Category: Art

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Saturday/ stamps from Bophuthatswana ✉️

My set of Bophuthatswana stamps are in the stamp album.
Below are the first two pages of stamps, including the colorful set of first definitives that feature stylized African animals as totems for Bophuthatswana clans.

Bophuthatswana was a homeland in South Africa that gained nominal independence in 1977.
Its citizens suffered a number of political crises during its existence (see below).
By 1994 the homelands experiment was over, and Bophuthatswana was reincorporated into South Africa along with all the other homelands.

•  Self-government 1 June 1972
• Nominal Independence 6 December 1977
• Coup d’état 10 February 1988
• Coup attempt 1990
• 1994 Bophuthatswana crisis
• Dissolution 27 April 1994

Also see a previous post for Ciskei.

Bophuthatswana (lit. ’gathering of the Tswana people’), officially the Republic of Bophuthatswana (Tswana: Repaboleki ya Bophuthatswana; Afrikaans: Republiek van Bophuthatswana), and colloquially referred to as ‘Bop’ was a Bantustan (also known as “Homeland”, an area set aside for members of a specific ethnicity) that was declared (nominally) independent by the apartheid regime of South Africa in 1977.
However, like the other Bantustans of Ciskei, Transkei and Venda, its independence was not recognized by any country other than South Africa.
[Source: Wikipedia]

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Friday/ Independence Day

U.S. commemorative stamp from the “Special Occasions” definitive series
Issued Apr. 20, 1987
Perf. 10 on 1, 2, or 3 sides |Booklet panes of 10 |Quantity Issued: 76,303,125 |Design: Corita Kent |Photogravure |Engraving: Bureau of Engraving and Printing |No Watermark
U.S. #2267 |22c First-class rate |Yellow, deep blue, light blue, white and pink |Fireworks and ‘Congratulations!’
Postmark from Buffalo, NY, July 2024.
[Source: mysticstamp.com]
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Saturday/ cars, old and new 🚘

Five amigos went out to the Greenwood Car Show today.
The informal car show is organized by a local non-profit organization and raises money for local organizations and automotive scholarships.

The show is made up of vintage cars, with newer ones thrown into the mix— all parked along twenty-or-so street blocks along Greenwood Ave N in Seattle’s Greenwood neighborhood.

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Friday/ a reckoning with what was once impossible 🌈

Happy Friday.
It’s Pride weekend in Seattle, with the annual Pride parade scheduled for Sunday along 4th Avenue, downtown. Time flies, and it’s been ten years since same-sex marriage became legal nationwide in the United States (on June 26, 2015).

The artwork below is from an art exhibition— one of the main events of Tokyo Pride 2025— on the third floor of Tokyu Plaza Harajuku shopping mall’s Harakado space.

“Ordinary” by moriuo | ©TOKYO PRIDE 2025
Erik Augustin Palm writes in The Japan Times about it: Among the more resonant pieces is “Ordinary” by moriuo, a painting drawing lightly on comic-book style, depicting a young male couple hand-in-hand by the ocean as a train passes in the background — perhaps in Kamakura. The image is seen through the eyes of an older gay man, who never had the freedom to express love so openly. “I wish you could see this view … this time that has finally come,” reads the artist’s quietly devastating caption. It’s a moment of tenderness across generations — a reckoning with what was once impossible.
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Wednesday/ stamps from Ciskei ✉️

I have expanded my South African stamp collection to include the four Bantustans (homelands) that had issued postage stamps from 1976 to 1994. Technically these are not stamps from South Africa.
Although these stamps were denominated in South African Rand, they were not valid for mail that was sent from outside the homelands.

Below is a sampler of pages from my collection for Ciskei.

First, a little history. This is what South Africa looked like before the first democratic election of 1994. The four main provinces were established in 1910, and the Bantustans (homelands) were established by the South African apartheid government.
After the 1994 election, the Bantustans ceased to exist, and were reincorporated into South Africa.
Nine new provinces were established: Eastern Cape, Free State, Gauteng, KwaZulu-Natal, Limpopo, Mpumalanga, Northern Cape, North West, and Western Cape.

[More from Wikipedia: Bantustan]- 
A Bantustan (also known as a Bantu homeland, a black homeland, a black state or simply known as a homeland) was a territory that the National Party administration of the Union of South Africa (1910–1961) and later the Republic of South Africa (1961–1994) set aside for black inhabitants of South Africa and South West Africa (now Namibia), as a part of its policy of apartheid.
The government of South Africa declared that four of the South African Bantustans were independent—Transkei, Bophuthatswana, Venda, and Ciskei (the so-called “TBVC States”), but this declaration was never recognized by anti-apartheid forces in South Africa or by any international government. Other Bantustans (like KwaZulu, Lebowa, and QwaQwa) were assigned “autonomy” but never granted “independence”.

