COVER N.95 - SÃO TOMÉ E PRINCÍPE

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Posted on the ?; received on the 12th April 2022
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Once again my daughter helps me to add another country to my philatelic atlas, by sending me back a self-addressed envelope from where she is now working for a couple of weeks: São Tomé and Princípe. A tiny two islands and quite a few islets archipelago, nested on the gulf of Guinea, right along the Equador, which runs across one of them, the Ilhéu das Rolas, where, incidentally, I already had the pleasure of putting one foot on the Northern hemisphere and another on the Southern, at the same time 😀.

Before becoming independent in 1975, São Tomé e Principe was one of the Portuguese colonies in Africa, and history has it that the inhabited Islands were discovered by the Portuguese sailors João de Santarém and Pedro Escobar in 1470.

The main economic driver of the islands whose economy was for a long period of time based on the slave trade and slave labour was the production of sugar cane first and then of cocoa and coffee.

Although slavery would be officially abolished in the Portuguese colonies on the 25th February 1869, exploitation of the local labour  force under conditions not that different would continue well into the 20th century.

Nowadays, Tourism is becoming ever more important and the oil reserves that were found offshore in its waters will, probably and hopefully, play a vital role in  the development of the country, one of the more political stable in the African continent. As I type I read that the first drilling on the EEZ of S. Tomé e Princípe, that was to have occurred in March, will now take place in May, this year.

A very poor country, facing all the challenges that developing countries have to deal with, both internally and externally, S. Tomé e Principe  and its warm and friendly people have all it takes to becoming the former a visiting destination for all those who love nature or just want to enjoy some days of peace and relaxation on lovely warm and calm sea beaches, and the other, their proud and affable hosts.  I, for one, will never forget the first time I ever saw a baobab ... and I was at a beach... who would have thought that the savannah could go all the way to the sea?  

Stamps

From the sheer number of yearly emisions and the themes thereby covered, São Tomé and Principe is, I believe,  one of those countries that have outsourced their postal stamps to a foreign agency somewhere that sells them by the lot to "collectors". I'm not very well versed on the hows and whys of this trade, but this is apparent just by consulting any online catalogue.

30,000 Dobra stamp, part of a 8 same value stamp minisheet, issued on 16MAR2015, featuring beaches and cliffs of S. Tomé. 

The two 10,000 Dobra stamps are part of a 4 stamp set issued on 20NOV2012 in souvenir sheet format and as single stamps, dedicated to the birds of São Tomé and it depicts a Sao Tome Fiscal (Lanius newtoni). This particular species is endemic to the archipelago and classified as critically endangered by the IUCN.

I have one single regret, regarding this cover and  that is the obvious fact that unfortunately the Post Office did not cancel the stamps... but there's nothing I can do now 😞