Last year, I made a professional transition, from APS Content Specialist to Digital Editor. It’s an exciting time, because I get to focus a lot of energy on our new (free) digital magazine StampEd – but it’s also bittersweet, because I have less time to hunt for stamps. Still, it’s impossible not to find some interesting specimens while working at the APC, and I’m also very lucky to have several kind suppliers who bring me some fascinating finds. So, while editions of FAAPC will become less regular, the series will continue – and I hope you enjoy these stamps as much as I did!

Arms of Dalarna Province

This stamp is from a series of definitives that Sweden issued in the 1980s, featuring the arms of the country’s historical provinces (in Swedish, landskap). In Sweden, a distinction is made between the provinces/landskap (historical, geographical, and cultural regions, of which there are 25) and counties/län (administrative subdivisions, of which there are currently 21), though the actual areas being described often overlap and may share a name.

The province in question here is Dalarna (literally “the dales”), which has also been known as Dalecarlia. The region is large, nearly the size of Denmark, and is located in west-central Sweden, on the border of Norway. According to Wikipedia, Dalarna is a holiday destination for many Swedes, who might rent or own a summer home there. The borders of the province more or less coincide with the modern county of Dalarna – but in 1981, when this stamp was issued, that county was called Kopparberg County.

Dalarna’s coat of arms dates back to 1560, but apparently the two crossed arrows pictured on the stamp were used to represent the province prior to that date. The crown above the arrows is a ducal coronet, which presumably references the Duchy of Dalecarlia, though the earliest listed Duke of Dalecarlia I was able to find was granted the title in the 19^th century.

The blazon is described in traditional heraldic language as: Azure, two Dalecarlian Arrows Or in saltire point upwards pointed Argent and in chief a Crown of the first.

Sadly, the “Or” (gold color) doesn’t show up very well in scans of this stamp – the shaft and fletching of the arrows and crown are a tasteful and slightly shiny golden color in person.

Scott Number: SE 1358

Country: Sweden

Issue Date: May 18, 1981

Series: Provincial Arms

Face Value: 1.40 Swedish kronor

Emission: Definitive

Designer: Jan Magnusson

Printer: Harrison & Sons Ltd.

Print Run: 21,000,000

USA Dance Block of 4

I’ve seen a few examples of this issue before, but was excited to finally track down a block of four. Celebrating four styles of dance beloved in American culture (ballet, theater, modern, and folk), this set combines bright colors, clean lines, and nostalgia for a fitting tribute to dance.

We know that ballet has its roots in Italy, where amateur nobles performed courtly dances in elaborate costumes to entertain themselves and their monarchs during the Renaissance, and modern dance is a rebellion against traditional ballet styles that began in the late 19^th century in Europe and the United States, but how about theater? The image on the stamp suggests a musical theater or vaudeville production, both of which developed (in the forms as we know them today) in Europe and became wildly popular in the 19th century, eventually hopping over to America around the same period to make an eternal mark on culture via the Great White Way. Since then, musical theater has become one of the quintessential American art forms, combing acting, singing, and dancing for a unique style of theater.

The origin of folk dancing is harder to pin down, unless you want to take it all the way back, in which case it probably got its start in the region we now know as the Horn of Africa with our earliest ancestors. Wikipedia says that a folk dance is a dance that reflects the life of the people of a certain country or region, but that ritual dances (like the Sufi ceremony Sama) are not included in that definition. I would say that Wikipedia has a taxonomy problem in this area, though; half the dances they listed under ritual dances were called folk dances on their individual page, and the only listed folk dance of the United States was …modern dance? I beg to differ, and would argue that certainly square dancing (which seems to be what’s pictured on this stamp, and no wonder with the square-dancing craze sweeping the nation’s high schools at the time), clogging, zydeco, and so many more should qualify. And what about swing dancing (with origins in the Black communities of Harlem), moshing (a SoCal punk scene invention), and salsa (a combination of Cuban dance styles and swing from 1960s New York)? I digress, but that’s part of what I find so fun about stamps. Once you start talking, the conversation might go anywhere, and you’re certain to learn something along the way.

Scott Number: US 1752a

Country: United States

Issue Date: April 26, 1978

Face Value: 13 cents

Emission: Commemorative

Allied Leaders

This incredible overprint has caused me some consternation, but let’s talk about the positives first. The original stamp (a Colombian definitive) celebrates coffee picking, which means I have another stamp to track down and add to my mom’s growing collection of coffee-related philately. As for the overprint itself, it’s one of (if not the) first “decorative” overprints I’ve seen. If I’m wrong about this, please do write in and let me know, but the vast majority of overprints I’ve seen are surcharges or overprints that designate a change in the use of the stamp (air mail overprints, for example). To the best of my understanding this stamp does neither, and that’s very interesting! Finally, I don’t know how many of you will resonate with this reference, but the overprint itself reminds me of the iconic Pep Boys logo, which I find delightful.