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Tuesday/ time for ice cream🍦

A deadly, record-setting heat wave was continuing to blast most of the eastern U.S. on Tuesday, June 24, forecasters said, with temperatures soaring to near 100 degrees for tens of millions of people.
– USA Today

We’re still escaping the heat here in Seattle, with a relatively mild high of 79°F (26°C) here today.
Here is a mathematics-and-ice-cream cartoon from today’s Seattle Times, from cartoonist Bob Thaves.

Euclid is generally considered with Archimedes and Apollonius of Perga to be among the greatest mathematicians of antiquity.
Euclid’s book ‘The Elements’ was a comprehensive compilation and explanation of all the known mathematics of his time, and the earliest known discussion of geometry. The Elements is often considered after the Bible as the most frequently translated, published, and studied book in the history of the Western World.
[From Wikipedia]
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Wednesday/ art nouveau from Paris 🇫🇷

My Ebay stamp dealer from Bishop’s Stortford (northeast of London) included this French postcard and stamp with my purchase.

It is of a cast iron balustrade plaque by French architect and designer Hector Guimard (1867 – 1942).
Look for the stylized ‘M’ at the bottom.
Guimard was a prominent practitioner of the art nouveau style.

French Decorative Art
Issued Jan. 22, 1994 (one of a set of four stamps)
Perf. 13¼ x 12¼ | Design: Jean Paul Véret-Lemarinier | Litho. | Engraving: ITVF Boulazac | No Watermark
2993 CMK 2.80Fr Multicolored | French Metro balustrade by Hector Guimard
[Source: stampworld.com]
__________
More about Guimard from Wikipedia:
Between 1890 and 1930, Guimard designed and built some fifty buildings, in addition to one hundred and forty-one subway entrances for Paris Metro, as well as numerous pieces of furniture and other decorative works.
However, in the 1910s art nouveau went out of fashion and by the 1960s most of his works had been demolished, and only two of his original Metro edicules were still in place.
The first day post office stamp, used on the front and back of the 1994 postcard, with art nouveau lettering.
It turned out I have a few pictures of this metro entrance designed by Guimard.
I took them while I was in Paris in Sept. 2008. 
This entrance is for Pasteur station on Line 6 and Line 12 of the Paris Métro, in the 15th arrondissement. It features several of the Guimard balustrade plaques and meticulously designed street lamps. Even the font (the lettering style) for the ‘Métropolitain’ sign, was Guimard’s invention.
[Shot with Canon EOS 20D f/14, 1/400s, ISO-1600, 36mm focal length]
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Monday/ soccer, on golden stamps ⚽

Here is the latest page that I just added to my set of albums for South Africa.
This unusual sheet of stamps— round stamps on gold foil paper, for nine different countries, in one sheet— was issued in 2010 to celebrate the 2010 World Cup in Cape Town, South Africa.

P.S. In June and July of next year, six matches of the 2026 World Cup will be played right here in Seattle. The USA team features in one match, and I wondered if there would be any tickets left.
Yes, there are, at a very dear price.
Ticket reseller Stubhub offers tickets starting at $2,235, for seats in the stadium.
But hold on to your beer. Right there on the pitch, one ticket is offered for $892,803 and another for $1,116,003. ‘Can relist if plans change’ it says for these. Yes. Or if the stock market crashes and you go from billionaire to millionaire.

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Sunday/ Father’s Day 👨‍👦

Happy Father’s Day to all the dads.

Cartoon from The New Yorker online, by cartoonist Bernard Schoenbaum.
Schoenbaum was a son of European emigrants, and born and raised in New York City.
He passed away in 2010. 
I had trouble finding the original publication date of the cartoon, and asked ChatGPT to help me. It came back with ‘Based on style and signature, it likely dates from the 1980s or 1990s’.
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Saturday/ South West Africa’s first definitives ✉️

The stamps to complete my 1931 set of South West Africa’s* first definitive stamps arrived in my mailbox today, and I promptly added them into my album.

