Postage stamps and postal history of Argentina
Encyclopedia
Argentine postage stamps per sé were first issued in 1862 by the National Postal Service, a federal entity that dates from 1854, following the establishment of the Republic in lieu of the former, failed Confederacy. A number of provinces and territories, particularly in the then-remote far north
and far south
, continued to issue their own postage brands and stamps for some time, afterwards; some of these issues have since become collectors' items.
(1856-80), Córdoba
(1859-62), and Buenos Aires
(1858-59). The mere existence of these provincial stamps reflects the reality that Argentina was hardly a single organized country in that period, but rather a loose federation of some very independent provinces.
Corrientes
, a province in north-east Argentina, issued postage stamps from 1856 to 1878. The stamps were printed by typography
and were crude copies of the first issue of stamps from France
, which depicted the profile head of Ceres, the Roman goddess of agriculture. They were individually engraved by hand, so that each die is noticeably different, and were printed in small sheets. All stamps were printed on brightly colored paper. The first stamp, issued in 1856, bore the denomination of one real in the lower panel. In 1860, the denomination was marked out by pen and the stamp was revalued at 3 centavos. Beginning in 1860, the value panel was erased and six more stamps were issued in two, three and (briefly) five centavos denominations, distinguished only by the color of the paper
used. As locally produced "primitives", the early Corrientes stamps have long been prized by collectors. After 1880, stamps of Argentina were used.
Louis Stich, an expert on the Corrientes stamps, has explained the origin of the issue as follows: In 1856 there was an extreme shortage in paper or coins under 8 Reales. At the same time, the Corrientes Assembly authorized stamps for pre-paid postal use. The State Printing Bureau decided to print stamps to serve both for postal use and for small change. The director of the State Printing Bureau, Paul Emile Coni, supposedly could not locate anyone capable of cutting the stamp dies. At that time, a baker’s delivery boy, Matias Pipet, who had served as an apprentice to an engraver in Italy before arriving in Corrientes, said he could undertake the task. Coni, for reasons unknown, selected the French Ceres stamp as the design and the boy prepared the designs. The dies produced were "so extremely crude" that Coni was afraid to use them, but he eventually decided that he had no choice as the need for the stamps was urgent. Stich observed that "with each re-telling" of this story, "more fiction seems to replace the original facts."
as a nation was a rather crude lithographed seal of the Confederation (Scott #1 to 4) in 1858, followed in 1862 by the seal of the Argentine Republic (Scott #5 to 7). From 1864 to the first commemorative in 1892 a total of 24 different designs were issued. The majority of these stamp designs were small portraits of famous men, principally of the Independence period. The stamps do not identify these heroes of independence, so they would have meant little to anyone who was not familiar with Argentine history. Bushnell has analyzed the “próceres” appearing on these stamps, and concludes that they were primarily of the “liberal” current in Argentine political history, reflecting the principal trend after the fall of the dictator Juan Manuel de Rosas
in 1852. The dominant figure was one of the major figures of Argentine liberalism, Bernardino Rivadavia
(Scott #61).
One locally used postage stamp from this period bears mentioning because it shows Argentina's lack of national consolidation in the nineteenth century, especially in the distant reaches of the territory: the Tierra del Fuego
local stamps. These were issued by a Rumanian mining engineer named Julius Popper
, who in 1891 prepared his own postage stamps to cover the cost of postage from the scattered mining camps of Tierra del Fuego
to the closest points of the Argentine or Chilean postal system in Sandy Point (Punta Arenas), on the Strait of Magellan, or Ushuaia
on the Beagle Channel. The Popper locals were not recognized by the central government in Argentina or Chile, which required that their own stamps be added once letters from the Popper mining camps entered their postal system. The stamp itself is well-designed, with mining tools, the “Tierra del Fuego” label, and a partially hidden letter “P” for Julius Popper
.
, Guillermo Brown and (during the early 1950s) deceased First Lady Eva Perón
, Argentine postage issues remained little changed in their conservative, generally Art Nouveau
aspect for much of the twentieth century.
