THE POSTAL HISTORY OF ICAO

Errors in the philatelic notices

The Postal Administrations or stamp issuing entities over the world print philatelic notices or bulletins announcing the release of new stamps. Those notices provide interesting background information about the new stamps. As regards new stamps related to ICAO, the release of such stamps in a country is usually coordinated with the Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) in that country. It is therefore anticipated that the latter authority should have provided the correct information to its postal authority. However, errors are still found in these notices, as shown hereafter.

Monaco – 17 October 1994 - 50^th Anniversary of ICAO

Sovereign nations are the ICAO members, and not their airports nor their heliports. The state of Monaco is the ICAO Member, not its heliport as mentioned in the above notice.

Swaziland – 30 November 1994 - 50^th Anniversary of ICAO

The philatelic notice printed by the Swaziland Stamp Bureau shows a major error, i.e. that the Organization was formerly established on December 7, 1994. The Chicago Convention on International Civil Aviation was signed on 7 December 1944, and not in 1994.

It is also interesting to note that the word Organization is properly spelled on the philatelic notice, whereas the First Day Cover shows this word with “s” instead of “z”.

Mozambique – 12 October 1994 - 50^th Anniversary of ICAO

In the above extract of the philatelic notice, the texts in Portuguese and English are awful, and full of mistakes. A few flaws are reported hereafter.

1. In the Portuguese text, the acronym should be OACI and not DACI.

2. In the English text, many typing and/or translation errors can be noticed; the major one is related to the establishment date of ICAO: whereas the Portuguese text mentions correctly the date of the Chicago Convention (7 de Dezembro de 1944), the English text uses the year 1994. Moreover, the full name of the Organization in Portuguese should be: Organização da Aviação Civil Internacional (OACI).

Argentina – 14 October 1995 - 50^th Anniversary of ICAO

In addition to the 50^th anniversary of the UN, the souvenir sheet also commemorates the anniversaries of the following UN Agencies: ICAO (50^th anniversary in 1994), FAO (50^th anniversary), and ILO (75^th anniversary in 1994).

The philatelic notice printed by the Argentinean Postal Authority shows two major errors:

1. The full name of the Organization is printed as follows: ORGANIZACIÓN CIVIL INTERNACIONAL, when the exact name is: Organización de Aviación Civil Internacional. However, ICAO’s name is correctly printed on the stamp.

2. The next paragraph on the notice reads as follows: El 7 de Diciembre de 1994 se firmó en Chicago el convenio sobre Aviación Civil Internacional. The Chicago Convention on International Civil Aviation was signed on 7 December 1944, and not in 1994.

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