COVER N. 316 - ANGUILLA

Postmark: Anguilla Post Offfice The Valley

Posted on ?; Received on the 24th September 2023

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A blue cover with the red and blue stripes of the old airmail envelopes... great; and, on top of that, full of stamps,,,, and on top of that from Anguilla???? now where is that?

Hmmm, the monogram of Queen Elizabeth II... so Anguilla is a British dependency... and yes, the Caribbean ... the lesser Antilles... a multitude of islands, which in some cases are independent countries but of which  a large number are European and American dependencies, most of them ressonating to a common history rooted in colonisation, slavery, sugar plantations, hurricanes, and more recently tourism, and offshore financial services linked to their  peculiar tax regimes...

That and Christopher Columbus. Everywhere we look in the Caribbean it seems a link to the man somehow exists. I shouldn't be surprised, though, because much the same thing happens here, where I stand. I have been in Columbus' house in Porto Santo, I have been to Anjos bay, in Santa Maria, Azores, where he was upon his returning from his first journey to the Americas... there is even the theory that the explorer was indeed Portuguese by birth...

Anyway, I digress. The link to Anguilla lies in the name itself, since it seems it is common belief that it was Columbus who so named the island, due to its shape, reminiscent of an eel (anguilla, in Italian or anguila in Spanish).

All things considered, I was very happy to get this cover from one of the "unusual places" regular contributors, none other than Eric from up north. Muito obrigado, Eric. Um abraço!

 

Stamps, left to right:

Diana and Charles, now Charles Rex. The fairy tale that went bad... On the occasion of the royal wedding, a set of five stamps and a souvenir sheet were issued on 15Jun1981. The lesser value stamp of the set (50 c) is on the cover and, further to the royal couple, it features an image of St. Paul's cathedral, where the wedding took place. The stamp includes on the top right corner the monogram of Queen Elizabeth II and opposite to it, on the left, what I believe is called the Prince of Wales (Charles, at the time) feather's.

On 08DEC1975, the Anguilla Postal Service issued a six stamp souvenir sheet  entitled "Madonna", as its Christmas issue, with stamps reproducing paintings of the Virgin holding her Holly Child. On the cover is the 20 cent stamp, featuring a detail of the painting Madonna and the Iris (Virgin and Child), dated of 1510-10, which is labelled as being an Albrecht Durer's painting, although the British National Gallery, where the painting is kept,  claims it to be authored not by Durer himself but by a painter from his workshop.

Celebrating the 30th anniversary of the first successful manned journey to the moon, Anguilla issued on 06MAY1999 a set of  four stamps (0,30; 1; 1,5; 1,90 Eastern Caribbean Dollars) dedicated to the event. The 30 cent stamp on the cover is illustrated with a great  image of the Saturn V rocket carrying the Apollo 11 modules on lift-off. a black and white medallion on the painting shows the command service module orbiting the moon.

On 30OCT1972, Anguilla issued a set of definitive stamps comprising 15 values. On 10FEB1976, these were reissued with the overcharge "New Constitution 1976", celebrating the entry into force of the 1976 revision of the fundamental charter of the territory (which has since then been replaced by a new one in 1982 (amended in 1990 and 2019).

The 40 c stamp is illustrated with an image evocative of boat building, an activity which is naturally carried out on the island, given that fishing is one of the main occupations of the population.

The 1970 Anguillan Christmas issue was, as usual,  illustrated with reproductions of famous works of the great masters. It comprised five values (1; 20; 25; 40 and 50 cents) and the highest value stamp on the cover features a detail of "Adoration of the Magi" by Giovanni Battista Tiepolo, dating from the late 1750s, which is kept at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the world famous Met, in New York.

The cover is postmarked from the territory's capital, The Valley, although the actual postmark features no date on it.