Between October 1935 and the mid 1950s Argentina produced stamps known as the "Patriots and Natural resources issue". The low values illustrate major Argentinian patriots, such as former President Bernardino Rivadavia
and the high value denomination
s show a selection of the country's natural resource
s that were the major contributors to the Argentine economy during the period. The series was printed on several papers; watermark
ed paper have the letters RA-for 'Republica Argentina' inside a circle, with rays surrounding the circle, while the unwatermarked papers vary in color and thickness.
In 1946, President Juan Perón
nationalized the British-owned postal and telegraph services (many of their quintessentially British red mail drop boxes can still be seen in Buenos Aires, today). His Ministry of Public Services created what would later become EnCoTel (the "National Postal and Telegraph Entity") and, until its dissolution in 1997, this authority issued all Argentine postage stamps.
Argentine postage has, since the original facility's 1881 opening, been printed at the National Mint. One of the largest in the world, it also prints stamps and currency for a number of smaller Latin American nations, such as Bolivia, as well as other financial instruments.
A number of stamps were issued to celebrate the return to democracy after the military government with the inaugural of President
Raúl Alfonsín
(in office from 10 December 1983 to 9 July 1989). Culturally close to Argentina, Uruguay
issued a stamp commemorating Alfonsín's state visit to that neighboring nation in November 1986.
to be issued by Argentina were envelopes in 1876 followed by newspaper wrappers and postcard
s in 1878. Lettercard
s were issued in 1888 and aerogrammes were first issued in 1963.
s have been issued in Argentina, from national and local government.
Gran Chaco
The Gran Chaco is a sparsely populated, hot and semi-arid lowland region of the Río de la Plata basin, divided among eastern Bolivia, Paraguay, northern Argentina and a portion of the Brazilian states of Mato Grosso and Mato Grosso do Sul, where it is connected with the Pantanal region...
and far south
Patagonia
Patagonia is a region located in Argentina and Chile, integrating the southernmost section of the Andes mountains to the southwest towards the Pacific ocean and from the east of the cordillera to the valleys it follows south through Colorado River towards Carmen de Patagones in the Atlantic Ocean...
, continued to issue their own postage brands and stamps for some time, afterwards; some of these issues have since become collectors' items.
Early provincial stamps
The first period in the political history of Argentine postage stamps is the so-called “Classical” one between the first stamps (1856) and the first commemorative ones (1892). The earliest Argentine stamps were issued by the separate provinces of CorrientesCorrientes Province
Corrientes is a province in northeast Argentina, in the Mesopotamia region. It is surrounded by : Paraguay, the province of Misiones, Brazil, Uruguay, and the provinces of Entre Rios, Santa Fe and Chaco.-History:...
(1856-80), Córdoba
Córdoba Province (Argentina)
Córdoba is a province of Argentina, located in the center of the country. Neighboring provinces are : Santiago del Estero, Santa Fe, Buenos Aires, La Pampa, San Luis, La Rioja and Catamarca...
(1859-62), and Buenos Aires
Buenos Aires
Buenos Aires is the capital and largest city of Argentina, and the second-largest metropolitan area in South America, after São Paulo. It is located on the western shore of the estuary of the Río de la Plata, on the southeastern coast of the South American continent...
(1858-59). The mere existence of these provincial stamps reflects the reality that Argentina was hardly a single organized country in that period, but rather a loose federation of some very independent provinces.
Corrientes
Corrientes Province
Corrientes is a province in northeast Argentina, in the Mesopotamia region. It is surrounded by : Paraguay, the province of Misiones, Brazil, Uruguay, and the provinces of Entre Rios, Santa Fe and Chaco.-History:...
