Collecting Corona

No matter how terrible it might sound, but the situation with Covid-19 seems to have a positive effect on philately, as more people seem to be interested in a hobby which does neither require much time outside nor with other people. A very interesting article about that you can find here on the website of the Punk Philatelist. Another interesting effect is the emergence of a new philatelic collecting theme, the virus itself and its impacts on the mail service. So far stamps, cancellations or postal notations have appeared from all continents. For the "Truths, Lies and Rumors" of the early Philately of Covid-19 let me just include another link. This article on Philatelic Pursuits by Mark Joseph Jochim gives an good overview of the situation at least until early April, but which, as I just discovered, was also updated later on. For my part, I am still not sure whether I want to start a philatelic collection about the virus and if yes how. Usually I like mint stamps, but real sent mail also has its charme for such a historic event. On the other side there are already so many stamps about the theme and more seem to be issued or announced every week that I do not know if I really want all of them. Nonetheless I will try to keep here an updated list of all stamps issued about Covid-19, which will be issued in 2020 and maybe early 2021 (excluding all tasteless catch-penny issues). However I will not show them here. If I have the stamps I will put in links to one of my other blogs, either my postcard blog or my stamp blog. On my postcard blog I also created the label *Covid-19 to keep a "postal diary", where you can find also other cards I connect to the current situation like super long travel times, stamps, cards and postmarks about cancelled events or about the virus itself or maybe just some cards I was happy to receive whether they might be the only ones in some weeks or just have some nice messages. 

The List of Covid-19 Stamps (last updated: 30th November 2021)

Iran (17th March)

Vietnam (31st March)

Switzerland (6th April)

Central African Republic (27th April)

Guinea Bissau (27th April)

Isle of Man (4th May)

Morocco (7th May)

United Arab Emirates (10th May)

China (11th May)

Uruguay (13th May)

New Zealand (20th May)

Ukraine (29th May)

Monaco (3rd June)

Sao Tome and Principe (8th June)

Bosnia and Herzegovina - BH Posta (9th June)

Niger (10th June)

Djibouti (12th June)

Curacao (18th June)

Oman (22nd June)

Czech Republic (24th June)

Macau (24th June)

Tajikistan (June)

Lebanon (1st July)

Brazil (10th July)

Philippines (13th July)

Senegal (20th June)

South Sudan (21st July)

Taiwan (21st July)

Saudi Arabia (27th July)

French Polynesia (31st July)

Singapore - Quirks in the Island City (7th August)

Greenland (10th August)

United Nations (10th August)

Kosovo (14th August)

Thailand (14th August)

Indonesia (17th August)

Alderney (19th August)

Guernsey (19th August)

Slovakia (21st August)

Colombia (26th August)

Singapore - Soaper 5 (4th September)

France (11th September)

Bosnia and Herzegovina - Republika Srpska (21st September)

Serbia - Joy of Europa (30th September)

Australia - Greetings (1st October)

Spain (1st October)

Kyrgyzstan (2nd October)

Portugal - World Post Day (9th October)

Saudi Arabia - World Post Day (9th October)

Sri Lanka (9th October)

Egypt (20th October)

Bahamas - Christmas (22nd October)

Austria (30th October)

Russia (30th October)

Mexico (3rd November)

Ireland - Christmas (5th November)

Wallis and Futuna (5th November)

Portugal (6th November)

San Marino (10th November)

Mexico - Postal Worker (11th November, two issues)

North Cyprus (19th November)

Philippines - Christmas (23rd November)

Mali (1st December)

Syria (7th December)

Transnistria (11th December)

Tunisia (17th December)

India (24th December)

Hong Kong (29th December)

Kyrgyz Express Post (30th December)

Andorra - Spanish Post (19th January)

Kosovo (28th January)

Malta (29th January)

New Zealand - Holidays at Home (3rd February)

Georgia (5th February)

Israel (9th February)

Philippines - Valentine's Day (10th February)

Australia (16th February)

Moldova (25th February)

Indonesia (26th February)

Algeria (27th February)

Andorra - French Post (1st March)

Jersey (1st March)

Spain - Corona Waste Reduction (18th March)

Jordan (31st March)

Zimbabwe (31st March)

Kuwait (7th April)

Serbia (12th April)

Armenia (16th April)

North Macedonia (16th April)

Vietnam (29th April)

North Macedonia (8th May)

Bangladesh (19th May)

Saudi Arabia (17th June)

