Issues of polish stamps I/2000
 
   

ANDRZEJ WAJDA - WINNER OF OSCAR 2000

   

No. of stamps: 1
Face values: PLN 1.10
Printing technology: offset
Paper: fluorescent
Sales sheet: 20 stamps
Size: 43 x 31,25 mm
Issue: 1.000.000 pcs.
Designer: Maciej Buszewicz
Date of circulation: March 26th, 2000
   
Andrzej Wajda will receive the award of the American Film Academy, Oscar, for all his film output during the annual gala in Los Angeles on March 26th, 2000. The prestige of the award and the world-wide fame connected with it constitutes a special form of the promotion of the Polish culture in the world. This is why, the Polish Post will issue a post stamp this day in the form of a black and white film frame. It represents the director recorded in a photograph taken by E. Sakata, photographer from Japan.

On the day of introducing the stamp into the market, there will be sold first day envelopes (FDC) with a special date seal in the Post Office Warsaw 1.

       
 
   

PREHISTORIC ANIMALS - DINOSAURS

   



No. of stamps: 6
Face values: 2 x PLN 0.70; 2 x PLN 0.80; 2 x PLN 1.55
Printing technology: offset
Paper: fluorescent
Sales sheet:
  each stamp separately - 20 pcs.
  all stamps together - 6 pcs.
Size: 51 x 31,25 mm
Issue:
  2 x 2,700,000 pcs
  2 x 2,700,000 pcs.
  2 x 1,700,000 pcs.
Designer: Jacek Brodowski
Date of circulation: March 24th, 2000
   
The Polish Post will introduce into the market a six-stamp series "Prehistoric Animals - Dinosaurs". It represents reconstructions of animals, whose skeletons were discovered in the Gobi Desert by Polish-Mongolian Paleonthological Expeditions in the years 1963-1971. All of these animals lived at the end of the Mesozoic Era, in the late Cretaceous period (ca. 70 millions years ago). Their skeletons can be seen in the Museum of Evolution in Warsaw (PKiN), and natural size reconstructions in the Silesian Zoological Garden in Chorzów.

The stamps represent:

  • 1.PLN 0.70 - Saurolophus - duck-billed dinosaur of the length of 15m. It chewed plants with numerous small teeth at the end of the jaw (the front was covered with a horn beak). It had a characteristic bone outgrowth and maybe a skin balloon used for nuptial shows and making sounds.

  • 2. PLN 0.70 - Gallimimus - the biggest (ca. 5 m length) representative of dinosaurs similar to ostrich: no teeth, long legs, and long necks, predatory; Ornithischians. It was the most numerous dinosaur living in the Jurassic Park. It was described and named by Polish scientists: Professor Ewa Roniewicz and Halszka Osmólska from the Paleobiology Department at the Polish Academy of Sciences (PAN), at the cooperation with the Mongolian paleonthologist, Rinczen Barsbolden.

  • 3. PLN 0.80 - Saichania - representative of armoured dinosaurs, plant-eaters, of its body covered with raised bony plates and equipped with a dangerous club-like tail. It had an excellently shaped skin system of the armour in the front part of the body. It was discovered by Polish expeditions and described by doc. Teresa Maryańska from the Museum of Earth of PAN.

  • 4. PLN 0.80 - Protoceratops - very popular in numerous uncovered rocks from the Cretaceous period in Mongolia and China. A primitive horny dinosaur resembling its bigger cousins (e.g. triceratops) with the bony collar at the rear of the head and a curvy beak. The four-leg plant eater was 2 m long. It lived in herds in dry, desert places.

  • 5. PLN 1.55 - Prenocephale - the first representative of thick-head dinosaurs (pachycefalosaurus) discovered outside North America. Thickened bones at the top of the skull probably protected the small brain during horning the heads during nuptial fights. The dinosaur was almost 2m long. It was described by doc. T. Maryańska and Professor H. Osmólska.

