Re: Fw: Kemrese Philately

["I. R. Joll" <jollian@es.co.nz>]

A quick reply. I'll save these messages and savour them at my
leisure (what leisure?)

-----Original Message-----
From: Padraic Brown <pbrown@nova.umuc.edu>
To: I. R. Joll <jollian@es.co.nz>
Cc: smiff@es.co.nz <smiff@es.co.nz>
Date: Monday, July 20, 1998 06:03
Subject: Re: Fw: Kemrese Philately


On Sun, 19 Jul 1998, I. R. Joll wrote:

> Hi Padraic, you seem to have taken an interest in a minor brainstorming
> session
> I had with Andrew a couple of days ago (which I almost remember as I was
> a little too much taken up helping out with my sister's wedding...) I have
> taken
> a few of your comments and am typing a few quick ideas of my own.

Felicitations to her!  Is she one of the blood relations, or one of the
'others'?

"Others" as you have it. The happy couple are staying around for
a week before disappearing for however long they want to.

> BTW I was planning on doing a mock-up Kemr (or however Andrew spells
> it) new issues page in the same style as my worldwide new issue site at
> http://homepages.ihug.co.nz/~jollian in case you want to see what it would
> look like.

I'll take a peek.

[snip]
> >>
> >>Notes make up the higher ranges: L2, L5, L10; and the rarely seen L20,
> >>L50, L100, L200, L500, L1000, L2000, L5000, L10000, L50000, L100000.  If
> >>you ever see a man in a train headed for Dun Edain from Castreleon
wearing
> >>a dark suit and trying to look inconspicuous; he's probably a Bank of
> >>Cambria officer making a transfer to the Royal Bank of Scotland.  He's
> >>probably loaded with L50000 notes; but don't try anything stupid,
because
> >>they shoot to kill. ;-)
>
> Who issues the bank notes? I would suspect that any notes of a
> denomination greater than £100 would be used more for bank
> accounting than for paying for cups of coffee... are there Reserve
> Bank (or whatever it is called) notes printed by the Govt. or bank
> notes backed solely by the reserves of the bank in question?

The issuance would depend upon how power hungry the Central Govt. is.  If
they are all Power-Grabbing-Jack-a-Dandys then the Bank of Cambria is the
sole issuing authority.  If the rules are slightly different, then others
can join in the game (Royal Bank of Scotland, Barclay's Bank, Royal Bank
of Kernow, etc.).  Indeed larger notes are for bank accounting; although I
suppose one could buy a _lot_ of coffee and use a L500 note! ;-)  As to
who prints them; that depends also on how centralised govt. operations
are.  They may mauafacture the paper and print the notes at a central
location; or they may contract out to private firms.  The backing of the
paper will depend largely on whether precious metals are still in use for
the coins.  If the coins are silver, then like as not the notes will be
backed by silver reserves.  If the coins are nickel, then they _could_
still be backed by the silver reserve; or they may not.

Sorry, by "printed" I meant "issued". That will teach me to type in a hurry.

>
[snip]
>
> Most current British stamps show an embossed, often gold or silver,
> medallion
> portrait of the Queen tucked discreetly into a corner. Perhaps the most
> useful
> line of enquiry would be to work out what the contemporary fashion was
with
> regards to face fungus.

I should think regular washes will take care of fungal growths on the
face.  Or am I missing something?


face fungus = beard or other facial hair

> If the Kemr £ = 10 GBP, the postal rate (assuming the reforms of Rowland
> Hill have taken place) should be about 6d - 6½d. But comparison of wage
> rates and transportation would be necessary as well. (Transportation in
> particular would have a marked effect on international postal rates - most
> British commemorative series have stamps for European and intercontinental
> mail as well, not like the US where the ubiquitous 32c stamps
predominate).

It turns out that the gwleskin is 2 1/2 shillings; so it is either _very_
expensive to send a letter, or the wrong name was given to the right coin.

- Before Rowland Hill's reforms in 1840 (the issue of the first postage
stamps was only a very minor part of these reforms) it could cost up
to 2/6 to post a letter within the UK! The main thrust of his reforms
was to drastically lower the price of sending a letter (from 30 pence to
1 penny!) and the economies of scale would make it feasible. Incredibly,
they did.

I don't know what the international rate is, but I know the US has a stamp
for it.

- The stamp I see most often on letters from the US is the 60c Airmail
Pioneer stamp. But, for example, the usual US series is between one
and five 32c stamps (although 10, 15, 20 or 50 stamp series are becoming
more common). The usual UK series is four or five of the above values:
20p, 26p, 31p, 37p, 43p, 63p. The first two are basic second class and
first class inland rates. The last two pay for small and large airmail
letters
to New Zealand respectively. Occasionally single stamps or strips of 26p
stamps are released but this is quite an isolated occasion (the latest I
know
of being the Diana stamps - full credit to NZ Post for deciding not to issue
a Diana commemoration stamp due to the outrageous commercialization
of her name and likeness... grumble grumble (yes that is an axe grinding
that you can hear)).