*Namibia, since 1990. Namibia’s history spans from the arrival of hunter-gatherers like the San and the Bantu-speaking peoples to European colonialism and finally, independence.
Key periods include it as a German colony (1884-1915), a South African mandate (1915-1990), and the struggle for independence during that time, culminating in the nation’s independence on March 21, 1990.
[Source: Google Search Labs | AI Overview]

The 1½ penny was issued later (1937), but I included it in the set .. why not?
I have a mint 1½d pair coming, but the used ones that I have now with OTJIEWARONGO and GROOTFONTEIN postmarks are cool, too.
What’s unusual with this set is that the country name is in a different font for each denomination. Usually, the lettering for the country name is identical for all the stamps in a definitive set.
The 20 shilling stamp denomination at the very end of the set is an extremely high value and must have been intended for very heavy or very large parcels. (20 shillings translates to a modern currency value at least 10x than the highest denominated modern stamps!).
Furthermore: The “Okuwahakan Falls” depicted on the 1931 20-shilling stamp of South West Africa is something of a mystery. Despite its prominent appearance on the stamp, there is no well-documented waterfall in present-day Namibia known by this name, either historically or currently.
Chat GPT says it is possibly a former or obscure name for a known waterfall:
One candidate is Ruacana Falls on the Kunene River (the border with Angola).
Another is Epupa Falls, further downstream on the Kunene. Both are among Namibia’s only notable large waterfalls.
It is speculative, but “Okuwahakan” could be an old or alternate indigenous name for one of these falls.
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Monday/ you got mail— official mail 📩

I found this set of envelopes on Ebay, and I “had” to buy it.
It has South African stamps with OFFICIAL overprints on that I was still missing in my collection.
I guess I will put the envelopes as is in my album.
My policy is not to remove stamps from an envelope with significant labels, postmarks, and markings.

Sent by registered mail from Pretoria, South Africa, to Folkestone, England.
Folkestone is on the English Channel just to the south of Dover).
A postmark on the back from the Folkstone post office is dated Apr. 27, 1936.
The lettering at the top says ‘In Sy Majesteits Diens’ / ‘On His Majesty’s Service’.
‘His Majesty’ would be King Edward VIII, at the time king only since Jan. 1936. He would abdicate in December of that same year, to marry American divorcée Wallis Simpson. George VI then became the next king of England.
Sent by registered mail from Pretoria, South Africa, to Minchinhampton, England.
Minchinhampton is south of Gloucester in the Stroud District.
A postmark on the back indicating the arrival date shows Jul. 10, 1933.
Sent by registered mail from Johannesburg, South Africa, to New Cross in London, England (postcode district SE14) on Dec. 23, 1931.
It looks like it arrived on Jan. 11, 1932, so the letter must have been sent by airmail.
Official souvenir cover from the Johannesburg National Philatelic Exhibition. Sent on Oct. 28, 1950 to Indonesia.
It looks like official stamps were offered for sale to collectors at the exhibition.
(Stamps with the ‘Official’ overprint are designated to be used by government departments and agencies for official correspondence.)
Another envelope, just a plain one, sent from the Johannesburg National Philatelic Exhibition.
It was sent on Oct. 24, 1950 and just to Cape Town.
The customized registered mail postmark mentioning the exhibition is unusual.
Sent registered mail and airmail from Johannesburg to the town of Gomersal in West Yorkshire, England (southwest of Leeds).
It was sent on May 4, 1948. The 1947 stamp on the left features King George VI.
That uniform he is wearing looks like a navy uniform (he served in the Royal Navy as well as the Royal Air Force; was the first member of the British royal family to be certified as a fully qualified pilot).
Sent in 1938 from Johannesburg to Cape Town by registered mail, with official stamps.
I love this 1936 stamp that depicts the mine shaft machinery of a Johannesburg gold mine. Also on the stamp, the mine dump of excavated earth, and the skyscrapers of Johannesburg behind it.
Envelope for registered mail, printed by De La Rue & Co. in London, England, with an embossed 5½ penny preprinted stamp on the flap (depicting King George V) and official stamps added.
The letter was sent to King’s College Hospital in London SE5 in August 1935.  The hospital was established in 1909, and is a major teaching hospital and major trauma center today. It is referred to locally and by staff simply as “King’s” or abbreviated internally to “KCH”.
Registered letter with official stamps and very nice air mail label, sent from Johannesburg, South Africa, to an address in Southsea (literally on the English Channel, in Portsmouth) on Jul. 14, 1951.
The coat of arms with the leopard on the rock and motto “Lux in Tenebris” (“Light in Darkness’) is that of Nyasaland— a British protectorate, later part of the Federation of Rhodesia and Nyasaland, and now the country of Malawi.
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Saturday/ something fishy 🐟

Here’s a cartoon from today’s Seattle Times.

