Barrel Organ Stamp 200th Anniversary

This post features the German barrel organ stamp of 1990. It is a stamp that always brings a smile to my face. The stamp commemorated the 200th anniversary of the invention of the barrel organ by issuing a postage stamp.

The stamp features an organ grinder with a barrel organ worn on a strap around his torso. The barrel organ is an instrument that often gets overlooked. This is probably because it is an instrument of street performers and doesn’t require virtuosity or musical skills to play. The organ is a mechanical instrument that consists of a pinned barrel, a rank of pipes, and a bellows. By turning a crank, the player causes the bellows to pump air and the barrel to turn. The pins on the barrel are programmed with the piece of music, and the pins engage the mechanism of the instrument, causing the (appropriate) pipes to sound.

The Barrel Organ

Barrel organs were especially popular from the middle of the nineteenth century into the early twentieth century. They could be found in most big cities where street performers played them on street corners. The best organ grinders would incorporate them into an act with dancing children or monkeys (either of which might also be a pickpocket). The act might include singing along with the organ tune, a performance of magic routines, or telling a series of jokes, or whatever the performer could think of to entertain passersby and elicit a tip.

The Stamp

Due to its rather lowly stature as a street musician’s instrument, it is rather wonderful that West Berlin devoted a stamp to its anniversary. The design of the stamp was done by Antonia Graschberger. For the main figure that stands out at the forefront of the stamp, she actually used a figure from a painting by the German artist Ludwig Knaus (1829-1920).

Instead of reproducing the figure in color, she presents it in a dark gray color that makes it feel like an old lithograph or print. The figure is set against a nineteenth century cityscape, which is unusually presented in pink. The stamp is printed by lithography, which gives it a classic look, while the color scheme helps it to feel more modern. It is both striking and fun all at the same time. It is very different from most of the other stamps produced in the 1980s and 1990s.

The stamp was released in May of 1990 by West Berlin and as such was one of the last stamps issued by the City before the reunification of Germany.

Barrel organs can still be heard, though they are more common in some cities than in other places. One city I was suprised to find them was Mexico City. They can be heard in the main square (zocalo) around the cathedral, and other places. I was able to take a short video of one on a recent trip to Mexico City earlier this year.