First Day of Issue - Chasseurs Alpins

The First Day of Issue (Premier Jour) for the famous French Chasseurs Alpins centennial stamp was 25 June 1988, held in the historic alpine cradle of Grenoble (Isère). 

The stamp was beautifully brought to life by master designer and engraver Jean Delpech. What makes the visual layout so compelling is its split-era composition, capturing the evolution of the infantrymen over a 100-year span:

On the left, is a Chasseur Alpin from the year 1888, when the unit was formed. He sports the early practical mountain gear, carrying a heavy pack, a traditional rifle, and wearing the "tarte".

On the right stands his modern counterpart, equipped with late-20th-century alpine warfare gear, proving that while technology changes, the rugged spirit remains the same.

The background seamlessly ties them together with the stark, jagged peaks of the French Alps, the natural playground and battleground of these elite troops.

Alejandro Finisterre

Alejandro Finisterre (born Alexandre Campos Ramírez; 1919 –2007) was a Spanish anarchist poet, publisher, and inventor. He is most famous for inventing futbolín, the Spanish version of table football (foosball).

Born in Fisterra, Galicia, he moved to Madrid as a teenager, working various jobs—including as a tap dancer and typesetter - to fund his education. During the Spanish Civil War, his home was bombed, leaving him severely injured and buried in the rubble.

While recovering at a hospital in Catalonia, he noticed that many injured children and fellow patients could no longer play association football. Inspired by table tennis, he collaborated with a local carpenter to attach wooden players to steel bars over a pine table, patenting the design in Barcelona in 1937. He also patented a foot-pedal page-turner for musicians.

Following Franco's fascist victory, Finisterre fled Spain. He was imprisoned in Morocco before eventually building a successful publishing career in Latin America, where he even played table football with Ché Guevara in Guatemala.

Because of his ties to the Spanish Republican government-in-exile, Francoist agents kidnapped him in Guatemala following the 1954 U.S.-backed coup. Placed on a plane bound for Madrid, Finisterre executed one of the world's first recorded aircraft hijackings using only a bar of soap. He wrapped the soap in newspaper, locked himself in the toilet, and emerged threatening to blow up the aircraft. The sympathetic crew and passengers forced an emergency landing in Panama, allowing him to escape. 

Puesteros by Pie Aerts

Dutch documentary photographer Pie Aerts spent six years documenting the isolated lives of ageing gauchos, known as puesteros (lone cowboys), in the remote Magallanes region of Chilean Patagonia.

This long-form documentary project culminated in his highly acclaimed photo series and first monograph titled Coirón, published by GOST Books.

The subjects are a dwindling group of roughly 14 lone gauchos aged between 50 and 85, living on vast, isolated private estates (estancias) where they live completely alone for months at a time.

They are named after coirón, a rugged native Patagonian grass that survives the harshest winds, cold, and poor soils. The project breaks the stoic, romanticised cowboy myth and exposes intense physical labour, financial insecurity, and severe mental health struggles or alcoholism driven by profound lifelong isolation.

It's a meditation on stillness, human resilience and the inevitable passing of time. A portrait of men living at the edge of the world pushing through because they must, through silence, endurance and repetition.

Severino Varela

Severino Varela (1913 –1995) was a legendary Uruguayan footballer who played as a striker and became a historic icon for both Peñarol and Boca Juniors.

Renowned for his exceptional ball control, aerial prowess, and clinical penalty-taking, he famously played every match wearing a white beret, earning him the affectionate nickname "Boina Fantasma" (The Ghost Beret).

Severino Varela’s white beret was initially worn for a purely practical reason: to keep his hair out of his eyes and to cushion the impact of the heavy leather balls used in the 1930s and 1940s. Over time, this utilitarian accessory transformed into one of the most iconic personal brands in South American football history.

The stark white beret against the dark pitch gave Varela a powerful visual presence. It made him instantly recognizable to his teammates making long crosses, while simultaneously striking fear into opposing goaltenders who dreaded the sight of the white wool diving into the box.

Juana de Ibarbourou

Juana de Ibarbourou (born Juana Fernández Morales) was a legendary Uruguayan poet and one of the most widely read female literary figures in Latin America.

Known affectionately as "Juana de América," her early work revolutionized regional poetry by combining striking sensuality, eroticism, and a deep pantheistic identification with nature. Over her career, she received multiple nominations for the Nobel Prize in Literature.

