Czeslaw Slania is widely acclaimed as the greatest engraver of postage stamps of  our generation.

When he died in 2005 at the age of 84, the prolific native of Poland who took up residence in Sweden in 1956 had engraved more than a thousand stamps.

As a young man, Slania employed his considerable skills forging documents for the Polish Resistance during World War II.

In his final years, acclaimed as Sweden’s Royal Court engraver and a Commander of the Order of Poland, he remained active and engaged in his work.  His final engraved stamp was released in the year of his death by the United Nations.

But the spectacular work of Czeslaw Slania was not without its occasional imperfection.

During the 1980s, Monaco issued a series of stamps depicting Prince Rainier, engravings by Slania, who was a personal favorite engraver of the stamp collecting Prince.

One of the engravings had to be touched up.  Take a look at the stamps below, pay close attention to the medals on the Prince’s uniform, and you will notice that in the top stamp, the vertical lines of the lower medal have been considerably strengthened.

Over the course of his career, Czeslaw Slania engraved stamps for countries such as Argentina, Australia, Brazil, Denmark, England, Estonia, Faroes, France, Germany, Greenland, Iceland, Ireland, Israel, Jamaica, Kazakhistan, Latvia, Lithuania, Monaco, New Zealand, Poland, Portugal, San Marino, Sweden, the United Nations and the United States.

On a January day in 1929, and we’re not 100% certain exactly which day it was, Canada released  this 50 cent stamp depicting the schooner Bluenose.

When the stamp was placed on sale, either on January 6 or January 8th, it was immediately acknowledged as extraordinary.

It is not hard to find a stamp collector who considers this the most beautiful stamp any nation has ever produced.

A story surrounds this stunning stamp that may or may not be true… I have not been able to verify it.

Look closely at the schooner to the left.  It may not be a different vessel.  It may actually be Bluenose.  The design of the stamp could be a composite of two images taken by the Nova Scotian photographer W.R. MacAskill.

Another noteworthy piece of information…  The first plate produced for printing  Bluenose was flawed.  Just 200 copies of the stamp were printed from this plate.  The stamps were apparently destroyed, as was the plate.

Plates two and three produced 1.04 million copies of the stamp.  Engraving was done by the American Bank Note Company in New York and printing by the Canadian Bank Note Company in Ottawa.

Imperfs also of this King George V scroll issue classic also exist.

The working Grand Banks schooner itself remains a revered icon of Canada.  No American schooner could beat it other than Gertrude Thibault, which captured the Sir Thomas Lipton International Fishing Challenge Cup in 1930.

After that, Bluenose never lost a race.  Under 10,000 square feet of sail she hit speeds of 17 knots.

When she was at work fishing, she set records.  Twice she brought in the season’s largest catch to her home port of Lunenburg, Nova Scotia.  Often derided by competitors as a vessel built purely for racing, she more than earned her stripes as a working schooner.

Launched in Lunenburg, Nova Scotia in 1921, Bluenose foundered on a reef off Haiti and was lost in January, 1946.

Here is one of many reminders that fascinating postal history for stamp collectors continues to be created every day.

In 1961 Colombia released a set of stamps to honor a nurse who died in the autumn floods of 1955.

These were not semi-postals, but postal tax stamps.  And in this case, the tax was mandatory.

All mail in Colombia was supposed to include these stamps during the month of November, 1961.  They depicted a Red Cross nurse, Manuelita de la Cruz, who lost her life while helping flood victims.

Colombia issued its first Red Cross postal tax stamp in 1935. The practice came to an end in 1965.

Mayotte is one of those countries that doesn’t quite fit in… it is not exactly a French Colony and not exactly part of the Comoro Islands.

But as far as stamp collectors are concerned, Mayotte is fascinating.

Geographically, Mayotte is indeed one of the Comoro Islands, located in the Indian Ocean off the east coast of Africa near Madagascar.

The first Mayotte stamps were members of the classic French Colonial Navigation and Commerce series, released in 1892.  These stamps were surcharged with new values in 1912, and this set was used not only in Mayotte but in the Comoro Islands and in nearby Madagascar.

