I don’t know what you would do, but I want to know more when I see a listing that says: “NEWS OF THE WORLD OF STAMPS; In Honor of the U.N.’s Weather Bureau – – Swedish Railways Worldwide Coverage SWEDISH RAILWAYS CASPARY SALES BEE MAN FIRST-DAY SALE STAMP DAY.”
That was one of three listings that appeared when I searched The New York Times’ online archives for articles about, 3- and 8-cent stamps honoring the World Meteorological Organization that were issued by the United Nations Postal Administration (UNPA) on January 28, 1957. (I often search the Times’ archives because for many decades the Sunday Times included a lengthy column on stamps that were being issued and other stamp-related news.)
The article, which appeared on November 18, 1956, was written by Kent Stiles, the paper’s longtime stamps columnist and opens: “The first stamps which the United Nations Postal Administration plans to issue in 1957 will direct public attention to the activities of the World Meteorological Organization, a U.N. specialized agency not hitherto honored in this manner.”
Stiles used the next paragraph to describe the stamp, which, he wrote: “presents a sky scene featuring a weather balloon symbolizing the globe and the world-wide scope of the W.M.O’s functions.” He followed this with a whole paragraph on its designer, A.L. Pollock, who, he noted, was “the first Canadian to produce a U.N. stamp vignette.” He continued with a new paragraph on its distribution that, among other things, reported that the head of UNPA “cautioned…that collectors” who wanted first-day cancellations “must wait until December 15” before sending covers to the UN for those cancellations.
And then, in the article’s fifth paragraph, he actually described the WMO, which, he reported was the successor to the International Meteorological Organization, which had been founded in 1878. After a lengthy paragraph describing the WMO’s structure and the process by which it became part of the U.N., Stiles finally explained that the WMO provided “meteorological and geophysical observations…information [that] relates to aviation, shipping, agriculture and other subjects.” The WMO, he added, also “makes recommendations when international action is considered desirable.”
He then turned to a variety of other subjects highlighted in the strange listing produced my search. That listing incorporated, with a minimum of punctuation, the column’s name (News of the World of Stamps); the article’s headline (In Honor of the U.N.’s Weather Bureau- Swedish Railways Worldwide Coverage), and the bold-faced section headers that described the different items he discusses in the article after he was done writing about the UN’s WMO stamp.
“Swedish Railways,” referred to the fact that “Photographs of stamp designs for a centenary of Swedish railways have reached J. and H. Stolow.” (Stiles didn’t explain that this was one of the world’s largest wholesale stamp dealers.).
“Caspary Sales” was a reference to the fact that “the $1,000,000 mark has been passed in the public auctioning of the world-famous stamp collection of the late Alfred H. Caspary, Wall Street broker.”
“Bee Man,” the phrase that made the listing so intriguing, refers to the fact that “Poland has placed on a 60-groszy stamp a portrait of the man credited with having devised the modern bee hive with detachable cells.”
“First-Day Sale,” headed a section reporting that “When the Devil’s Tower National Monument 3-cent stamp” was released on September 24, 1956, “565,821 copies with a face value $16,974.63 were purchased” and 285,090 first-day covers were “serviced.”
“Stamp Day,” the last item in the unpunctuated list, discusses “Austria’s Day of the Postage Stamp,” which the article noted “is traditionally observed on the first Sunday in December” with the issuance of a new stamp.
Having cleared all that up, I return to the WMO, particularly the fact that it makes “recommendations when international action is considered desirable.” About two weeks ago, the WMO reported that in addition to having been a year of COVID, 2020 also was of the warmest years on record. This finding, said UN Secretary-General Ant—nio Guterres, “is yet another stark reminder of the relentless pace of climate change, which is destroying lives and livelihoods across our planet.”
He added, “we are headed for a catastrophic temperature rise of 3 to 5 degrees Celsius this century….Making peace with nature is the defining task of the 21st century. It must be the top priority for everyone, everywhere.”?
And just a few days ago, while speaking at an online Climate Adaptation Summit, he also asserted that policymakers must provide more aid to those affected by increasingly intense weather events. “According to the World Meteorological Organization, there have been more than 11,000 disasters due to weather, climate and water-related hazards over the past 50 years, at a cost of some US$ 3.6 trillion,” he said. “…Extreme weather and climate-related hazards have also killed more than 410,000 people in the past decade, the vast majority in low and lower middle-income countries.”
“That is why I have called for a breakthrough on adaptation and resilience,” he said, adding, “one person in three is still not adequately covered by early warning systems, and risk-informed early approaches are not at the scale required, there is a need to work together to ensure full global coverage by early warning systems to help minimize these losses.”
I doubt those who organized the WMO and its predecessor thought the organization would ever be involved with such dire statements. But that’s the message today from the nice stamp issued in 1957 and described in an oddly entertaining piece that combined weather balloons, Swedish railroads, a dead stamp collector, a beekeeper, Devil Tower’s monument, and, of course, the unspeakably rowdy celebrations that probably accompany Austria’s Day of the Postage Stamp, where, frankly, the food and drink can’t be licked. (On second thought, cancel that line.)
Be well, stay safe, fight for justice, help make peace with nature, and work for peace.