But it’s not Manny, Moe, and Jack pictured on this Colombian overprint, of course – it’s Joe, Frank, and Winnie. Or is it Joe, Harry, and Winnie? I’ve stared at this image and the two other overprints in this issue for a good half hour and I still can’t tell if the man flanked by Joseph Stalin and Winston Churchill is FDR or Truman, and only partly because the design hasn’t been executed very well (I could only tell Stalin by his mustache and collar, and Churchill by process of elimination). The overprinted stamp was issued on July 19, 1945 – two days after the Potsdam Conference began – so I would assume that Truman, as the current President and U.S. representative to the conference, would have been featured here. But how quickly could the Colombian post office turn around that design? FDR had only passed away three months before, and the image here does seem to have a much longer face than Truman ever did. On top of that, several websites identify the central figure as Roosevelt, but I have no way of knowing what source they consulted. Once I spotted that the figure has glasses (it’s much clearer in the red version of the overprint, as are many of the other details), I felt sure it must be simply a bad portrait of Truman, because FDR was rarely photographed wearing glasses, but he did occasionally. Perhaps the design was altered following FDR’s death to make it more Trumanesque? I fear I shall never know.

And another dilemma: When I was writing this piece, Bellefonte was deep in the throes of a winter storm and I briefly lost access to the APRL, so I wasn’t able to definitively discover why Colombia had issued such a stamp. Was it to celebrate the end of the war in Europe? To raise money by selling commemorative stamps to European and American philatelists and other collectors? Because their U.S. printer decided they would? Perhaps all three? After some light reading about the United States’ heavy entwinement with the Colombian government and economy in this era, I would suspect a combination of all options was likely. If you’ve done any research on the subject and can offer further insight, please reach out!

Scott Number: CO 521

Country: Colombia

Issue Date: July 19, 1945

Face Value: 5 Colombian centavos

Emission: Commemorative

Printer: American Bank Note Co.

Print Run: 250,000

Norwegian Aerosol Can

This was actually one of the first stamps I was struck by when I first started stamp hunting…But then I lost it. Luckily, I found it again recently (or at least a copy of the same stamp) tucked away in a glassine.

The stamp comes from a series celebrating Norwegian inventions, which also includes paperclips (4 kr in red) and cheese slicers (3.60 kr in blue). The green stamp honors the invention of the aerosol spray can and Erik Rotheim, the Norwegian chemical engineer who was first granted a patent for the invention in 1927. The initial patent was granted in Oslo, and a United States patent was granted in 1931; subsequently, the rights to the invention were sold to a U.S. company. The Norwegian word for spray can is sprayboks, literally “spray box” – I think the linguistic path there was box à tin à can.

This does not appear to be a continuing series, which I think is a shame; Norway is also the home of several varieties of ergonomic furniture and the Luxo brand of lamps (as featured in the Pixar logo), many of which would make for aesthetically pleasing stamp designs. Norwegian citizens are also connected with the invention of nitrogen fertilizer, the harpoon cannon, and coilguns (a type of mass driver that uses electromagnetic acceleration to launch projectiles), but presumably those would be more difficult to illustrate in this style. 

Before I started researching, I assumed that the stamp was celebrating graffiti – the hand-drawn look of the spray can over the official document (which I now see is a patent) reads like a tribute to the art form. Though I still love the design, I’m slightly disappointed that this wasn’t the original intention. I hope somewhere out there another postal authority has experimented with the graffiti style – I’m imagining a definitive with a spray paint scrawl over top. It would be an interesting design for an overprint as well!

Scott Number: NO 1260

Country: Norway

Issue Date: June 2, 2000

Face Value: 4.20 Norwegian kroner

Emission: Commemorative

Designer: Enzo Finger

Printer: Johannes Enschedé

Malaysian and Singaporean Stamp Scales

This is a bit of an oddity which was brought to me by Leonard Bloom of the APS Stamp and Cover Shop. Somewhere out there, a philatelist took a variety of Malaysian and Singaporean stamps and painstakingly arranged them to form what I can only call a dragon scale pattern, which is attached to what feels like a giant stamp hinge, or maybe a piece of a large glassine. The pattern is fascinating to look at, and when you wiggle the stamps, they ripple just like scales – and the glassine makes a delightful rustling sound.

I was in high school during the era of duct tape prom dresses, and I think this would a similarly eye-catching alternative dress material, though it would take considerable mental and physical effort to assemble. Maybe one day we’ll see a scale-stamp dress on an haute couture runway!

Much gratitude is due to the members, past and present, who have kindly donated their philatelic materials to the APS – your generosity brings joy to staff, members, visitors, and new stamp collectors every day. Thank you!

Do you have any information to share about these stamps? Have I made any glaring errors in my research and deductions? Do you know of any graffiti stamps? Let us know at digitalcontent@stamps.org.

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