Stamp Collecting as a Pastime

rical Fin

ducational value. They are finger posts to most of the great events that have made the history o

ree years later Louis Napoleon seized the post of power, and, as President of the Republic, his head figures on a stamp issued in 1851, under the inscription "repub. franc." Two years later the Empire was re-established, and the words "repub. franc." were changed to "empire franc." over the same head. In 1863 the customary laurel wreath, to indicate the first victories

foundations of the Kingdom of Italy were laid, in 1859-60, by the union of the Lombardo-Venetian States, the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies, the Grand Duchy of Tuscany, the Duchies of Parma and Modena, the Romagna and the Roman (or Pontifical) States with Piedmont. The first issue of stamps of the newly formed kingdom bore a portrait of King Victor Emmanuel II. with profile turned to the right. In 1863, after the Kingdom of Sardinia h

s. Bergedorf was in 1867 placed under the control of the free city of Hamburg, and thereupon ceased issuing stamps. Bremen, Brunswick, Hamburg, Lubeck, Mecklenburg-Strelitz, Oldenburg, Prussia, Saxony, and Schleswig-Holstein formed the North German Confederation, and closed their postal accounts with collectors in 1868. Hanover became a province of Prussia after the

na Expeditionary Force, i.e. the Indian troops sent to China in 1901 to re

ence of the Great Powers in its affairs, and the later issues, in 1900, b

s when they were cut off by the war from the capital and its supplies of postage stamps, and e

eries of portraits of past Presidents of th

os mark the Carlist ri

mps in their own crude way from the same crude plates. Then came the first British Occupation, when the remainders of the stamps of the first South African Republic were overprinted "V.R. TRANSVAAL," to indicate British government. Then, in 1878, the stamps of the Republic were replaced by our Queen's Head. In 1881 the country was given back to the Boers, when they in turn overprinted our Queen's

lowed to frank their letters home with the stamps of their own country. So also the Chilians further overprinted the stamps of Peru with the Chilian arms during their occupation of the conquered country in the years 1881-2. Chilian st

, for him, some development of art, some crisis in a country's progress, some struggle to be free, or some great