And what do sardines eat, actually?
Sardines are primarily planktivores, meaning they feed on small organisms in the water column.
Their diet includes—
Phytoplankton: 
Microscopic plant-like organisms, such as diatoms and dinoflagellates;
Zooplankton: 
Small animal-like organisms, such as copepods, crustacean larvae, and small fish eggs;
Dead organic matter: They may also consume debris and waste products found in the water.
Sardines are filter feeders, using their gills to strain food from the water.

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Friday/ a Dutch icon 🇳🇱

Happy Friday.
There was a single letter in my mailbox from the Netherlands today, with four South African stamps inside (An Ebay purchase).
Here’s the stamp from the envelope.

Dutch Icons
Issued Jan. 2, 2014
Serpentine Die Cut Perf. 11¼ | Self-adhesive | Design: Joachim Baan & Fleur | Issued in booklet panes of 5 | Litho. | Engraving: Walsall Security Printers Ltd. | No Watermark
1461 A664 1,05€ Red, blue, dark blue, black & beige | Dutch windmill
[Sources: stampworld.com, Scott 2018 Standard Postage Stamp Catalogue, Vol. 5]
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Sunday/ summer is coming ☀️

I like Gabriel Campanario’s artwork, published in today’s Seattle Times.
There is a lot of activity— and all kinds of people— on the Overlook Walk that links downtown Seattle, the Pike Place Market, and the newly revitalized Waterfront Park.

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Thursday/ on the green ⛳

Here’s a cartoon from Friday’s South African daily newspaper Die Burger (‘The Citizen’).

South African President Cyril Ramaphosa to Trump:
‘Would you mind if one of my caddies tried?’
(The caddies are Ernie Els and Retief Goosen— professional South African golfers who were part of the delegation to the White House. )
The sidebar comment in the corner is:
‘It looks as if Cyril stayed out of the rough’.

AGOA stands for the African Growth and Opportunity Act agreement, signed in 2000, which allowed tariff-free exports to the United States for 32 African countries.
On April 2, Trump had slapped a 31 % reciprocal tariff on South Africa (now on the 90-day pause). The USA’s universal 10 % tariff on overseas goods remains in place, also for South Africa.
From aljazeera.com:
While the two countries did not confirm a trade agreement at Wednesday’s meeting, Ramaphosa told reporters afterwards that the discussion was “a great success”. He added that he presented a framework for a trade deal to Trump, and the two agreed to continue having discussions to figure out the specifics of this deal.

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Monday/ stamps from Great Britain 🇬🇧

These stamps were on the envelope that landed in my mailbox today, mailed from the suburb of Northwood to the northwest of London.
(The Trump tariffs do not seem to affect my purchases of stamps on Ebay from overseas vendors. These are just envelopes with stamps in, though. I’m not sure what will happen if I order new albums and pages from overseas that come in a proper package).

Clockwise:
Merry Christmas
Issued Nov. 2, 2004
Perf. 14½x14 | Design: Raymond Briggs | Engraving: De La Rue | No Watermark
2238 BPD1 1st Class | Multicolored | Santa with red suit looking at sunset
25th Anniversary of Duke of Edinburgh Award Scheme
Issued Aug. 12, 1981
Perf. 14 | Pair of stamps with gutter | Design: P. Sharland | Phosphorized paper | Litho. | No Watermark
1163 638 18p Greenish yellow, magenta, pale new blue, black, cobalt & gold | Woman at pottery wheel (“Skills”)
Folklore
Issued Feb. 6, 1981
Perf. 15×14 | Design: F. Wegner | Phosphorized paper | Litho. | No Watermark
1144 620 18p Dull ultramarine, lemon, lake-brown, bright green, black & gold | Morris dancers ‘A Merry May’
British Wildlife
Issued Oct. 5, 1977
Perf. 14×15 | Design: P. Oxenham | ‘All-over’ phosphor | Litho. | No Watermark
1043 522 9p Reddish-brown, grey-black, pale lemon, bright turquoise-blue, bright magenta & gold | Badger (Meles meles)
Millennium Stamps— Life and Earth
Issued Apr. 4, 2000
Perf. 14¼x14½ | Design: Post office artists | Engraving: De La Rue | No Watermark
1837 BBX 2nd Class | Multicolored | Ecos Nature Park, Ballymena, Northern Ireland
[Sources: Stanley Gibbons Stamp Catalogue Part 1 Volume 1 British Commonwealth 1998, stampword.com]
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Friday/ just fixing the antenna 📶

Happy Friday.
I bought a few 1960s magazines at the Friends store in the Seattle Public Library for a dollar each on Monday.
This cartoon is from The Saturday Evening Post of Sept. 9, 1967.
(That would be the Empire State Building. It opened on May 1, 1931).