>
> >>Who is this new person?  In time, I suppose he could collect Cambrian
> >>stamps. :-)
>
> It is I, Count Homogenized.... sorry, wrong show... my

Ah, well; pleased to meet you, your eminence.

> name is Dave Joll and, while not computerizing small town
> cemetery records or bashing in steel posts (RAPID rural

Do you take note of the interesting snips of poetry and such people put on
their headstones; or do they not do that sort of thing out your way?

They have to be fairly interesting for me to notice. There are a lot of
little
quotes, Biblical or classical mainly, but here the trend (especially now
that granite headstones and plaques can be computer engraved in
half tone) is for things important to the deceased to be pictured. Often
crosses and Rosary beads, also a lot of guns, deer and mountains
(this is huntin' shootin' fishin' country), sometimes less obvious. The
Lynwood Park cemetery at Te Anau (only started in about 1975) has
a lot of rocks taken from people's favourite mountains with little brass
or granite plaques attached. It is in a fairly isolated place and looks
positively weird with four inches of snow on the ground.

On the headstone of an adulterer, commisioned by his loving wife:
In Heaven may he find his peace;
Until I arrive.

In Fortrose Cemetery: "Erected to the memory of Louisa
Walsh, murdered by her husband at Waikawa Station,
[whatever the date was], 1877". The third line of the
inscription was chiselled out by a horrified man of the
cloth some time about the 1950s or 1960s.

In Dipton Cemetery: "Erected to commemorate the courage
and indomitable fighting spirit of [some prat who went into
the boxing ring in the 1920s, while suffering a medical
condition he didn't bother telling his doctor until it was too late]

This is from memory, the transcriptions are all at work, so
the usual "all care, no responsibility" disclaimers apply.

> house numbers for the use of) I collect stamps, read books
> (mainly SF or NZ history), read comics (don't ask why),
> try to avoid the hazards of being 30 years old and occasionally
> let real life intrude, in the form of my incredibly complicated
> family (incredibly complicated because many of them are not
> actually blood relations)...

Dare I ask how that works out?

You are welcome to ask but you would be even more welcome
to answer. "Tell me and we'll both know". What really foxes
people is that that side of my family are Samoan so we look
*nothing* alike.

> But Wait! There's More!

There's always more!  Especially since I forgot to say it the first time
around. :-)

> >Castreleon (first class, extra).  Pretentious city folk who simply _must_
> >have a motor car should be prepared to spend around L320.  Only don't
> >expect to do much driving west of Esca as it's all dirt roads except for
> >the Royal Highway (stone paved).  [Prices not exact.]
>
> That would give me a bit of an incentive to get the infamous chook
> chaser (trail bike sitting in the garage, in bits) running again...

Indeed.  I am assuming that the world Kemr inhabits is not the car-crazy
place the US has made out of this one.

The US may have made the world car crazy but cars themselves
evolved from the scientific melting pot of the 19th century. Henry
Ford may have finished the job but Karl Benz and his contemporaries
started it. What Ford did was make cars affordable decades before
they would have been otherwise. But if he had not done it, surely
another would have come up with a similar idea.

> During the "brainstorming" I came up with a cruel and unusual idea:
> what if the EEC "persuaded" Kemr to start using European style
> notation on its stamps - £0,05 or suchlike?

You'd probably get "Down With Decimal" protests in the streets.  You'd
probably also get "Down with the EEC" protests as well.  Then we'd all
head for the pub, where we could spend _proper money_ on a long pint of
stout, as it's hard work protesting the ills of society. ;^)

- Andrew, looking over my shoulder at the time, declared
my comment something along the lines of "sick, twisted and
positively evil"

> >I didn't take into account any sales taxes that may be charged; nor
> >whether they may be included in the price or added in at the cashier.
>
> I'm not particularly familiar with Kemr, but if it is significantly less
> "modern" then property and sales taxation would be more important
> than income taxation.

I think it would have to be.  Certainly there are areas where it would be
equally modern; there are also areas where it would not be so modern.  One
particular area I can think of, besides motor cars, is air travel.
Without the world wars to spur on development of aeroplanes; they would
probably remain something of an oddity.  Most air travel would probably be
accomplished via dirigibles (helium, not hydrogen filled!!): Castreleon to
Berlin aboard AirZeppelin, can't beat it!

Just imagine. A world where Zeppelin stamps are *not* one of the
pre-eminent US philatelic rarities :-)

> Andrew is now thinking about the Brithenig for "value added tax"...

Can't wait :-S


Regards

Dave Joll