Spain - UNHCR (18th June)

Spain - Operation Balmis (24th June)

Italy - Italy Reopens (30th June)

Bermuda (15th July)

Poland (15th July)

Malaysia (5th August)

Singapore (6th August)

Taiwan (11th August)

Russia (24th August)

Malaysia (9th September)

Peru (9th September)

Austria (16th September)

Faroe Islands (20th September)

San Marino (21st September)

Kosovo (8th October)

Sri Lanka - World Post Day (9th October)

Thailand - World Post Day (9th October)

Israel (30th November)

Just to illustrate this post a bit I want to show the first Covid-19 stamps I got, the set from Vietnam. Here you can just see them used on a cover. Follow the link in the list to see them also mint and on maxicards.

However not only philatelists care about collections on Covid-19, also museums start to collect things about, "as much can already be foreseen, one of the most incisive global events of the 21st century". One of first museums from which I heard of collecting plans was the Braunschweigisches Landesmuseum in my home town, but also other began the systematic collection including the German Historical Museum in Berlin. Every museum has a different approach. The Braunschweigisches Landesmuseum for example is mainly interested in things from the region and asks the people to give their personal mementos to the museum "to collect, to preserve, to document and to impart". Thus they started an appeal on their website. I included it below, as I am not sure how long they will keep it on their website, but I did not want to translate it completely and only highlighted the passages I quoted here. The German Historical Museum on the other side is more interesting in the things of "bigger" historic importance like the face mask of Angela Merkel, but for sure also includes things from the normal population. Keeping that in mind, if you have something nice like "self-made face masks, photos of empty cities, posters, rainbow art for windows or toilet paper sculptures" maybe you should donate it to your local museums to see it one day in their exhibition. Most museums will for sure be happy for your support!

Braunschweigisches Landesmuseum

German Historical Museum in Berlin

Coming back to the stamps once again, I want to stress that I will only list stamps issued in 2020 and maybe early 2021. One might imagine that there will also be later stamps about this "most incisive global event of the 21st century". Just like recent issues about the 75th anniversary of the End of World War II there might be issues about the 5th, 10th, 20th, 25th, 50th and so on and on and on anniversaries of the beginning or the hopeful soon end of the pandemic (what actually requires that stamps are still issued then). Also there might be issues about the 2020s including the virus or just stamps including the pandemic as an important event in a country's history (see a similar example below). These will for sure be interesting for a thematic collection, but I think not so much for a historic collection, as they do not really mark history but display the view of the future on a event of the past. This is for sure very interesting and what most history stamps here usually actually do, but it is something completely different and thus I will not list them together.

Stamp with "Beating SARS Together"
for Singapore's 48th anniversary
of independence

From the website of the Braunschweigisches Landesmuseum:

Sammlungsaufruf für Objekte zur Krise
Selbstgenähte Gesichtsmaske, Toilettenpapier-Skulptur, Regenbogen-Kunst - was ist für Sie ganz persönlich das Symbol der Corona-Krise? Das Braunschweigische Landesmuseum sammelt Objekte zur Corona-Pandemie - und freut sich auf Ihre Unterstützung! 

Corona gehört ins Museum! Die Sammel-Aktion des Braunschweigischen Landesmuseums
Seit fast 130 Jahren hat das Braunschweigische Landemuseum die Aufgabe, Geschichte und Kultur des braunschweigischen Landes zu sammeln, zu bewahren, zu dokumentieren und zu vermitteln. Die Corona-Pandemie, soviel ist schon jetzt abzusehen, wird als eines der einschneidendsten globalen Ereignisse des 21. Jahrhunderts in die Geschichte eingehen. Daher möchte das Braunschweigische Landesmuseum nun systematisch Dokumente, Fotos, Objekte als Zeitzeugen dieses für unsere Gesellschaft brachialen Ereignisses der Gegenwartsgeschichte für unsere Region sammeln.
Wie werden wir uns an die Coronavirus-Pandemie erinnern? Das Museum freut sich auf Vorschläge für alles, was für die Braunschweigerinnen und Braunschweiger zum Symbol der Corona-Krise geworden ist, von der selbstgenähten Gesichtsmaske über das Foto der leeren Innenstadt, Plakate oder Regenbogen-Kunst für das Fenster bis hin zur Toilettenpapier-Skulptur.