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Thursday/ a postcard from Japan 🇯🇵

These days, stamps from Japan is one of my favorite searches on EBay.
I couldn’t resist this beautiful postcard and stamp from 1921 that was offered for just a few dollars.

 

50th Anniversary of the Establishment of Postal Service in Japan in 1871
Issued Apr. 20, 1921
Perf. 13 x 13½ | Uncoated paper | Engraved
164 A47 3 sen violet-brown Ministry of Communications Building, Tokyo
____________
Translation of the Japanese text on the postage stamp:
At the top 貳拾五年紀念奉祝 (Nijūgo-nen Kinen Hōshuku) – “50th Year Commemorative Celebration” 
At the bottom 日本郵便 (Nihon Yūbin) – “Japan Post”
三銭 (San sen) – “3 Sen” (Sen is a sub-unit of the yen, used until 1953. Following World War II, the yen lost much of its pre-war value as Japan faced a debt crisis and hyperinflation)
Bottom right: 大日本帝國政府印刷局製造 (Dai Nippon Teikoku Seifu Insatsu-kyoku Seizō) – “Manufactured by the Printing Bureau of the Government of the Empire of Japan”
[Sources: stampworld.com, Scott Standard Postage Stamp Catalogue 2017, Vol. 4, Chat GPT]
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Monday/ downtown Seattle 🏢

I had lunch at the Washington Athletic Club in downtown today, and took these pictures.

The U.S. Bank Center building between 5th and 6th Avenue is 44 stories tall and opened in 1989.
I had worked inside it on occasion— once upon a time, and years ago now. The American Eagle clothing store that used to be in the domed structure on the corner is long gone.
There are still lots and lots of empty storefronts downtown.
This used to be the Nike store in downtown Seattle (formerly NikeTown), on 6th Ave and Pike St. It closed down permanently in January 2023.
A line of lavender taxi cabs at the entrance to the Sheraton Hotel. (So yes, they are still in business and have not been completely supplanted by Uber drivers).
Here is where I had my lunch, on the second floor.
It is open to Washington Athletic Club members only, and I was invited by a member of the club 🤗.
Done with lunch and now I am snapping a few more pictures on the way to the Seattle Library.
The Skinner building was built in 1926 and is listed on the National Register of Historic Places. I love the detail on the frames above the entrance.
A close-up view of Park Place building on 6th Avenue.
It is a 21-story office tower built in the 1970s and fully renovated by international architect and tenant Gensler in 2012. Is this an example of brutalist architecture*? I wondered.
*Brutalist architecture is a style known for its use of raw concrete, bold geometric forms, and functional design, often characterized by a rough, unadorned aesthetic.
The Crowne Plaza Seattle-Downtown on 6th Ave is a 34-story hotel that was built in 1980 and renovated in 2019.
That’s the Park Place building from the previous picture, in the reflection.
Looks like Seattle International Film Festival 2025 is about to start. That first frame on the film negative below is from the 2023 romance/drama movie Past Lives. (I have seen it and I liked it a lot).
Arrived at the Seattle Public Library‘s entrance on 5th Avenue, and I’m taking the obligatory shot (obligatory for me) of the diamond pattern of the outside frame.
Done in the library and waiting for the G-line bus. In the reflection is the 1928 building of what is today the nine-story Executive Hotel Pacific.
And here comes the G-line bus on Spring Street, to take me back up to Capitol Hill.
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Monday/ different by a hair 📏

I updated this page in my stamp album today.
I added a new line of  ½ penny springbok stamps, from 1947.
Only a very finely calibrated ruler will show the ¼ mm size difference between the printed designs of the stamps issued in 1937 (18½x22½ mm), in August 1947 (18¼x22¼ mm) issue and in November 1947 (18×22 mm).

A quarter mm is only one one-hundredth of an inch! 

The postal authorities tried to squeeze in a little more white space between the stamps in the 1947 printings, for the perforation machine.

I added in one more line with ½ penny springbok stamps, and pushed the red 1d Dromedaris* ones onto the next page.  

*The “Drommedaris” was a Dutch ‘jaght’, a type of sailing vessel, built in 1645. It was operated by the Dutch East India Company (VOC) from 1645 to 1661. The Drommedaris played a significant role in the establishment of a halfway stop for VOC ships on the trade route between Europe and the East Indies.
Ultimately, the Drommedaris’s voyages to Table Bay led to the establishment of a crucial trading post and settlement at the Cape of Good Hope, in what would become the Mother City— the city of Cape Town, South Africa.