I don't, but I would like to...
... have one cover or postcard with post mark from each post office from Faroe Islands.
They are not so many, but without you will not be possible.
I'm waiting your feedback... and of course I will support the cost deliveries or I'll send you back some nice cover with stamps from Portugal.

Please e-mail me for details...
mydogbono@gmail.com

Tuesday 4 October 2011

Vintage cars



Each vintage car featured on our stamps has its own unique story. The black lorry was the first vehicle to arrive in the Faeroe Islands in 1922. The red bus that operated between Vestmanna, Kvívík and Kollafjørður was converted from a tanker and the home-made ‘De Luxe Model’ on the third stamp was the first car on the island to have a cassette player and loudspeakers.

The first car on the Faeroe Islands
The first car arrived on the island on 6 May 1922 when Johannes Olsen and Júst Sivertsen from Tórshavn bought a Ford TT truck from Wenzel Petersen and Vilhelm Nielsen, who had a forge in Quillingsgård in Tórshavn.

The car was ferried to the Faroe Islands on the DFDS vessel S/S Island. As the ship was unable to dock, the car was hoisted onto a yacht, which unloaded the cargo at Kongebro marina in Tórshavn.

The car caused a sensation when it arrived in Tórshavn because the islanders had never seen a car before. The Faroe Islands had horse-drawn carriages at the time, although not many. Arthur Brend, however, was the first to own a ‘motorised’ vehicle on the island. In the autumn of 1921 he purchased a motorbike, which received a great deal of press in the local newspapers at the time.

Back in 1922, nobody on the quayside knew how to drive a car. It was therefore pushed up to the forge in Quillingsgård. A few days later the newspapers were able to report that the car had made several journeys between Tórshavn and the sanatorium in Hoydalar.

Morris Commercial Cars Ltd.England Model 1929
This commercial vehicle arrived in Kvívík on 14 June 1934. Originally from Hillerød’s Police District and owned by Nordsjællands Benzin Co., it had been without licence plates for several years. When the vehicle arrived on the island it had no body, i.e. the cab and hood were normal but there was no load or cab on the vehicle.

The plan was to take the cab from the Chevrolet bus in service at the time and fit it onto the vehicle’s chassis. The vehicle had functioned as a tanker in Zealand and as a lorry for a time.

However, these plans came to nothing, as Fritleif Johannesen from Tórshavn had heard about the vehicle and had travelled to Kvívík to take a closer look at it. His idea was to build a cab on top of the vehicle, i.e. an extension to the existing cab. He planned to build a so-called ‘omnibus’. His plans went ahead and on 12 June 1935 the vehicle was registered and approved as a mail and passenger bus between Vestmanna, Kvívík and Kollafjørður.

‘De Luxe Model’ built on the Faeroe Islands
In the mid-1950s a home-made Faroese car drove through the streets of Tórshavn. It belonged to the Norwegian Almar Nordhaug, who built the car together with his colleagues at the barrel factory in Tórshavn.

It was not unusual to convert cars in the Faroe Islands in the mid-20th century, but the car they built at the factory was unique and far ahead of its time.

This was the first car on The Faroe Islands to have a cassette player and no fewer than four loudspeakers. The car generated quite a lot of attention when it attended horse shows because the music disturbed the horses and made the riders furious.

When Nordhaug moved back to Norway he took the car, which was on Faroese number plates, with him and continued to drive it in Norway for several years. Unfortunately, the car is no longer in existence. The last reliable report we had said that it was being used as part of a decorative display in a furniture store in Oslo.

Sources:“Postur í Føroyum”, Vilhelm Johannesen, 2000, “Bilar”, Magnus Gunnarsson, interview with Viggo Johannesen.

Technical data:
Values: three stamps of 13.00DKK
Date of issue: 28-IX-2011
Author: Edward Fuglø
Perforation:
Technique: Offset
Printer: Enschedé, Netherlands

6 comments:

Range Rover Northern Ireland said...

That's so cute. Love to add those stamps in my collection. Where in the world can I buy them?

Postman said...

You can buy them here:
http://www.stamps.fo/Default.aspx?ID=1131&GroupID=GROUP67

Faroese Post philatelic webshop.

Stelle Courney said...

Can I still see any one of those cars today? I like the 3rd one. It reminds me of my girlfriend, She told me she had dream of riding a vintage car after her marriage. I told her it's gonna be tough for your groom to find one.

Ellsworth Mciltrot said...

Those car stamps look one of a kind, and they seem like valuable collector's items! Each stamp has a bit of history attached to it, and that's what makes these stamps intrinsically valuable.

Schwindler Zvi said...

Great, I melt each time I read a piece of history.

Tari Ledsome said...

Wow, those stamps are quite rare, more so those cars printed on them. Those stamps must be expensive by now. How about those vehicles? I haven't seen anything like those in person. Do they exist until now?