Going Bananas with Stamps (covers, postmarks, etc.)!

[Kennethsequeira]

India 1957 Children' Day

[Eli]

Kenneth, the India 1957 stamp is amazing! Interesting to see the original photo served as a model to design this stamp.


Bananas on St. Vincent and Grenadines:

[Tod.Moore]

Costa Rica; Madagascar; Taiwan; Ivory Coast; Saudi Arabia

These scans are all shamelessly stolen from the popular Stampboards ‘fruit on stamps’ thread.
https://www.stampboards.com/viewtopic.php?f=17&t=42109&start=100

Bananas on Stamps

Bananas on Stamps

Bananas on Stamps

Bananas on Stamps

Bananas on Stamps

[sovanksahu]

As Jan posted, I think the most iconic Banana issues were from Tonga.
But I like these bright yellow ones from Cameroun too, issued in 1967.

And the rarer overprinted ones (image from Delcampe, not my sheet)

[Kiwidude]

Bananpex 4 Station banana Belt Stamp Club March 16,1996.

I saw this in a box of mine & remembered this thread.

Not addresssed but I noticed bottom left corner 13/20 GL.

So I turned it over and in pencil is Gerri lorenzo & the return address.

.

Unfortunately, She has passed away. October 30, 2012

I found this site & she was the pioneer of it.

http://www.banana-label-catalog.org/catalog/info

Its a guess but I think she did the sticker with the cow & banana's on it.

On that website theres info on allsorts Banana related But you have to join.

On Linn's Stamp News - Colorado stamp Clubs I found : Buena Vista, Banana Belt Stamp Club. Meets 1 p.m. second Saturday. Buena Vista Community Center, 715 E. Main St. Robert Hitpas, 802 W. 2nd St., Salida, CO 81201.

https://www.linns.com/community/local-stamp-clubs/colorado.html

Peter

[honza]

Ahoj everyone!

By chance I scanned this Colombian postcard for ebay this week. I believe it comes from a block or miniature sheet, but there are definitely bananas top right.

Cheers,

Honza

[stampquestions]

What is this stamp doing on the "Going Bananas ..." thread?


The old Vaudeville gag of slipping on a banana peel made its film debut in Charlie Chaplin's "By the Sea" (1915)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j_LNdt5g4OU

When asked for advice about the best method of employing this comedy cliché with a "fat lady" character, Chaplin suggested an improvement: “You show the fat lady approaching; then you show the banana peel; then you show the fat lady and the banana peel together; then she steps over the banana peel and disappears down a manhole.”

I hope I haven't slipped up and stretched the topic of the thread too far!

[sovanksahu]

I like the connection to comic sketches

[stampquestions]

Rwanda's 1987 "Food Self-sufficiency" issue includes stamps featuring red bananas and a boy eating a banana:

[stampquestions]

These "banana germplasm" souvenir sheets celebrate the diversity of the locally available living tissue from which new plants can be grown. They were issued by Papua New Guinea on August 28, 2017:

I am pleased to have Papua New Guinea represented in my "banana stamp" collection because it is believed by archaeo-botanists to be the location of the first cultivation of bananas (in Kuk Swamp near modern Mount Hagen). According to Belgian botanist Edmond deLanghe, the first domesticated banana plants were grown for the turnip like corm. The seed-filled fruit was not eaten until mutations with more palatable fruit were selectively cultivated evolving into something resembling the fruit that is eaten today. (Source: Koeppel, Dan. Banana: The Fate of the Fruit That Changed the World)

[Tod.Moore]

Another one from Dominica, they really love their bananas. This shows ‘banana shipment’ done by workers loading bunches onto small boats, and then taking the bananas out to a waiting cargo ship.

Dominica 1969 8c definitive stamp, shipping bananas

[stampquestions]

I really like the image on the Dominican stamp of bananas being loaded from smaller boats onto the larger ships.

My banana image for this morning won't win any beauty contests but it served its purpose (in company with a Colombian cattle definitive from the same 1932 air post set, and a 1934 commemorative for the 400th Anniversary of Cartagena) in carrying an airmail letter to London.

