Dean Acheson

Czeslaw Slania worked with the postage service of the United States just a small number of times, but the limited collaboration produced some truly wonderful stamps. In this blog I'll be taking a good look at the 1993 US stamp depicting Dean Acheson.

Dean Acheson (1893-1971) was the Secretary of State for the United States of America bewteen 1949 and 1953 during the administration of Harry S. Truman. Now before you get too concerned,  I'm not going to sit here and prattle on about politics - a field I'll freely admit to having very little interest in. But it would be remiss of me not to mention a few things about the man. From a little research it appears that Acheson played a key role in helping President Truman navigate through the early days of the Cold War. He helped to design the Marshall Plan, which was an intiative to provide aid to Europe after WWII. The US gave some $13 billion to assist in the reconstruction of European economies. Acheson was also a central figure in the creation of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization - otherwise known as NATO.

One of the terrible results of global tensions from the Cold War was the eruption of the Korean War, often referred to as 'the forgotten war', which raged from 25 June 1950 to 27 July 1953. The horrible nature of this war was well captured in the TV series MASH. MASH transformed this war from the 'forgotten war' to one that is now remebered. I mention the Korean War because Dean Acheson famously ( or infamously, whichever you prefer) convinced President Truman to intervene in the war in June 1950.

Now enough with the politics. Let us take a look at the stamp depicting Dean Acheson, engraved by Slania. I have always thought that portraits- and the details within - can be a great way to judge the skill of an engraver. There are many stamp engravers out there who have etched many fine portraits,  but to me none compare to Slania's incredible ability to etch such exquisite details in his portraits.

First, let's look at the full stamp, and then I'll look a bit closer at some of the details that I find captivating.

When I look at this stamp my eye seems to be drawn to the steepled fingers. A zoomed in shot reveals just how detailed the skin is. The creases and the wrinkles have been rendered so efficiently as to be almost three dimensional.

My eye is then drawn to the moustache. The lines are so crisp and life like that I fully expect his mouth to move and that moustache to bristle!

What areas of this stamp draw your eye?

Until next time...
Stay Stamp Crazy!

I Found...Lovely Birds

I have always had a bit of a fondness for birds on stamps, but since I am already overwhelmed both in budget and in time with many, many thematic collections already, I decided it was probably best not to delve too deeply into birds on stamps. About a month ago my resolve over this decision was - to say the least - shaken. A friend posted up on Facebook a truly beautiful owl stamp from Monaco. If only I could squeeze this lovely stamp into one of my collections.

Until tonight I couldn't really justify getting the stamp. After all it would sit in one of my boxes with nowhere to go. Not a fitting place for such a great stamp. But last night I happened to be looking at the stamps Slania engraved for Monaco in 1993 and lo and behold ... the bird stamp that I love in a set! By Slania! I had found a slot for the stamp. Hurray!

Of course, I rushed over to ebay to search for a copy of the set or at the very least the stamp itself. I found a set pretty easily ... but, BUT it was far more expensive than I had thought. I'll admit this was a bit of a blow. But I had to have that stamp! I'm sure we've all felt that way at one time or another. So I bit the proverbial bullet and went ahead and grabbed the stamp set.

By now you are probably saying: "What is this set he is raving about?" Well, I'll show you. Bear in mind this is an ebay image so the resolution may not be the best...

By the way, the stamp I initially fell in love with is the owl on the top left. I am very happy with this purchase - even though it extended the weekly budget a tad.

Until next time...
Stay Slania Crazy!

I Received... A Fantastic Cover!

A couple of weeks ago I made an ebay purchase from a seller in the USA which included six of the nine stamps engraved by Slania for the USA. Most sellers these days tend to simply whack whatever stamp is available at the post office onto the cover and send it off, no fuss. So this is what I have come to expect, a boring cover that goes in the bin as soon as I remove the goodies from it. So you can imagine my great surprise and delight when I pulled this cover from my mailbox...

Isn't it just fantastic! This is a cover from a seller who thinks about his clients and works to create covers that add a nice touch to ones collection.  Not only has the seller printed a nice cache on the lefthand side of the cover, he has also added a couple Slania engraved stamps plus one with a Polish theme (Slania's home country) and an Australian joint issue (my home country). Even more surprising was the nice cancels on these stamps - a practice that is extremely rare these days. I don't mean to sound bitter, but I have had more covers than I can count sent to me with pen scribbles all over the stamps in lieu of a cancel. Anyway, I was well pleased with this awesome cover and I thought I'd share it with you.

Until next time...

Stay Slania Crazy!

I Found...A Nice Illustrated Book

As regular readers of this blog will know, I'm currently working on building Slania's Poland issues. I have been lucky enough to come to know a great Polish ebay seller who has pretty much all I need - and at reasonable prices. A couple of days ago this seller sent me a link to a couple of Slania books he is selling. One of them is the Slania catalogue my wife recently bought for me (and I'm still waiting for it to arrive). If you haven't read that blog yet click HERE The other book he sent me a link to I had never seen before. So I thought I'd do a blog having a bit of a look at it.