, a province in north-east Argentina, issued postage stamps from 1856 to 1878. The stamps were printed by typography
Typography
Typography is the art and technique of arranging type in order to make language visible. The arrangement of type involves the selection of typefaces, point size, line length, leading , adjusting the spaces between groups of letters and adjusting the space between pairs of letters...
and were crude copies of the first issue of stamps from France
Ceres series (France)
The Ceres series was the first postage stamp series of France, issued in 1849 as a representation of the French Republic.The series bore the effigy of Ceres, goddess of growing plants in Roman mythology. Jacques-Jean Barre did the initial drawing and gravure...
, which depicted the profile head of Ceres, the Roman goddess of agriculture. They were individually engraved by hand, so that each die is noticeably different, and were printed in small sheets. All stamps were printed on brightly colored paper. The first stamp, issued in 1856, bore the denomination of one real in the lower panel. In 1860, the denomination was marked out by pen and the stamp was revalued at 3 centavos. Beginning in 1860, the value panel was erased and six more stamps were issued in two, three and (briefly) five centavos denominations, distinguished only by the color of the paper
Postage stamp paper
Postage stamp paper is the foundation or substrate of the postage stamp to which the ink for the stamp's design is applied to one side and the adhesive is applied to the other...
used. As locally produced "primitives", the early Corrientes stamps have long been prized by collectors. After 1880, stamps of Argentina were used.
Louis Stich, an expert on the Corrientes stamps, has explained the origin of the issue as follows: In 1856 there was an extreme shortage in paper or coins under 8 Reales. At the same time, the Corrientes Assembly authorized stamps for pre-paid postal use. The State Printing Bureau decided to print stamps to serve both for postal use and for small change. The director of the State Printing Bureau, Paul Emile Coni, supposedly could not locate anyone capable of cutting the stamp dies. At that time, a baker’s delivery boy, Matias Pipet, who had served as an apprentice to an engraver in Italy before arriving in Corrientes, said he could undertake the task. Coni, for reasons unknown, selected the French Ceres stamp as the design and the boy prepared the designs. The dies produced were "so extremely crude" that Coni was afraid to use them, but he eventually decided that he had no choice as the need for the stamps was urgent. Stich observed that "with each re-telling" of this story, "more fiction seems to replace the original facts."
The first Argentine stamp
The first stamp of ArgentinaArgentina
Argentina , officially the Argentine Republic , is the second largest country in South America by land area, after Brazil. It is constituted as a federation of 23 provinces and an autonomous city, Buenos Aires...
as a nation was a rather crude lithographed seal of the Confederation (Scott #1 to 4) in 1858, followed in 1862 by the seal of the Argentine Republic (Scott #5 to 7). From 1864 to the first commemorative in 1892 a total of 24 different designs were issued. The majority of these stamp designs were small portraits of famous men, principally of the Independence period. The stamps do not identify these heroes of independence, so they would have meant little to anyone who was not familiar with Argentine history. Bushnell has analyzed the “próceres” appearing on these stamps, and concludes that they were primarily of the “liberal” current in Argentine political history, reflecting the principal trend after the fall of the dictator Juan Manuel de Rosas
Juan Manuel de Rosas
Juan Manuel de Rosas , was an argentine militar and politician, who was elected governor of the province of Buenos Aires in 1829 to 1835, and then of the Argentine Confederation from 1835 until 1852...
in 1852. The dominant figure was one of the major figures of Argentine liberalism, Bernardino Rivadavia
Bernardino Rivadavia
Bernardino de la Trinidad Gónzalez Rivadavia y Rivadavia was the first president of Argentina, from February 8, 1826 to July 7, 1827 . He was a politician of the United Provinces of Río de la Plata, Argentina today...
(Scott #61).
The Popper locals
Tierra del Fuego
Tierra del Fuego is an archipelago off the southernmost tip of the South American mainland, across the Strait of Magellan. The archipelago consists of a main island Isla Grande de Tierra del Fuego divided between Chile and Argentina with an area of , and a group of smaller islands including Cape...
local stamps. These were issued by a Rumanian mining engineer named Julius Popper
Julius Popper
Julius Popper was an engineer, adventurer and explorer. He is responsible for the modern outline of the city of Havana, Cuba . As a "conquistador" of Tierra del Fuego in southern South America he was a controversial but influential figure.-Life:Popper was born in Bucharest, son of professor...
