for denomination.

bigblue1840-1940.blogspot.com/2015/01/ClassicalStampsofPontaDelgada.html

Ponta Delgada was a Portuguese administrative district of the Azores, and consisted of the islands of Sao Miguel and Santa Maria.

Another small region of the world where I had no idea that stamps, at one time, were printed for use.

bigblue1840-1940.blogspot.com/2015/02/ClassicalStampsofthePortugueseCongo.html

The Portuguese Congo (now the Enclave of Cabinda and the northernmost province of Angola) was a strip of land on the west coast of Africa separated by 40 miles (60 kilometers) from Angola and the Congo River.

Cabinda (the settlement) originally served as a harbor and port for Portuguese slave trade.

Portugal proclaimed sovereignty over the territory in 1885, and it was given the status as a protectorate of the Portuguese crown.

Stamps were first issued in 1894.

bigblue1840-1940.blogspot.com/2015/02/ClassicalStampsofPortugueseIndia.html

Portugal and India have been interacting with each other ever since Vasco da Gama landed in Calicut on the Malabar Coast in 1498. Portuguese India ( Estado da India Portuguesa), a colonial state, was founded in 1505, and the capital was Cochin through 1530, then Nova Goa.

Goa (1510) became the most important settlement; and , in fact, "Portuguese India" was often referred to as "Goa". A post office was opened in Goa in 1854, and stamps for local use within the colony were issued in 1871.

One of my most favourite of Films, Anne of Green Gables,  so much so I bought the DVD's,
Makes a lovely bookend pair with "The Winslow Boy" starring Nigel Hawthorne  ("Yes Minister") 1999

Films of sensibility.

Look forward to reading you blog.

bigblue1840-1940.blogspot.com/2015/03/ClassicalStampsofPuertoRico.html

The island of Puerto Rico in the West Indies was, like Cuba, under Spanish Dominion from November 19, 1493 ( Christopher Columbus second voyage) until 1898, when Spain was obligated to cede the island to the United States following the Spanish-American War.

Stamps of Cuba overprinted in black were used in Puerto Rico in 1873, and the Spanish colony received its own issues beginning in 1877. U.S. administration overprinted issues began in 1898, but were replaced by those of the United States in 1900.

U.S. citizenship for Puerto Ricans was granted in 1917.

bigblue1840-1940.blogspot.com/2015/03/ClassicalStampsofQuelimane.html

Quelimane , a Portuguese port town since 1544, and a slave market trading site in the earlier years, was the capital of the Mozambique Zambezia province beginning in 1894, but also issued their own stamps in 1913-14.

Because stamp collectors would  buy them? 

Great Stuff, Jim !
Fascinating.

Surprise, surprise,   all my 3 passed muster.
Thanks for the in-depth work.

Update:  All my 4 "duplicates"  were genuine.

Fabulous discussion Jim!
I'll need to read that several times over to digest.

Personally, I am a real Steiner nut, I love his work
In my opinion he has just the right amount of "white space" between stamps.
I don't particularly care for his treatment of "strip stamps" and do my own page.

I am so much involved with Steiner now, I even have my duplicates set up in Steiner page hiearchy.

I have scanned all my Steiner pages (I only print the page I can place a stamp on)
so when I buy a collection (Let's say Azores) I can flip through my scanned image  pages and see which stamps
I need to add and mount, those that have better centreing / postmarks etc  without getting the album out of the bookcase.
Saves enormous time.

Too Cold?  I have done a 360 on this one,  I now do not mind if a page has only one stamp on it,
it shows what is missing, and I rather have overkill than missing varieties.

A very interesting tangent on stamp collecting, thoroughly enjoyed your observations.

bigblue1840-1940.blogspot.com/2015/04/ClassicStampsofReunion.html

Reunion (more properly Réunion) is presently an overseas department of France, but has been in the French realm since 1642. The island, located 120 miles east of Madagascar in the Indian Ocean, was an important stopover on the East Indies trade route, but less so after the opening of the Suez Canal in 1869.

bigblue1840-1940.blogspot.com/2015/04/ClassicalStampsofRiodeOro.html

Rio de Oro, geographically along the Atlantic ocean in the southern portion of Spanish (Western) Sahara in northwest Africa, became a Spanish protectorate in 1884 (Berlin Conference).

The capital was Villa Cisnernos, and the population was reported to be 24,000.

The reality is there is no gold there (despite the name), and the landscape is bleak indeed, with essentially no precipitation, although fog is found along the coast.

The small port town of Villa Cisnernos (now Al-Dakhla) had to import drinking water.