Library Treasures, on FDC

I know, I nurtured this blog a little sloppily the past months. This is because (of course) there is plenty of things to do and I rarely find some minutes to spend with my philatelic collection. But yesterday I received a small gift from one of our lecturers at the Institute of Library and Information Science in Berlin and so I carry on to share it here digitally:

– click on the image to enlarge –

The shown FDC is something I would call a bibliophilatelic classic. It was issued 1990 still as an GDR issue in a four stamp set showing “Treasures of Libraries in the GDR”. I’m a little hurry right now so I’ll add some additional information later.

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Paulchen of the childrens library, on stamp

Today I want to add a very special bibliophilatelic issue coming from the GDR, which might be one of to most overlooked in bibliophilatelic history, to my virtual collection.

The stamp was issued november 28th 1972 being part of a set of six (Michel No. 1807-1812) dedicated to famous fictional characters of the east german childrens television. Some of them are quite famous till now – at least “Herr Fuchs und Frau Elster” (Mr. Fox and Mrs. Magpie) – others are almost forgotten (like “Schnuffel und Pieps“). One character that was completely unknow to me, is the one shown: “Paulchen aus der Kinderbibliothek” (Paulchen of the childrens library, Michel-No. 1812 ). Nevertheless it is very nice one. The very copy I have is one I just found in some album from my own childhood days which may be an explanation for its “used look”…  

The Pashkov House, on stamp

So here is another library related stamp – this time from Russia. The definitive features Дом Пашкова of the Russian State Library (Российская государственная библиотека) in Moscow, which is said to be the most beautiful building in the whole city. The postage stamp is one of fifteen from the 1992 to 1995 issued series “Monuments”. The shown one was issued 1995 an is numbered as 6122 by Scott resp. 418 by Michel Catalogue. 

 

The Russian State Library was founded in 1862 as Russias first public library. It is located near the Kremlin in the very center of Moscow. The pictured building “Dom Pashkov” however is older. Is was build from 1784 to 1787 by order of Pjotr Pashkov by the architect Vassily Bazhenov. It was heavily damaged by the big fire of 1812 and rather “decently” reconstructed until it was bought by the state in 1839. After that it was reconstructed more “costly” and became in 1862 the first public museum of Moscow (Rumiantsev Museum).  From 1925 it was the home of the Lenin Library, which was renamed in 1992 to its current name. Since 2003 it is – again – in reconstruction which will last approx. till 2008 (more on this can be found here (in Russian)).  The face value of the olive green stamp was 750 Ruble. As there was a rebasement of the Russion currency in 1998 I’m not sure whether it is still valid. It would however take some of them to stamp a letter i.e. to Western Europe. The stamp is a really plain and simple one and it’s exactly that fact which makes it to one of my favorites.

Seungjeongwon Ilgi and Baegunhwasang Chorokbuljo Jikjisimcheyojeol, on stamp

This year’s IFLA conference took us to Seoul and of course I put my eye on the stamps within my reach. I could not find any bibliophilatelic material but at least two specimen which represent scriptophilatelic resp. typophilatelic content. So I want to share them here.

Both were issued december 9 2005 and titled “Registration of Korean Cultural Treasures as Parts of the World Heritages”. The upper one shows the Seungjeongwon Ilgi, the Diaries of the Royal Secretariat (the UNESCO has a little more on this one, better background information can be found at this page)

The second stamp refers to the Baegunhwasang Chorokbuljo Jikjisimcheyojeol (Jikji), a book written by the Buddhist monk Baegunhwasang in 1372. Its second volume is said to be the world’s first printed with movable metal type (in 1377). In is part of UNESCO’s Memory of the World as well. (more on the Jikji can be found here) 

The overall quanitity of the stamps is specified by 850 000 pieces. The design was made by Kim Sojeong, the engraving came by Shin Incheol. The 310 Won postage stamps count as number 2470 and 2471 (Korea Post) and are unfortunately not as single items available at the post office’s counter – except you are lucky and find some oddments. They can be however purchased as part of the 2005 yearpack which costs about 20.000 Won (EURO 18) that is sold by most branch offices in Seoul.

