These two came out of a packet of mixed stamps. A random set of lighthouse stamps purchased on ebay.
I found the blue one first. A little later, the green one. Same palm tree, same road, same bay. I had to put them side by side to be sure.
They’re from Algeria’s Views of Algeria before 1830 series, a run of everyday definitives that began in 1982. The blue one is 0.20 dinars, issued in 1984, printed in ultramarine. The green one is a 2.90, a higher value printed later from the same engraving.
The Arabic line along the bottom reads, roughly, “Algiers, view of the outskirts of Bab Azzoun before 1830.”
Bab Azzoun was the southern gate of the old walled city. After the French arrived they built a fort on the spot, and it was pulled down in the early twentieth century. The name lives on as a street.
The engraver gives you the edge of town. A tall palm. Travellers and camels on the road. White houses stacked up the hill, and the bay opening out on the right.
Look to the far right, where the land runs out into the bay. There’s a slim tower standing on its own by the water. I’m fairly sure it’s Bordj el-Fanar, the tower of the lantern, out on the Peñón. The same light that sat at the centre of the 1930 stamp.
It went up around 1573, built by Arab Ahmed Pasha where an older watchtower had stood before the Spanish fortress. It was as much fort as lighthouse, with cannon, the city’s powder store and a garrison of gunners. Lightning took part of it in 1814 and it was rebuilt the same year. Two years later it was shelled when a British fleet bombarded Algiers.
After 1830 the French kept it, patched it up and gave it a new metal lantern. It went dark in the 1920s or 30s, but the tower is still there, white and twelve-sided, inside the old Admiralty by the harbour.
On the French stamp the lighthouse is the centrepiece. Here it’s a small mark at the edge of the picture, and on the green copy it’s nearly lost under the postmark. But unlike the gate in the caption, it’s still standing.
The blue copy is crisp and lightly cancelled. You can almost count the dots in the sky. The green one has been through the post properly, with a heavy postmark right across the city. The year looks like 1990.
What I nearly missed was the date in the corner. That French stamp from 1930 was made to celebrate a hundred years since 1830, the year French troops took Algiers.
These were made by an independent Algeria, and they show the city as it was before that year. The same date, looked at from the other side.
Slide between them.
Two copies of one view. One bright and barely used, one that has done its job.
I like that an ordinary packet gave me both on the same evening.
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