Presidents in stamps

January 12, 2011 rescharf Politics 2

Any philatelist can tell you that there is much more to stamps than meets the eye.

This week Correios (the state-owned company responsible for the Brazilian postal service) released a stamp depicting former president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva. It is legal to pay that type of homage to people who are still alive, if they won a Nobel prize or an Olympic golden medal. Or if they are former presidents. Naturally, some complained that Lula was into some sort of self-praising.

Anyways, presidential stamps have some interesting stories behind them. My favorite: in October 1945, Correios produced a stamp depicting president Getúlio Vargas and his Argentinian counterpart, Justo de Urquiza, that were inaugurating a bridge between the two countries. What happened is, just a few days after its distribution began, Vargas was deposed. The stamp was censored and had to be canceled. It became a praised collector’s item.

Check below a few other stamps depicting former Brazilian presidents.

Itamar Franco - a stamp bland like himself and his government
Tancredo Neves, the president that never was. Last president elected by the Congress, he died before the inaugural ceremony and was substituted by his vice-president, José Sarney.
Rodrigues Alves
Nilo Peçanha, the only Afro-Brazilian president

2 Comments

  1. Tancredo Neves’ vice-president, who assumed office after his death in 1985, was José Sarney, not Itamar Franco.

    Itamar was Fernando Collor’s vice-president, and assumed office in 1992 when Collor was impeached by the Congress.

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