Dinosaur-Mail: Postal Service, Prehistoric Pop-Art & Plagiarism

The first postage stamp featuring a prehistoric beast was a stamp from India (1951), celebrating the centenary of the Geological Survey of India it showed the reconstruction of the fossil elephant species Stegodon ganesca. Cuba released a stamp in 1958. Dedicated to the naturalist Carlos de la Torre y Huerta (1858 ? 1950) it shows the giant sloth Megalocnus rodens.
In the same year China issued the very first stamp showing a dinosaur ? the Chinese prosauropod Lufengosaurus. Belgium followed with the more prominent Iguanodon. From there dinosaurs will appear on postage stamps from Poland and San Marino (1965), Congo (1975), Germany (1977), Mongolia and Nicaragua (1987). The U.S. will dedicate four values to Pteranodon, Tyrannosaurus, Brontosaurus and Stegosaurus in 1989.

Fig.1.The small republic of San Marino issued a series of nine values, showing a Brontosaurus, Brachiosaurus, Pteranodon, Elasmosaurus, Tyrannosaurus, Stegosaurus, Thaumatosaurus, Iguanodon and Triceratops -mostly in dull colors (all images ? as images from government documents ? are in public domain).

Fig.2. An interesting series of psychedelic postage stamps from Tanzania (1991), presenting the first (very) colorful dinosaurs.

Fig.3. Many editions of stamps with dinosaurs are intended for the market and collectors ? therefore often more aesthetic appealing than scientific accurate. Sometimes the motif is even simply copied from other artists or publications, like these two specimens, copies from the Saltopus by Jane Burton and the Tyrannosaurus by Doug Henderson.

Fig.4. The first postage stamps showing tracks of dinosaurs were released in Lesotho in 1984.

Fig.5. Evolutionary ladder in a Polish edition, illustrations by artist Andrzej Heidrich (he designed also advertising posters and Polish banknotes).

Fig.6. Not only ?living dinosaurs?? ? a German series (1990) celebrates with dinosaur-skeletons 100 years Museum for Natural History in Berlin.

Fig.7. The Great End?

Bibliography:

THENIUS, E. & VAVRA, N. (1996): Fossilien im Volksglauben und im Alltag ? Bedeutung und Verwendung vorzeitlicher Tier- und Pflanzenreste von der Steinzeit bis heute. Senckenberg-Buch 71, Waldemar Kramer Verlag ? Frankfurt am Main: 179

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