Cover, from Romania

It’s been quite a while since I posted an item at this blog so I will counter this little “blameworthiness” and do some rather “compromise posting” today. This is because I have almost no information about the shown envelope except the information to be gained from the given and printed data on the piece itself:

One can easily deduce that the cover is from Romania and it relates somehow to an occasion called “Speranta are o culoare” which took place october 1st 2005. It is somehow related to the “Biblioteca Centrala Universitara” in the country’s capitol Bucuresti (Bucharest). That’s about it so far but I will try to collect some more information soon. Clicking the image brings your to a larger picture.

Library in Tokyo, on stamp

Being someone unable to discern hiragana from katakana it is a rather hard task finding bibliophilatelistic material like the one shown above within the japanese issueing history. But luckily there are catalogues and our friends from Scott inform us that the shown example appreciates the opening of the “Library of Modern Japanese Literature” in Tokyo’s Komaba Park, which is rather a museum. Scott Number is 906, issue date was April 11th 1967.

Computers on Stamps, wired

It is  not all about books anymore in library world. Therefore one may think about expanding library-related philately on other media-types shown on stamps. The WIRED magazine has a nice gallery on Computers on Stamps. My favorite is the one from Micronesia showing IBM-Founder Thomas J. Watson – from who I don't know whether he is related to Desk Set's Bunny Watson – in front of classical bookstacks. Obviously the Micronesian postal administration should have done some more research because they put a slightly different name on the stamp…  

Narodna bibliotek Srbije – 140th anniversary in 1972

The stamp I want to introduce today takes us to the place where not only Danube and Save merge, viz Београд or Belgrade. Right there the National Library of Serbia was founded in 1832 short after Serboa became an autonoumos prinicpality within the Ottoman Empire. (more on the library’s history can be found here). In 1972 the Yugoslavian post administration issued a postage stamp honoring the 140th anniversary of this presumably oldest serbian cultural institution. The reason for not waiting to the 150th anniversary in 1982 was the then anon coming of the new library building by Ivo Kurtovic located at the Vračarski plato, that was officially openend april 6th  1973.

The stamp itself comes rather plain at the first view and contains some stripes-pattern which did not really gain beauty by means of digitization. However I think the image is still giving a good impression what it is about. Issue date was november 25th 1972. The face value is 0.50 dinar. The German Michel-Catalogue lists the issue as No. 1486 and counts a stamp quantity of 1996108. In the Scott’s list it runs under No. 1119. Color is said to be chocolate.

Stadsbiblioteket Stockholm – some stamp from 1987

There is a new postage stamp in my bibliophilatelic collection I want to introduce. It is a so called “Europa”-Stamp. This issue-series goes back to the 1950s and fosters the idea of having a philatelic counterpart regarding to the evolving european identity. The newest issue picking up the topic “integration” (i.e. the German issue)  was put out just yesterday.The chosen subject in 1987 was “Modern Architecture” and while the German postal administration put some pavilion by Mies van der Rohe and the Köhlbrand-Bridge in Hamburg on stamp, the swedish post office picked unerringly the famous “library cylinder” by Gunnar Asplund in Stockholm in 1928 to represent the country’s recent architectual development. There are two versions of the stamp: the shown green/orangebrown one having a face value of 3.10 SEK (Mi.No. 1429, Scott No. 1629 and one in black and green face valued 2.10 SEK Mi.No. 1428, Scott No. 1628).

The engraving was made by Zlatko Jakus after outines made by Hans Kündig and Bengt Sernander. Issue day was the 14^th of may.

The additional stamp shows the Markuskyrkan built by Sigurd Lewerentz in the latter 1950s. (Mi.Nr. 1430, Scott Nr. 1630).

Olomouc’ research library, honored by a stamp in 1966

Today I received a big cardboard box containing enough bibliophialtelic material to keep me busy the next two years. (Thank you Larry, this is incredible..) I will post bit by bit some of the pieces right here.

The first one I picked rather randomly is a czechoslovak issue put out in 1966. It celebrates the 400th anniversary of the Vědecká knihovna v Olomouci (Research library in Olomouc) – the founding was 1566 within the Jesuit academy of  Olomouc. The graphical design was done by the slovakian graphic artist Vincent Hložník, the engraving was made by Jan Mráček.