Scott # 404

Scott # 405

Scott # 584

Scott 585

• 1969.  Nordic Countries.  Postal Co-operation.  Commemorating the centenary of the first postal Nordic co-operation and the 50th anniversary of the "Norden Association".  Five commercial ships (Viking Ships) taken from five different silver coins, dated about the year 825, found at Björkö in Sweden.  
  This is an interesting set as different engravers did the job for different countries except Finland:
  Sweden: H. Gutschmidt,   Norway: H. Welde,   Denmark: Cz. Slania,    Iceland: Cz. Slania,    Finland is line-etched photogravure.

• 1983.  The two stamps show the Icelandic president, Kristján Eldjarn (1916-1982), who was a very popular and much respected President of Republic during the period 1968-1980. 

The below four maps are some of Czeslaw Slania's masterpieces.  They were all issued for the Nordia-Exhibitions 1984 and 1991.  Please note that none of these sheets are listed in Stanley Gibbons Simplified, and therefore the catalogue numbers are given after Scott.

Scott # 590

SC # 681

• 1984.  Iceland Block 6.  To the left a map of the Nordic countries.  The original atlas was drawn by the Dutch geographer and cartographer Abraham Ortelius (1527-1598).  The souvenir sheet, containing a stamp of 40 kr.,  was issued at the occasion of the Stamp Exhibition Nordia '84.  

• 1989.  Iceland Block 10.  To the right a fragment of Carta Marina, published by Olaus Magnus (1490-1557) in 1539, showing the sea between Iceland (upper left corner) and Norway (lower right corner).  The souvenir sheet, containing three stamps of each 30 kr., was issued as a contribution to the Stamp Exhibition Nordia '91.  

Scott # 715

Scott # 740

Scott # 629

Scott # 641

Scott # 630

• 1986.  Bicentenary of Reykjavik.  
  To the left a stamp "Reykjavik Pond", 1856, and to the right "Women Washing Clothes in Natural Hot Water Brook".   There are two more stamps in this set, but which are not engraved by Slania, and therefore not shown on this page.  

• 1987.  Preservation of the Icelandic language.  In the middle a stamp depicting the Danish linguist and philologist Rasmus Rask (1787-1832).   Rasmus Rask was for his time a famed scientist, who was vital for linguistic research, and who spoke not less than 22 different languages !!!  

For Stamp Day 1986 and 1987 Iceland issued the below souvenir sheets.  Each of the sheets contain one stamp of 20,00, 30,00 and 40,00 kr. respectively.  The sheets were issued for Stamp Day in the years of issue, and proceeds from the sale were contributed to the Stamp and Postal History Fund.  Please note that these sheets are not listed in Stanley Gibbons Simplified, and therefore catalogue numbers are given after Scott.  Click on either of the images to see a larger version.

Scott # 634

Scott # 646

• 1986.  Iceland Block 7.  Left a drawing of a ford at River Hvita.  The drawing was made 1836 by Auguste Mayer from the Travelling Book by Paul Gaimard. 

Czeslaw Slania tells particularly about this stamp, that one day when he was working on it, his daughter was with him and watched him working on the steel plate. When he stopped to take a break, she took up his burin and imitated the grandmaster by making cuts across the steel plate, which unfortunately destroyed it of course. Slania had to start on the job a second time around.  However, he was actually quite grateful this happened as he wasn't very happy with his depiction in the first attempt. Having gone through once gave him some experience on what was needed to bring out the mood in the scene. 

• 1987.  Iceland Block 8.  Right a drawing of the commercial station Djúpivogur.  The drawing was made 1836 by Auguste Mayer from the Travelling Book by Paul Gaimard. 

Scott # 667

• 1988.  Iceland Block 9.  A beautiful souvenir sheet, showing a drawing by Auguste Mayer "Farmhouse Núpsstadur í Fljótshverfi" (1836), first published in the Travelling Book by Paul Gaimard. 

Mayer was a member of an expedition to Iceland and Greenland equipped by the French government (1836).  He later visited nad painted Nordkapp (Norway) in 1838.  Some of his works from the expedition were first published in Atlas Historique in 1842.  

The 1836- expedition was called the Gaimard expedition. It covered a number of years.

The distinguished French naturalist Paul Gaimard (1793-1858) paid his first visit to Iceland in the summer of 1835 and returned the following summer at the head of a scientific expedition lavishly funded and outfitted by the French government. This expedition   --- La Commission scientifique de Islande et de Groënland ---  consisted (in addition to Gaimard himself) of a physicist and cartographer (Victor Lottin), a linguist and literary man (Xavier Marmier), an artist (Auguste Mayer), a geologist (Eugène Robert), a meteorologist (Raoul Anglès) and a depicter of animals (Louis
Bévalet).  According to Benedikt Gröndal, "Gaimard's expedition is the most famous of its kind ever to visit Iceland".

Gaimard and his six associates, with 48 horses and numerous Icelandic attendants, set out from Reykjavík on 20 June 1836 and circled the country counterclockwise, arriving back in Reykjavík at the end of August.

Some reports give a date of 1838, but that is when they were first published. 
See: http://www.library.wisc.edu/etext/Jonas/Herra/Herra-VIG-1.TP.html
http://www.library.wisc.edu/etext/Jonas/Herra/Herra-Pub.1i.html

The La Recherche (Gaimard) expedition continued in the years 1838-40 (?)  investigated the northern areas of Europe.  It was a large French expedition under the naval physician and naturalist Paul Gaimard.
See:  http://www.library.wisc.edu/etext/Jonas/Herra/Herra-VIG-Ah.1.html 

Their travel went to Iceland, Greenland, the Faeroes, north Norway, Archangel and Spitzbergen. The investigations were both scientific and humanist  nature. The expedition received its name after the ship, to the corvette La Recherche. It had artists who created a singular board work with topografic and scientific studies. The results of the expedition were submitted to in 16 texts and 5 board volumes. On the passage to Spitzbergen they accomplished oceanographic studies, and on Spitzbergen it concerned particularly the study of the atmosphere with the help of a balloon, glaciological investigations as well as research on the area of the plant and animal worlds.

In the winter 1838/39 some expedition participants wintered in northern Finland, in order to make different observations, above all the north lights. The culture-historical studies were mainly the task of Xavier Marmiers (1809-92), a well-known French Humanist. Its interest applied to the ability of humans to adapt to living conditions which that were felt as extreme. It studied the public education and the development of the intellectual abilities of the
people under these conditions.

It was particularly fascinated, however, with Samii population. Marmier criticized the superficial and one-sided picture, which many travelers of this people had supplied. After he had shared table and tent "with them", his view was substantially more nuanced. Marmier published his own report on a journey, "Lettres sur le nord", in which he supplies an alive and impartial picture of the life in the high north.

The La Recherche expedition gave a new and richer knowledge  of the northern areas of Europe. 

Above information supplied by Mr. Blair Stannard (Canada).