Then the drought of Mayotte stamps began, a philatelic drought that dragged on for 85 years.  In 1997, France Marianne issues were overprinted, and original Mayotte stamps were put on sale.

Why did Mayotte go for 85 years without its own stamps?  Mayotte’s political status is murky.  It is technically an overseas department of France, but is aligned, in a bit of an unclear fashion, with the Comoro islands.  After the 1912 surcharges Mayotte used Madagascar issues.  The first Comoro stamps appeared in

Mayotte is an Islamic country.  Its people speak a Swahili dialect and French.  The island produces coffee, vanilla and shrimp, and is plagued with high unemployment rates.

But its contemporary stamps are well designed and issued in relatively small quantities.  I try to keep Mayotte stamps in stock, so please visit my store to see what is available… or browse to see what has been newly listed that may be of interest.

Christmas has long been a popular topic for stamp collectors, and one of the strangest Christmas stamps of all was released by Peru in 1961.

It is not the prettiest of stamps and terribly manufactured… the ragged perforations are not exactly festive.

But what makes this Peruvian stamp notable is that it could only be used for postage for one day.  It was placed on sale December 20, 1961.  After that, it was invalid, could be used only as a seal, and the proceeds from its sale went into a fund to benefit post office employees.

It doesn’t take much imagination to see postal clerks selling all of these stamps they could, and all sorts of undeliverabble mail being returned to the unfortunate senders.

My favorite Christmas stamp was released by the Principality of Liechtenstein in 1997, and depicts an ornament hanging from a tree.

Much more fitting for the season than the Peruvian stamp.

If you are interested in Christmas stamps, please visit my online stamp store or see my listings in my eBay store.

Stamp collecting is as good a pastime as any to brush aside the cares of the world.  Stamp collectors are easily lured back to distant eras and off to distant shores by stamps that unlock the imagination.

But even stamp collecting cannot completely quarantine the cares of the world.  This stamp from Iran, which turned up in a batch of kiloware I bought from a dealer in Great Britain years ago, serves as an unpleasant reminder.

Although this stamp disturbs me, I have kept it.  The notion of a crack in the dome of our capitol that mimics the crack in our Liberty Bell is visceral and insulting.  The metaphor, suggesting a divided America, is troubling.

For topical stamp collectors who specialize in propaganda stamps, this stamp from Iran is perfect.  It was issued in 1987 to commemorate the eighth anniversary of the capture of the U.S. Embassy in Tehran.

I suppose I have hung onto this wretched stamp as a reminder of our unsettled world.  And as a reminder that stamp collecting is a hobby whose limits we have the freedom to define for ourselves.

When stamp collectors gathered in Zagreb, Croatia late in the summer of 1943, the country was a puppet of Nazi Germany.  But the Croatian Philatelic Society staged an exhibition in Zagreb and released two stamps to commemorate the occasion.

The semi-postal depicted St. Mary’s Church and Zagreb’s Cistercian Cloister as they appeared in 1650.  Two stamps were released, with the same design printed in different colors.

To see more stamps of the early 1940s from Croatia, visit my stamp store.

1933 was a fine year for stamp collecting but not a particularly good year for Brazil.  The nation suffered from poor political leadership.  But Brazil was a favorite for stamp collectors.  Stamps such as this first airmail issue were colorful and interesting.

On June 7, 1933, Brazil issued its first airmail stamp.  For baseball fans, this is the birth date of the accomplished Cleveland Indians pitcher Herb Score.

This stamp was the first of three issues.  Later releases using the same design but with different watermarks were release in 1937 and 1940.

Brazil issued more than a hundred air mail stamps.  The last was released in 1966.

Stamp collecting doesn’t have to be dull and serious.  And countries such as Liechtenstein, which takes its stamps seriously, understands this.

Issued in 1992, this Liechtenstein stamp passes along congratulations, wishes us luck, and generally brightens the day with a message that is cheerful and graphics that are crisp and clean.