Her initial collections, Las lenguas de diamante (1919) and Raíz salvaje (1922), are celebrated for their simple language, physical passion, and youthful joy.

La rosa de los vientos marked a shift toward modernism, introducing themes of declining youth and fading vitality.

Following personal loss, domestic hardships, and illness, her work in collections like Perdida transformed into expressions of deep despair and dark psychological depth.

In 1929, she was formally given the title "Juana de América" at the Legislative Palace of Uruguay. She broke numerous barriers for women in literature, including becoming the first woman in Uruguay to receive a full state funeral upon her death in 1979. Today, her portrait is preserved on the Uruguayan 1,000-peso banknote 

Osiris Rodríguez Castillos

Born in Montevideo but raised in Sarandí del Yí, Osiris is considered one of the great pillars of Uruguayan folklore and gaucho poetry. 

He revitalized the criollo genre and strongly influenced popular song throughout the Río de la Plata region with timeless classics such as "Camino de los Quileros , " "De Corrales a Tranqueras," and "La Galponera."

Along with his thick glasses and the cigarette ("puchito") in his mouth, the Basque beret makes up his indispensable classic silhouette. This combination was so iconic that the drawings and caricatures that headed the publications of his poems always portrayed him wearing it.

 

PGHM

The French Gendarmerie Nationale’s Peloton de Gendarmerie de Haute Montagne (PGHM) wear the same beret of the Chasseurs Alpins. This shared heritage isn’t accidental: the PGHM’s mountain rescue units grew out of the same alpine traditions that shaped France’s elite mountain infantry.

The beret is large, flat, and traditionally navy‑blue, designed to sit low and wide. For the Chasseurs Alpins, the tarte became an emblem of identity in the high Alps; for the PGHM, adopting the same form reflects continuity with that mountain culture rather than a military role.

Today, the PGHM’s tarte is both practical and symbolic. It offers warmth, weather and wind protection in harsh alpine conditions, but more importantly, it signals the unit’s deep connection to France’s long history of mountain expertise — a quiet visual link between rescuers and the soldiers who first defined the country’s alpine tradition.

Witi Ihimaera

Witi Ihimaera Smiler DCNZM QSM is a groundbreaking New Zealand author who was the first Māori writer to publish both a short story collection and a novel in English.

Born on 7 February 1944 in Gisborne, he is of Te Aitanga-ā-Māhaki, Rongowhakaata, and Ngāti Porou descent. He began writing as a teenager to challenge the systemic omission and mischaracterisation of Māori people in literature. Over a multi-decade career, his extensive body of work has centralised Māori culture, values, and the complex relationship between Māori and Pākehā worlds. 

Ihimaera publicly came out as gay in 1984. He has been vocal about how pre-colonial Māori society was historically more inclusive of diverse sexualities and gender roles before European and missionary contact.

Americans Not Welcome

The Battle of Manners Street, fought on 3 April 1943, was one of the largest disturbances involving Allied servicemen in wartime New Zealand. Lasting for several hours, the riot engulfed central Wellington and involved around 1,000 American and New Zealand servicemen, together with local civilians. Wartime censorship ensured that the incident received almost no public attention at the time.

The confrontation began outside the Allied Services' Club on Manners Street, where American servicemen attempted to prevent Māori soldiers from entering or being served. Their actions reflected the racial segregation policies familiar to American troops but at odds with New Zealand military practice, where Māori and Pākehā soldiers served, socialised and fought alongside one another.

Tensions escalated rapidly after some American servicemen removed their military web belts, using them as improvised weapons. New Zealand servicemen intervened in support of their Māori comrades, and the fighting soon spread through the surrounding streets.

The public reaction was equally revealing. In the days that followed, a number of Wellington publicans and shopkeepers displayed signs welcoming Māori while making it clear that Americans were unwelcome. The gesture reflected widespread opposition among New Zealanders to the importation of American-style racial discrimination.

Dozens of men were injured during the riot. While official reports acknowledged the violence, wartime censorship prevented detailed reporting, and the full extent of the casualties remains uncertain. Some later researchers have argued that American fatalities occurred, but this has never been conclusively established from the surviving official records. What is beyond dispute is that the Battle of Manners Street exposed a profound clash between American racial segregation and New Zealand's far more integrated military culture. 

Portraits

 

Portraits