, who in 1891 prepared his own postage stamps to cover the cost of postage from the scattered mining camps of Tierra del Fuego
Tierra del Fuego
Tierra del Fuego is an archipelago off the southernmost tip of the South American mainland, across the Strait of Magellan. The archipelago consists of a main island Isla Grande de Tierra del Fuego divided between Chile and Argentina with an area of , and a group of smaller islands including Cape...
to the closest points of the Argentine or Chilean postal system in Sandy Point (Punta Arenas), on the Strait of Magellan, or Ushuaia
Ushuaia
Ushuaia may refer to the following:*Ushuaia, a city in Argentina.**Ushuaia Department, an administrative division**Ushuaia River**Ushuaia International Airport**Colegio Nacional de Ushuaia, National School of Ushuaia....
on the Beagle Channel. The Popper locals were not recognized by the central government in Argentina or Chile, which required that their own stamps be added once letters from the Popper mining camps entered their postal system. The stamp itself is well-designed, with mining tools, the “Tierra del Fuego” label, and a partially hidden letter “P” for Julius Popper
Julius Popper
Julius Popper was an engineer, adventurer and explorer. He is responsible for the modern outline of the city of Havana, Cuba . As a "conquistador" of Tierra del Fuego in southern South America he was a controversial but influential figure.-Life:Popper was born in Bucharest, son of professor...
.
Argentine stamps since 1900
Portraying historical political and military figures like José de San MartínJosé de San Martín
José Francisco de San Martín, known simply as Don José de San Martín , was an Argentine general and the prime leader of the southern part of South America's successful struggle for independence from Spain.Born in Yapeyú, Corrientes , he left his mother country at the...
, Guillermo Brown and (during the early 1950s) deceased First Lady Eva Perón
Eva Perón
María Eva Duarte de Perón was the second wife of President Juan Perón and served as the First Lady of Argentina from 1946 until her death in 1952. She is often referred to as simply Eva Perón, or by the affectionate Spanish language diminutive Evita.She was born in the village of Los Toldos in...
, Argentine postage issues remained little changed in their conservative, generally Art Nouveau
Art Nouveau
Art Nouveau is an international philosophy and style of art, architecture and applied art—especially the decorative arts—that were most popular during 1890–1910. The name "Art Nouveau" is French for "new art"...
aspect for much of the twentieth century.
Between October 1935 and the mid 1950s Argentina produced stamps known as the "Patriots and Natural resources issue". The low values illustrate major Argentinian patriots, such as former President Bernardino Rivadavia
Bernardino Rivadavia
Bernardino de la Trinidad Gónzalez Rivadavia y Rivadavia was the first president of Argentina, from February 8, 1826 to July 7, 1827 . He was a politician of the United Provinces of Río de la Plata, Argentina today...
and the high value denomination
Denomination (postage stamp)
:This article deals with the price of a postage stamp. For other meanings of the word 'denomination' see Denomination .In philately, the denomination is the "inscribed value of a stamp"...
s show a selection of the country's natural resource
Natural resource
Natural resources occur naturally within environments that exist relatively undisturbed by mankind, in a natural form. A natural resource is often characterized by amounts of biodiversity and geodiversity existent in various ecosystems....
s that were the major contributors to the Argentine economy during the period. The series was printed on several papers; watermark
Watermark
A watermark is a recognizable image or pattern in paper that appears as various shades of lightness/darkness when viewed by transmitted light , caused by thickness or density variations in the paper...
ed paper have the letters RA-for 'Republica Argentina' inside a circle, with rays surrounding the circle, while the unwatermarked papers vary in color and thickness.