Please share your images of banana stamps, ugly or beautiful!

[Bowyum]

Australia Post pre-stamped post card depicting the Big Banana at Coffs Harbour, NSW

Coffs Harbour permanent pictorial postmark introduced in 1990. This is the version held at the Australian Philatelic Bureau

[Bowyum]

More Australian banana postcards

Did You Know postcard about bananas produced by Murray Views

Story Card about bananas produced by Nucolorvue Productions Pty Ltd

NSW map postcard featuring the Big Banana at Coffs Harbour produced by Bartel Photography Pty Ltd

[Bowyum]

Bunches of bananas sent over the years from Nuku'alofa, Tonga

Tongan postcard showing blow holes produced by Rainbow Studio, Nuku'alofa, Tonga

Five Tongan banana stamps postmarked Nuku'alofa 22 January 1974

Fire-eater in Nuku'alofa, Tonga, produced by M. Cittadini

Five pairs of Tongan banana stamps (10 bananas) were commercially used on this postcard

Sunset over the sea of Ha'apai, Tonga, produced by M. Cittadini

Nine pairs of Tongan banana stamps (18 bananas) were commercially used on this postcard

[Tod.Moore]

If this Stampboards thread had a theme song, it might be this one.


Day-O (The Banana Boat Song)
Harry Belafonte

1956 album, featuring the banana boat song

“Day-O (The Banana Boat Song)” is a single from Harry Belafonte’s 1956 album Calypso is an adaptation of a vernacular Jamaican work song. This version of the song was adapted by Barbadian singer, Jamaica Farewell or Irving Burgie.

The song hearkens back to an era when the banana trade thrived in Jamaica before the predominance of banana republics. The call-and-response and repetition used in the song speak to the monotony of the work of loading bananas on ships in the Caribbean.

[source: genius.com]

the work of loading bananas on ships

Day o! Day o!
Daylight come and me wanna go home
Day, me say day, me say day, me say day, me say day, me say day o
Daylight come and me wanna go home

Work all night on a drink a rum
(Daylight come and me wanna go home)
Stack banana till the morning come
(Daylight come and me wanna go home)

Come mister tally man tally me banana
(Daylight come and me wanna go home)
Come mister tally man tally me banana
(Daylight come and me wanna go home)

Lift six foot, seven foot, eight foot bunch
(Daylight come and me wanna go home)
Six foot, seven foot, eight foot bunch
(Daylight come and me wanna go home)

A beautiful bunch of ripe banana
(Daylight come and me wanna go home)
Hide the deadly black tarantula
(Daylight come and me wanna go home)

[stampquestions]

Great post cards and theme song selection! Does anybody have the Grenada Grenadines "Grammy Winners" Harry Belafonte stamp?

[lesbootman]

A fair sized bunch of bananas .... or two!

[Bill H UK]

If this Stampboards thread had a theme song, it might be this one.


Day-O (The Banana Boat Song)
Harry Belafonte





“Day-O (The Banana Boat Song)” is a single from Harry Belafonte’s 1956 album Calypso is an adaptation of a vernacular Jamaican work song. This version of the song was adapted by Barbadian singer, Jamaica Farewell or Irving Burgie.

The song hearkens back to an era when the banana trade thrived in Jamaica before the predominance of banana republics. The call-and-response and repetition used in the song speak to the monotony of the work of loading bananas on ships in the Caribbean.

[source: genius.com]





Day o! Day o!
Daylight come and me wanna go home
Day, me say day, me say day, me say day, me say day, me say day o
Daylight come and me wanna go home

Work all night on a drink a rum
(Daylight come and me wanna go home)
Stack banana till the morning come
(Daylight come and me wanna go home)

Come mister tally man tally me banana
(Daylight come and me wanna go home)
Come mister tally man tally me banana
(Daylight come and me wanna go home)

Lift six foot, seven foot, eight foot bunch
(Daylight come and me wanna go home)
Six foot, seven foot, eight foot bunch
(Daylight come and me wanna go home)

A beautiful bunch of ripe banana
(Daylight come and me wanna go home)
Hide the deadly black tarantula
(Daylight come and me wanna go home)

And then there's the Stan Freberg parody version, familiar to UK readers of a certain age from 'Children's Favourites' on the BBC Light Programme on saturday mornings:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4-9h1pjTP74

"Don't sing about spiders, man, like I don't dig spiders"

[stampquestions]

A Stan Freberg stamp . . . finding that (even amongst the wallpaper stamps) will be a challenge.

