Stamps That Tell a Story
The saga of a single image used for stamps issued in two countries.
The German Post Office (Deutsche Bundespost) issued a set of two semi-postal stamps with the theme For the Sport. One honours the sport of rowing, the other soaring, the subject of this article. The surtax from the sale of these half postage-half donation ‘semi-postal’ stamps went to the German Sports Foundation. It was designed by Professor Gerd Aretz and issued at Bonn on April 10, 1981.
Dr. Claus-Dieter Zink provided some background information on the photo used: when the German Post Office decided on the theme, Professor Aretz contacted the publishers of the well-known Segelflug-Bild Kalender. They suggested contacting Claus-Dieter Zink for a photo of gliders flying in the Alps which had not been published by them.
This is the story of the photo, taken about three years prior to it being issued as a postage stamp: take-off was from the Alpine Glider Flying site near Niederöblarn in Southern Germany. Claus-Dieter flew his Mistral C sailplane, and took this photo looking back. Andreas Deutsch from Switzerland piloted the ASW-20 (shown in the foreground) and Fritz Stehle, an oldtimer Lufthansa pilot from Germany, flew his ASW-15.
The ridge in the background is the southwestern section of the Austrian Dachstein mountains with the village of Radstadt/Tauern in the valley. One can barely recognise the radio tower on top of the Rossbrand Peak.
Eight years later the same photo, altered just a little, was used by Bulgaria for a postage stamp, one of a four part set to commemorate the four different aviation sport interest groups, one of which again honours the sport of soaring. The stamp was designed by Emilian Stankev and issued at Sofia and Varna on October 10, 1989.
The stamp was also used in the commemoration of the 82nd FAI General Conference which was held in Varna, Bulgaria on December 8, 1989. Frequently a commemorative stamp issue, especially in the former Eastern Bloc countries, goes hand-in-hand with such a conference. The photo was made into a postcard and it is estimated that more than 12,000 were used as First Day cards.
I am not sure how much gliding activity there is in Bulgaria, or how many good photos would have been available, but the Bulgarian Post Office’s designer Stankev ‘borrowed’ Claus-Dieter’s photo and used it as the design for one of their Bulgarian stamps. When asked, Claus-Dieter just said: “No they did not ask me; but if they did not have a good photo to use, I would gladly let them use mine. But they should have at least asked”.
©2002, 2022 Simine Short
Resources
- Stamps That Tell a Story: The Series — Catch up on your missing instalments of this excellent and informative series of articles presented previously in the New RCSD.
This article first appeared in the June, 2002 issue of Gliding magazine. Simine Short is an aviation researcher and historian. She has written more than 150 articles on the history of motorless flight and is published in several countries around the world as well as the United States. She is also the editor of the Bungee Cord, the quarterly publication of the Vintage Sailplane Association.
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