In 1946, President Juan Perón
Juan Perón
Juan Domingo Perón was an Argentine military officer, and politician. Perón was three times elected as President of Argentina though he only managed to serve one full term, after serving in several government positions, including the Secretary of Labor and the Vice Presidency...
nationalized the British-owned postal and telegraph services (many of their quintessentially British red mail drop boxes can still be seen in Buenos Aires, today). His Ministry of Public Services created what would later become EnCoTel (the "National Postal and Telegraph Entity") and, until its dissolution in 1997, this authority issued all Argentine postage stamps.
Argentine postage has, since the original facility's 1881 opening, been printed at the National Mint. One of the largest in the world, it also prints stamps and currency for a number of smaller Latin American nations, such as Bolivia, as well as other financial instruments.
Return to democracy
The conclusion of Argentina's last military regime in 1983 brought with it, among other things, a radical departure in the design of both currency and stamps. Argentine stamps have since been much more varied in style and theme, depicting zoological and phytological diagrams, art of various movements, photographic scenes of daily life and more unconventional subject matter.A number of stamps were issued to celebrate the return to democracy after the military government with the inaugural of President
President of Argentina
The President of the Argentine Nation , usually known as the President of Argentina, is the head of state of Argentina. Under the national Constitution, the President is also the chief executive of the federal government and Commander-in-Chief of the armed forces.Through Argentine history, the...
Raúl Alfonsín
Raúl Alfonsín
Raúl Ricardo Alfonsín was an Argentine lawyer, politician and statesman, who served as the President of Argentina from December 10, 1983, to July 8, 1989. Alfonsín was the first democratically-elected president of Argentina following the military government known as the National Reorganization...
(in office from 10 December 1983 to 9 July 1989). Culturally close to Argentina, Uruguay
Uruguay
Uruguay ,officially the Oriental Republic of Uruguay,sometimes the Eastern Republic of Uruguay; ) is a country in the southeastern part of South America. It is home to some 3.5 million people, of whom 1.8 million live in the capital Montevideo and its metropolitan area...
issued a stamp commemorating Alfonsín's state visit to that neighboring nation in November 1986.
Postal stationery
The first items of postal stationeryPostal stationery
A piece of postal stationery is a stationery item, such as a stamped envelope, letter sheet, postal card, lettercard, aerogram or wrapper, with an imprinted stamp or inscription indicating that a specific rate of postage or related service has been prepaid...
to be issued by Argentina were envelopes in 1876 followed by newspaper wrappers and postcard
Postcard
A postcard or post card is a rectangular piece of thick paper or thin cardboard intended for writing and mailing without an envelope....
s in 1878. Lettercard
Lettercard
In philately a lettercard or letter card is a postal stationery item consisting of a folded card with a prepaid imprinted stamp. The fact that it is folded over gives the writer twice as much room for the message compared with a postal card. The message is written on the inside and the card is...
s were issued in 1888 and aerogrammes were first issued in 1963.
Revenue stamps
A very wide range of revenue stampRevenue stamp
A revenue stamp, tax stamp or fiscal stamp is a adhesive label used to collect taxes or fees on documents, tobacco, alcoholic drinks, drugs and medicines, playing cards, hunting licenses, firearm registration, and many other things...
s have been issued in Argentina, from national and local government.
Further reading
- Peplow, F.J.F. J. PeplowFrank Jukes Peplow was Borough Librarian at Deptford and a philatelist who won the Crawford Medal from the Royal Philatelic Society London in 1927 for his work The Postage Stamps of Buenos Aires. He signed the Roll of Distinguished Philatelists in 1933.-Argentina and Japan:Peplow was an expert on...
The Postage Stamps of Buenos Aires. London: F.J. Peplow, 1925. (Privately printed - 100 copies.) - Peplow, F.J. Proofs of the Rivadavia Stamps of the Argentine Republic, 5 centavos plate C, 10 centavos plate B, 15 centavos plate B. London: Perkins, Bacon & Co.Perkins BaconMessrs. Perkins, Bacon & Co was a printer of books, bank notes and postage stamps, most notable for printing the Penny Black, the world's first adhesive postage stamps, in 1840.- Origins :...
, 1925. (Limited to 50 copies.)