Moving from the Caribbean to Tahiti, here is a maximum card from a French Polynesian "Paintings by Artists Living in Polynesia" airmail set issued in 1972. This is "Farmers" by Daniel Adam:

I wouldn't have believed the farmers were carrying bananas until I looked at typical Polynesian fe'i bananas:

I had read about distinctive looking bananas from the Pacific Islands but I don't remember ever seeing one!

Keep the banana stamps, post cards and music coming!

[Tod.Moore]

Another lovely engraved stamp from the golden age of recess printed pictorials. The design is a montage, with the fruit laden banana tree on the right, a worker managing to carry not one but TWO bunches, and a ship. The freighter in the background, behind the surf, is printed in light green, giving a cool sense of distance.

When this stamp was in use, the banana republics had taken much of the market, yet Jamaica remained a big name in the banana trade. One of the later issues from Jamaica (from 1956) has already been seen on this Stampboards thread. There is also a nice one from 1932 (SG112), but I do not have a scan of that particular stamp.

Jamaica 1938 3d. KGVI definitive stamp, bananas.

[stampquestions]

Thank you for pointing out SG132. I was so focused on the landscape I didn't see the bananas!

Keep on adding to our bunch(es)!

[Eli]

Member Turtle-bienhoa just posted in the pigs thread a South Vietnamese stamp from 1975. I noticed a bunch of Bananas on the hands. Fortunately, I have the stamp so I scanned the "banana area" in high resolution:

[stampquestions]

Member Turtle-bienhoa just posted in the pigs thread a South Vietnamese stamp from 1975. I noticed a bunch of Bananas on the hands. Fortunately, I have the stamp so I scanned the "banana area" in high resolution:

Nice addition to the bunch! Thank you.

[stampquestions]

The banana thread has been quiet for a while so I will add its Jamaica collection with two more George VI definitives, this time with United Fruit Company perfins:

Please keep your eyes peeled for banana stamps and covers to add to this thread!

[Eli]

The banana thread has been quiet for a while so ...

Indeed, so I took second look at my French Colonies album and find the following stamps with clear Banana tree issued in 1938 for use in French West Africa (AOF). don't know how I missed them...

Banana tree, French West Africa, Guinea, 1938

Issued in six different values and colors (upper two rows):

[Tod.Moore]

Another engraved one from Dominica, with a nice full front portrait of George VI. The three workers seem to be very pleased with their haul of fruit. The supervisor is keeping count. ‘Come mister tally man tally me banana.’

Dominica 1951 KGVI 5c stamp BANANAS

[Eli]

Here is one from Colombia issued December 6, 1995 shows the legend of "The Hombre Caiman", or Alligatorman, a mythic creature that possesses both Alligator and human features. There are Banana fruits in the basket in the right.

[stampquestions]

Bananas on the 1972 "Philippine Fruits" semi-postal set and the 1973 surcharge on the same stamp:

Please add your banana stamps, covers and cards to this thread!

[jeneralist]

An aerogramme from Somalia with a basket of bananas

Somalia aerogramme with bananas

[jeneralist]

and a few more banana stamps

Bananas from Thailand, Martinique, Nicaragua, Somalia and Costa Rica

[jeneralist]

Not sure if this one qualifies for your tomato list.....

USA meter stamp for Tomato Catsup made with Pineapple Vinegar

[stampquestions]

Very nice aerogramme and banana stamps! Although my tomato list is confined to postage stamps, that tomato ketchup meter mark is beautiful!