  • 6. PLN 1.55 - Velociraptor - known, e.g., from the film Jurassic Park. An agile predatory dinosaur from the group of dromesaurs, of the body length of almost 2m, it was a close relative of birds. Velociraptor attached its victim with characteristic claws in its legs.

    • On the day of introducing the stamps into the market, there will be sold first day envelopes (FDC) with a special date seal in the Post Office Warsaw 1.

           
     
       

    EASTER

       

    No. of stamps: 2
    Face values: PLN 0.70 and 0.80
    Printing technology: offset
    Paper: fluorescent
    Sales sheet: 20 stamps
    Size: 39,5 x 31,25 mm
    Issue:
      PLN 0.70 - 10,300,000 pcs.
      PLN 0.80 - 8,700,000 pcs.
    Designer: Agnieszka Sobczyńska
    Date of circulation: March 24th, 2000
       
    The Polish Post will introduce two post stamps at the occasion of the coming Easter. This time, it will be a contemporary interpretation of the topic according to a design of the artist Agnieszka Sobczyńska. The said stamps represent:

  • Value PLN 0.70 - Jesus Christ in the tomb. The cross in the background is a symbol of life and the everlasting memory of the pain and death of the Son of God.

  • Value PLN 0.08 - Resurrected Christ sitting on the throne against the background of a kettle. It symbolizes God, eterninty, and infinity in the Christian iconography.

    • The green colour predominates in both stamps as the liturgical colour expressing hope of resurrection and the victory over death.

    On the day of introducing the stamps into the market, there will be sold first day envelopes (FDC) with a special date seal in the Post Office Warsaw 1.

           
     
       

    1000TH ANNIVERSARY OF THE GNIEZNO SUMMIT AND THE ORGANISATION OF THE CATHOLIC CHURCH IN POLAND

       


    No. of stamps: 3
    Face values: PLN 0.70; 0.80; and PLN 1.55
    Printing technology: rotogravure
    Paper: fluorescent
    Sales sheet: 50 stamps
    Size:
      of the stamps: 31.25 x 43 mm
      of the stamp in the block: 43 x 31.25 mm
      of the block: 77 x 65 mm
    Issue:
      PLN 0.70 - 400,000 pcs.
      PLN 0.80 - 400,000 pcs.
      PLN 1.55 - 350,000 pcs.
    Designer: Maciej Jędrysik
    Date of circulation: March 12th, 2000
       
    In March 2000, the Polish Post will introduce 3 post stamps into the market, including one in the form of the block, within the issue "1000th anniversary of the Gniezno Summit and the organization of the Catholic Church in Poland". The jubilee this year creates an unrepeateable occasion to remind and stress the historic importance of that event in the history of the state, nation, and church.

    The Gniezno summit, an event of an international importance, was a proof of political strives of the German Emperor Otto III, wishing to create one monarchy, within which there would function four parallel states: Rome (Italy), Gaul (Burgundy and Low Lotharingia), Germania (Germany), and Sclauinia (Poland, or rather western Slovian states). The inclusion of Poland was doubtlessly connected with its adoption of the baptism in 966. The state's position strengthened thanks to it offered advantageous conditions to establish a co-operation with two powers of Europe of those times, e.g. the empire and the Holy See.

    The presented series of the stamps was subject to a miniature, Romane stylization, characteristic for Medieval Ages, with the rims full of the biblical symbolism.

    Individual stamps represent:

  • PLN 0.70 - Otto III surrounded by priests and the court in the moment of granting the diadem to Bolesław Chrobry. Although the gesture did not fulfill crowing ceremony requirements (which took place in 1025), the Emperor has already accepted the authority of Chrobry in Poland, and including the governor into the group of the highest Empire's notables.

  • PLN 0.80 - personalities of consecutive bishops in triforium sections with the name of the Archbishopric of Gnesna and individual dioceses: Cracovia, Wratislavia, Colberga. A page from the Emmeram Gospel Book was a patter for the illustration. The stamp commemorates the creation of the achbishopric and bishopric areas subjected to it: Cracow, Wrocław, and Kołobrzeg. A serparate province dependant only on Rome was an extremely valuable political gain and it required an importance and uniformity of the Polish state.

