Last year I went trippy over Jersey’s psychedelic issue celebrating 1960s Popular Culture. Well, times change. To be precise, they change to the 1970s. That’s how time works. Welcome to Jersey’s 1970s Popular Culture issue!
One of these stamps featured in my recent post about the strange preponderance of fondue on stamps lately. (I’ll give you a hint: it’s the one with the people eating fondue on it.) The stamps follow the same six themes: fashion, food, language, events, music and leisure.
I was too young to take in the 1970s as the tail end of them happened around me, and I’ve gotta be honest, it’s never been a decade that held much retro appeal to me (outside their contribution to the ongoing development of David Bowie, of course). I mean, look at those flares! And that green. Ugh!
But I do love the riotous colours on the rollerskating stamp. (Not so sold on rollerskating itself, I have the X-rays of my shattered radius to prove it.)
And I’m sure there were probably bigger ‘events’ in the 1970s than the arrival of home video recording, but I reckon I can see what happened here: Jersey Post got to the 1970s and realised they really should have had a ‘technology’ stamp. Either that, or they took a look at the 1970s as a whole and concluded, as I did before them, that the 1970s were a bit depressing. Still, those curved stripes… I can’t find an exact correlation, but they take me back to the kinds of animations I was watching as a kid during the era. Sesame Street’s Pinball Number Count, anyone? And again, those colours! I think my dad’s shirts of the era were made out of this video tape.
As with the previous sets in this series, the 1970s Popular Culture issue includes a scene depicting Street Life of the 1970s. Do not adjust your screen. It seems that life in Jersey in the seventies was very, er, pink.
But of this set, how could this not be my favourite stamp? It doesn’t really say an awful lot about the Punk movement (I admit, another worthwhile contribution from the 1970s). It could symbolise angry seamstresses. Which leaves only one other possible option. It is clearly a tribute to the one other great moment of the 1970s: the birth of the Punk Philatelist. They even used the same queen that I use in my imagery! Thanks guys. And if you think this doozie isn’t going to show up on a regular basis in my social media, you’d be very wrong.
I’ve only just learned that this is merely the third of a 5-part series. (I totally missed the 1950s series.) Needless to say, as a child who became fully aware of the world on the cusp of the 80s and 90s, I am already VERY excited for the next two installments.
Can you dig this issue, or is it too heavy for you? Drop a comment below! Share this post on your socials! And meet me on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram! x
© Philatelic product images remain the copyright of issuing postal administrations and successor authorities
Punk Philatelist 
It is almost impossible to log in here to comment anymore. I finally broke through only as a result of unwavering perseverance while waiting for bar service. It would no doubt have been easier if I was Chinese or Russian or if I supported Trump, I guess. Anyway, I just wanted to say the 70’s sucked except for punk rock music so it is cool to see a stamp about it. The design is a bit of a cliché but it works. Are there any other punk rock stamps out there? Have any examples been seen actuallyb used on letters that passed through the mails?
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I know what you mean about the login! Thank you for your perseverance. Punk pokes its head up occasionally but it’s probably seen as too recent and not proper enough for stamps by many countries. The Clash’s London Calling made a UK issue of classic album covers. And there’s a punk twist to a Finnish Eurovision issue from a few years ago, if that counts! Haven’t specifically seen any used on mail myself. I hope the drink service has arrived.
The Clash: https://www.theguardian.com/music/gallery/2009/nov/21/guidelines-rock-stamp-album-covers
The Eurovision punks: https://punkphilatelist.com/2015/05/23/finland-punks-philately-for-eurovision/
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The 1970s was the Decade that Taste forgot.
Disclosure…I was born in 1952 and therefore the 1950s (Elvis, James Dean) passed me by. I recall circa 1962 some stills of an Elvis Presley film outside a city centre cinema and my mother shooing me past the pics of girls in bikinis.
My high school years coincided with the Beatles Years 1963-1970 but I think that for most people, even young people the 1960s never really happened at all or at least not with any real intensity.
Carnaby Street happened…but that was central London….not in Doncaster, Yorkshire or Dudley in West Midlands or (in my case) Belfast, Ireland.
The metropolitans take the lead in these things.
Haight Ashbury in San Francisco is one thing in 1967 but that doesn’t really apply in Boise, Idaho.
It is maybe a ripple effect.
Unfortunately I was too young to go to San Francisco and get flowers in my hair.
Two things….Carnaby Street in London is just across Regent Street from Mayfair and the posh shops. This allowed very rich people to drive into London, and do serious shopping in London while their teen offspring pretended they were revolutionaries in Carnaby Street. Then they all went home to tea in Surrey.
There was an innocence.
And there was a commercial exploitation of the innocence.
The drugs were arguably not dangerous.
I think the 1970s were different…darker. Certainly for me in Belfast. But we did have colour TV.
While “pop” disappeared like we all assumed it would, others got into “rock” which was way too serious for me. The drugs were dangerous and there was excess…alcohol, groupies, exploitatation.
There is something naïve about “Hair” 1960s but pushing the envelope in the 1970s, there was “Deep Throat”.
As we see with the MeToo movement, there was something very sinister about the 1970s.
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A fascinating comment as always John! Belfast… what a place to have lived in the 1970s. I can only imagine what it must have been like.
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Yes I often write about it on my “other” blog.
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