Help Wanted

I need help completing my collection of North Vietnamese military stamps on cover. I have some ideas for a series of articles and maybe an exhibit, but I'd like to have an example of each before I get started.

I don't think this the rarest of the NVN military issues on cover - I'd probably give that distinction to the very first military issue, one of the ocher-colored medal stamps, or perhaps this stamp's twin, the olive-colored waterwheel stamp with the medal completely shaded. However, I found examples of each of those on cover, so maybe I'm wrong. For some reason the brown 'invalids on waterwheel' stamp has eluded me.

I'm looking for a cover like this one:

It has to be tied with a genuine postmark that has a legible year date prior to 1975, although a contemporary date from 1959 or the early 1960s would be terrific. Other than that, I'm not too particular on condition or anything else.

Let me know if you have one you can sell or trade.

You can reach me at imnaha at optimumonline dot net or by posting a comment to this blog entry.

Thanks!

NVN Red Leaping Soldier Stamp on Cover - 1966

I periodically upgrade the covers in my collection with ones that are in better condition, show a more interesting usage, have historical context or simply have more eye appeal. Case in point is the cover shown here. My previous example of this stamp on cover had a roughly opened edge and a 1978 usage, despite the stamp being issued in 1965 (after the war ended in 1975, the military used reserve stocks of stamps until they were exhausted).

In addition to the contemporary postmark from 1966 and the military return address, the cachet appealed to me as I had not seen in before.

I reached out to my friend, Vinh Nguyen, who quickly translated the cover's details. The cachet reads, Vừa sản xuất vừa chiến đấu, that translates as "Produce While Fighting". The central circular logo bears the phrase, chống mỹ cứu nước meaning, "Fight the US aggressors to safeguard our country."

The recipient is a traditional medicine doctor at the Thai Binh provincial medical department. This was not a hospital, but rather the medical department of the province.

The hand-written text at the bottom reads, "Medical department, please forward to Doctor Cúc, traditional medicine, to where here department is temporarily evacuated."


All in all an interesting cover that I am happy to add to my collection.

North Vietnamese Cover to China, 1958

I pick up interesting covers when I come across them, realizing I may not understand all of their aspects until later.

An example is the depicted cover that bears a nice "Hai Quan" hand stamp and is postmarked Hanoi, 1958. Thinking this might potentially be a North Vietnamese naval military cover, I put in a bid. If nothing else, the fact that it was sent to China was interesting.

As it turns out, there are no accent marks on the term Hai Quan in the hand stamp, so it translates as "customs organization" as opposed to Hải Quân, meaning "navy"

The sender (and recipient) however, held a surprise for me. Rewi Alley, a native of New Zealand, was a writer, educator and member of the Chinese Communist Party. It isn't clear what he was doing in Vietnam in 1958, but it could have been related to his works published in 1956, Spring in Vietnam, a Diary of a Journey and Buffalo Boys of Viet-Nam. Alley is credited with coining the term "gung ho".

So, it turned out to a be a worthwhile cover after all (the stamp isn't bad either...)