We all know about U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt who not only was a most able leader during a difficult period but also an accomplished philatelist. Whenever he needed to relax after a long and tiresome day he spent an hour or two with his stamps.
President Roosevelt took a strong interest in the stamps issued during his administration but as far as I know he never actually designed any stamp issues (although he is known to have come up with suggestions for suitable designs).
I don’t believe former Finnish president Martti Ahtisaari is a stamp collector but he recently designed a postage stamp for Finland’s semi-independent province of Åland. More about that later.
For quite some time the Åland postal service has invited famous people to design a stamp to be issued by the tiny nation located in the Baltic Sea half-way between Finland and Sweden. Some of the designers have had very loose connections with the archipelago but their stamp designs have all reflected their ties with the islands in one way or the other.
Martti Ahtisaari was Finland’s president from 1994 until 2000 and during his presidency he made frequent visits to Åland. However, the inspiration for his stamp came from a very much different source. Ahtisaari married way back in 1968 and the newly weds decided to spend their honeymoon visiting Åland!
The young couple stayed in a small red cottage located near the water and President Ahtisaari decided to feature a similar cottage on his stamp. I believe this was a very good choice as it gives us an excellent insight into a typical Åland landscape.
The stamp went on sale on September 29, 2009.
This is also one of Åland’s many stamps with no value indicated. Instead it carries the word Världen which is Swedish for the world. Thus this stamp is valid on first class letters to worldwide destinations. It sells for 0.90 euro. The Lowe Martin Group printed 200,000 copies of the stamp.
Ahtisaari of course had a lot of help in designing the stamp. He picked a photograph by Robert Jansson and then added his autograph (thus a very nice addition to any collection of autographs on stamps).
Martti Ahtisaari was born in 1937 in the city Viborg in Karelia which at the time was part of Finland. Today Karelia is located in Russia. Ahtisaari trained to be a teacher but instead he started working for Sweden’s foreign aid agency. He went on to work for his country’s diplomatic service and he also occupied some rather important positions at the United Nations. Ahtisaari helped oversee Namibia’s independence.
In 1994 he was elected President of the Republic of Finland representing the Social Democratic party. At the end of his presidency he was asked to help solve the Kosovo crisis in the former Federal Republic of Yugoslavia. He suggested independence for the mainly Albanian province very much to the chagrin of the Serbian government in Belgrade.
In 2000 he was instrumental in establishing the Crisis Management Initiative which basically is an informal group whose purpose is to handle international crises.
In 2008, Ahtisaari was deeply moved when he learnt that he was the recipient of that year’s Nobel Peace Prize in recognition of his many years of diligent work for world peace.
Thus we have a postage stamp designed not only by a President but also by a Nobel Prize laureate.
Åland has been a stamp-issuing entity since 1984. With slightly more than 300 different stamps so far it is a very handy country to collect. It is also an inexpensive way of armchair travelling to a rather exotic destination (at least for most Stamp News readers).
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