  • PLN 1.55 - Otto III as the Roman Emperor, sitting on the throne and holding authority insignia in his hands. Personifications of individual provinces approach him: Roma with a bowl full of jewels; Gaul with an olive branch, Germania with a horn of plenty, and Sclauinia with an authority disk. The illustration is based on a miniature of Otto III from the Gospel Book. It renders the political situation of Europe of those times and symbolises the achievement of a position of a European state by Poland.

    • On the day of introducing the stamps into the market, there will be sold two types of first day envelopes (FDC) with a special date seal in the Post Office Gniezno 1.

           
     
       

    POLES IN THE WORLD

       


    No. of stamps: 2
    Face values: PLN 1.55 and 1.95
    Printing technology: offset
    Paper: fluorescent
    Sales sheet: 16 stamps
    Size: 40,5 x 40,5 mm
    Issue: 400,000 pcs. each stamp
    Designer: Wiesław Wałkuski
    Date of circulation: February 22nd, 2000
       
    The Polish Post will introduce into the market another two stamps from the series "Poles in the World". The cycle of stamps is devoted to Poles, who lived and worked outside the borders of Poland and made extraordinary things, leaving a permanent trace of them and making the name of Poland famous. The following persons shall be represented in the stamps:

  • Value PLN 1.55 - Bronisław Malinowski (1884-1942), ethnologist and sociologist. He studies at the Jagiellonian University in Kraków and Lipsk. He spent most of his life abroad. He went to Great Britain in 1910, where he studied at the London School of Economics and Political Science at the University of London. He conducted local research in New Guinea and on Trobriand Islands in the years 1914-1918. When participating in the everyday life of the inhabitants, collected information about their social life, culture, and religion. The collected material made him world-wide famous. Malinowski created a functional method in the science engaged in researching culture, entailing an explanation of anthropological facts by means of establishing functions played by them in the integral system of culture.

  • Value PLN 1.95 - Józef Zwierzycki (1888-1961), geologist, explorer of the Malaya ArCZPelago and New Guinea. Professor of the Wrocław University and Mining and Metallurgical Academy in Kraków, as well as the Technical University in Wrocław. He has merits for the geological cartography of Indonesia and discovering its natural resources. He discovered, e.g., oil deposits in northern Sumatra and in the west of northern Guinea. He made most of geological maps during his stay in Indonesia. In order to appraise his merits, he was granted the important position of the director of geological services of Dutch Eastern India.

    • On the day of introducing the stamps into the market, there will be sold first day envelopes (FDC) with a special date seal in the Post Office Warszawa 1.

           
     
       

    JUBILEE OF THE YEAR 2000

       

    No. of stamps: 1
    Face value: letter A
    Printing technology: offset
    Paper: fluorescent
    Sales sheet: 20 stamps
    Size: 31,25 x 39,5 mm
    Issue: 12,000,000 pcs
    Designer: Jacek Konarzewski
    Date of circulation: January 2nd, 2000
       
    On January 2nd, 2000, the Polish Post will introduce a stamp marked with the letter A from the issue "Jubilee of the year 2000" into the market.

    Although the 21st century starts on the New Year's Eve of 2001, the magic of the digits, which we have followed, solved the problem of the issue of the stamp. It represents a contemporary style of St. Andrew's cross according to Leonardo da Vinci. A fragment of a hard disk, a satellite, sand glass, and a fragment of a CZP with an integrated circuit are in the background. The symbolism of the stamp refers to the condition of human beings in the contemporary world full of electronics and advanced technical know-how. It constitutes an attempt to sum up the civilisational output of the last millennium.

    The stamp can be used only for the domestic traffic, and its letter mark is an equivalent of the fee for a letter of up to 20g.

    FDC envelopes with a special date seal applied in the Post Office Warsaw 1 shall be introduced into the market on the day of the date of the stamp introduction.