Karl Marx' Life and Legacy (China, Germany, Russia, Vietnam)

Karl Marx was born in Trier on the 5th May 1818 as the third of nine children of his parents. His parents were Jews, but converted to the Protestantism, as the father would otherwise have occupational problems. Between 1830 and 1835 he attended a Gymnasium in Trier, before he began his studies in Bonn and Berlin. Although actually studying law, he also often attended historical and philosophical lectures. During his studies he came in contact with the Young Hegelians, who were especially known for their critique of the Prussian political system and who expected more political change as part of a historical process. In 1841 a philosophical doctorate was conferred on Marx by the University of Jena. Actually he hoped to start an academic career, but due to his work with the Young Hegelians the Prussian state prevented this. Instead he began to work as editor for the oppositional Rheinische Zeitung, but had to stop this work as well due to the Prussian censorship.

In 1843 he married Jenny von Westphalen and together they moved to Paris, where Marx again worked as editor for a newspaper. In Paris he also began to proceed to the Communism and his life-long friendship with Friedrich Engels began. Due to Prussian pressure Marx had to leave Paris in 1845 and settled in Brussels. In 1846 Marx and Engels founded the Communist Correspondence Committee, which planned the cooperation of various Communist groups in Europa and which was merged with another organisation to form the Communist League in 1847. In the revolutionary year 1848 Marx and Engels published the famous Communist Manifesto for the league, which summarises Marx and Engels' theories concerning the nature of society and politics. During the revolutions Marx moved from Brussels to Paris, onwards to Cologne, back to Paris and finally to his exile in London, where he worked as journalist and where he stayed until the end of his life. In London he created A Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy (1859) and Das Kapital (1867-1883) and contributed to the foundation of the First International in 1864. In his last he was often sick, but still was in contact to many leading Communists and Labour Leader in America and Europa also after the First International was dissolved in 1876. On 2nd December 1881 Jenny Marx died and on 14th March 1883 her husband followed her in the grave.

Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels were the most important figures of the Communism and thus they had a tremendous influence on the history of the 20th century especially in China and the Eastern Bloc. He has often been described as one of the most influential figures in human history, although his work has been both lauded and criticised.

Around the World there were and still are many Marx memorial sites. In Eastern Germany for example the city of Chemnitz was known as Karl-Marx-Stadt and there were many memorials for Marx including the famous ones in Berlin and Chemnitz. To commemorate Marx' 200th birthday in 2018 the People's Republic of China sponsored a new Marx memorial for Trier, which was even shown on a Chinese stamp.

Other Marx stamps in 2018 were also issued in Germany, Kyrgyzstan, Russia and Vietnam. Interestingly the German stamp of 2018 is already the second stamp of the Federal Republic after one issued during the heyday of the Cold War in 1968.

The Association of Southeast Asian Nations (Brunei, Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, Philippines, Singapore, Thailand, Vietnam)

The time after World War II changed the political map of Southeast Asia permanently. Indonesia declared its independence from the Netherlands in 1945, which they accepted just in 1949 after the War of Indonesian Independence. The Philippines became independent from the USA in 1946. The Federation of Malaya became independent from the United Kingdom in 1957 and in 1963 Malaysia was founded when Sabah, Sarawak and Singapore were added to the Federation. Indonesia did not accepted its new neighbour and started the Konfrontasi and also the Philippines raised a claim to Sabah. Singapore was expelled from the Federation in 1965 due to ideological differences and became an independent state. But despite all these conflicts representatives of the four states and of Thailand came together in Bangkok in August 1967 and founded the Association of Southeast Asian Nations with the Bangkok Declaration. Its main aims were and still are economic growth, social progress, sociocultural evolution and the protection of regional stability, but it was also founded as reaction against the Vietnam War and the Communism. In 1984 Brunei joined the ASEAN barely a week after gaining independence from the United Kingdom. Myanmar and Laos joined in 1997. In the same year the ASEAN was also hit hard by the Asian financial crisis. Cambodia joined the community as last new member in 1999. In 2007 the ASEAN- Charter was signed, which turned the ASEAN into a legal entity and aimed to create a single free-trade area with the purpose of moving closer to an EU-style community. Today the ASEAN is an active global partner and works together with other parts of the World to promote World peace and stability.

To commemorate the 48th and 50th anniversary of the ASEAN its member states issued joint stamps in 2015 and 2017 (without Brunei). I have all stamps from 2015, but still miss some stamps from 2017. If anybody can help me to get the stamps from Cambodia, Myanmar or Laos please write it in the comments.