The book is entitled: My Great Artists - Slania, Naszarkowski, Heidrich. I've only been able to glean what's in the book by a series of pics the seller has provided on ebay. It looks to me like it explores three different graphic artists - Slania being one of them - and how they go about producing the artworks that eventually become stamps. The book was written by a fellow named Zygmunt K. Jagodzinski. The book is 186 pages and it includes some excellent illustrations. The text is in both Polish and English - the same as the Slania catalogue I recently reviewed. Unfortunately the photos aren't really that clear, but from what I could read the text seems quite informative regarding the process of designing a stamp. And who better to learn what goes into creating a great stamp the Czeslaw Slania!

The book also includes the work of two other engravers/designers. Being new to the study of stamp engravers I can honestly say I had heard of neither of these two gentlemen. So I did a bit of net trawling and here's what I found. Poitr Naszarkowski was born in Poland in 1952. He started his engraving career in Poland. In 1989 he started engraving for Sweden. His 100th stamp engraving was a Greta Garbo joint issue with USA. I haven't found much yet on Andrzej Heidrich. What I have found suggests he designed stamps for Poland. I found on the net some dinosaur stamps he designed.  I'll have to see if I can discover more on him.

I'll add a couple of photos, but please be aware they are not mine and the quality isn't too flash. Photographing pages from a book without damaging the spine can be a tricky business. But it'll give you an idea, anyway.

As to the price of this book...well, as you would expect it is expensive. To get it shipped to Australia I'd be looking to pay something in the region of $95. It is always disappointing when you spot such a lovely book - one that would fit so well on the shelf - and then be blown away by the price tag. Oh well, maybe one day. If anyone out there owns a copy of this book or has been fortunate enough to read it let me know in the comments. I'd love to hear what you think...

Until next time...

Stay Slania Crazy!

Sweden-USA Joint Issue

In 1983 Sweden and the USA issued a joint stamp issue commemorating the bicentenary of the Treaty of Amity and Commerce of 1783. Czeslaw Slania was given the task of engraving a stamp for both countries.  The stamps are basically identical aside from the country name and the stamp value. Depicted on the stamp is a man who hardly needs any introduction - Benjamin Franklin. In this blog I'll provide a brief rundown of the 1783 Treaty. Then I'll discuss what are perhaps some of Benjamin Franklin's lesser known achievements. And of course there'll be pics of the stamps in question!

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On 3 April 1783 representatives from the United States and the Kingdom of Sweden met in Paris, France to discuss a treaty of amity between the two countries. It is important to note that the US was embroiled in a Revolutionary War at this time. Paris was chosen for this auspicious meeting since the representative for the United States was at that time based in Paris. That man was Benjamin Franklin. The Swedish representative was the ambassador to the court of France, Count Gustaf Philip Creutz. This was rather an important treaty historically,  in that it was the first treaty signed by the US with a country not involved in the Revolutionary War. Having signed this treaty Sweden was the first country to recognize the young republic of the US. For a rundown of the provisions of this treaty - if you happen to be interested in such things - click HERE

The stamps engraved by Slania for this occasion are truly brilliant. The detail in Franklin's coat and the treaty seal are fantastic...

And now to Benjamin Franklin. In order to write an in depth biography of Benjamin Franklin I'd need far more space than I usually allow for a blog - probably need a rather large book actually! So what I'll do here is try to concentrate on some of the things about Benjamin Franklin that aren't common knowledge. At least this is what I hope to do. I'm sure that to some people out there all the stuff I'm about to mention is known, if so perhaps you could indulge me in my ignorance :)

First off let's quickly get acquainted with Benjamin Franklin. He was born in Boston, Massachusetts on January 17 1706. He died on April 17 1790 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania at the ripe old age of 84. He was one of the founding fathers of the United States.  He was also a renowned polymath - basically a person who has expertise in a number of different areas. Let's see... He was an author, politician, postmaster (which we'll come back to in a bit), scientist, inventor, civil activist and more! One wonders how the man had the time to scratch himself!

Now to some things about this great man that I personally didn't know.  Ben Franklin is rather famous for his inventions such as bifocal glasses and the lightning rod. But I did not know that he also invented the flexible urinary catheter. I also didn't know that he never chose to patent any of his inventions, believing that they should be freely accessible to all.

Franklin also revitalized the idea of Paying it Forward. This is the concept of doing a good deed of some kind to a person and instead of the person paying you back they in turn do a good deed for someone else. An excellent practice in my opinion. This idea was first introduced as a key plot in Menander's play Dyskolos (The Grouch) which was performed in Athens in 317 BC. In a letter to Benjamin Webb dated 25 February 1874 Ben Franklin suggests the use of such a concept.

I also didn't realize Ben Franklin was the first Postmaster General of the United States.  And interestingly, aside from George Washington,  Ben Franklin appears on US postage stamps more than any other famous person. He first appeared on a US postage stamp in 1847, and

he appeared on the famous long-running Washington-Franklin series from 1908 to 1923. And many more issues, but amazingly on only a few commemorative issues.

Below is a copy of the 1847 stamp of Benjamin Franklin.

"Franklin SC1 1847" by Transferred from en.wikipedia to Commons by User:Stefan4 using CommonsHelper.. Licensed under Public Domain via Wikimedia Commons - http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Franklin_SC1_1847.jpg#/media/File:Franklin_SC1_1847.jpg

Well, that's it for now. This blog turned out a bit longer than I'd first thought. I hope you found it of some interest. Let me know what you think. I'd love to hear from you.

Until next time...

Stay Slania Crazy!