Czech Republic (Czechia) 2009 "Personalities"


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Issue Date 02.01.2009
ID Michel: 584-585; Scott: 340-3409; Stanley Gibbons: 569-570; Yvert et Tellier: 524-525; Category: Dw
Author Graphic designer: Pavel Dvorsky
Engraver: Jaroslav Tvrdon
Stamps in set 2
Value 10 Czk Louis Braille
12 Czk Charles Darwin
Emission/Type commemorative
Places of issue Prague
Size (width x height) 40mm x 23mm
Layout Sheets of 50 stamps
Products FDC x2
Paper
Perforation 11.5 x 11.5
Print Technique Darwin: RK - rotary recess print in black combined with photogravure in dark blue, yellow, pink and blue (impression 800 tis.)
Braille: RK (impression 1 mil.)
Printed by Post Printing House
Quantity 1,000,000; 800,000
Issuing Authority Czech Post
Charles Darwin and Louis Braille on personalities stamps of Czech Republic 2009

On January 2nd, 2009, Postal Authority of Czech Republic issued a set of two stamps "Personalities".

Charles Robert Darwin (1809-1882)
Charles Darwin on stamp of Czech Republic 2009
Charles Darwin on stamp of Czech Republic 2009 MiNr.: 585, Scott: 3409.
As a fresh Cambridge graduate in theology, the British naturalist and founder of evolutionary biology Charles Robert Darwin set out for a five-year voyage around the world.
Most of the time he examined geological phenomena, fossils as well as living organisms on the coast, met aborigines and immigrants. He used a methodological way of collecting and describing huge amounts of samples, many of which were unknown to the scientific community.
The stay at the Galapagos Islands turned out to be the most essential one. On his return home Darwin became a recognized, financially independent scientist who developed his evolutionary theory of natural and sexual selection. He was fully aware of the likely reaction to his theory.
His book, On the Origin of Species by means of Natural Selection, published in 1859, outlining a transmutation of organisms from common ancestors and presenting it as a complete scientific theory of natural evolution.
Darwin continued his research and published a series of books on plants and animals including man (Variation of Plants and Animals Under Domestication, 1868, The Descent of Man, and Selection in Relation to Sex, 1871). The postage stamp commemorates the 200th anniversary of birth of Darwin.




Louis Braille (1809-1852)
Louis Braille on stamp of Czech Republic 2009
Louis Braille on stamp of Czech Republic 2009 MiNr.: 584, Scott: 3408.
Louis Braille invented a reading and writing system for the blind, the so-called Braille code. He was born in France, in the township Coupvray near Paris.
At the age of three he injured his eye with a bodkin in his father's workshop; the eye became infected and after the infection also affected his other eye, he lost his sight.
At the age of ten he became a student at the Royal Institute for the Blind Youth in Paris. The students learnt a system of raised letters read by touch; however, they could not write.
When Braille was thirteen, he invented a system of embossed (raised) dots. He was inspired by an old military system of writing at night-time allowing the soldiers to receive orders even in darkness.
Braille worked out the system, based on twelve dots, by reducing it to only six dots. His first book for the blind was published in 1829. In 1837 he improved the writing system by adding signs for writing mathematical symbols and music.
He was a lifetime teacher at the Royal Institute for the Blind Youth. The stamp commemorates the 200th anniversary of birth of this ingenious author of letters for the blind.




Products and associated philatelic items

FDC Sheets Maxi Cards
Deinotherium on Works of art on postage stamps FDC of Czech Republic 2005 Deinotherium on Works of art on postage stamps used cover of Czech Republic 2005 Deinotherium on Works of art on postage stamps FDC of Czech Republic 2005
Example of circulated covers
Deinotherium on Works of art on postage stamps FDC of Czech Republic 2005





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References:
Some books of and about Charles Darwin
Darwin: The Man, his great voyage, and his Theory of Evolution On the Origin of Species: By Means of Natural Selection: Slip-Cased Edition Darwin's Fossils: The Collection That Shaped the Theory of Evolution The Voyage of the Beagle
"Darwin: The Man, his great voyage, and his Theory of Evolution", by John Van Wyhe. Published in 2018.
Amazon: USA, UK, DE
Free PDF files from Darwin-online website: "Charles Darwin: his life and work by Charles Frederick Holder, published in 1892" 		"On the Origin of Species: By Means of Natural Selection: Slip-Cased Edition"
Amazon: USA, UK, DE
Free PDF files from Darwin-online website. 		"Darwin's Fossils: The Collection That Shaped the Theory of Evolution", by Adrian Lister. Published in 2018.
Amazon: USA, UK, DE 		"The Voyage of the Beagle"
Amazon: USA, UK, DE
Free PDF files from Darwin-online website.

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