Hello, Labor Day!

So… did you have a nice Labour Day?! I had a busy one. So busy that I barely had time to pause and reflect. Well, now I do, at the very last minute. So I could still find out whether anything has ever been done regarding May 1st in terms of stamps 'back home'. The scavenger hunt yields a meager harvest. But fortunately, it is a harvest that, especially given today’s anything but spring-like weather, offers me some welcome warmth. I end up in the Netherlands Antilles. And in 1960, to be precise. All thanks to Oscar Ravelo Nadal. After all, he designed the only 'Labour Day' stamp in the Special Catalogue. Speaking of Labour Day, if we consult the Register of Designers, it becomes abundantly clear that this Oscar Ravelo Nadal has certainly not been idle when it comes to designing stamps. It all started with the aforementioned Labour Day stamp. A year later, there were four children's stamps and a commemorative stamp. In 1962, a quartet of so-called culture stamps followed, depicting a corn masher, a bento player, a headscarf, and a Jaja with a child. Two years later, it happened again: two commemorative stamps for aviation and a so-called statute stamp, on which six Antillean flags seem to float overhead like migratory birds. After that, hardly a year goes by without Oscar Ravelo Nadal designing one or more stamps. So, however meager the harvest of special May Day stamps in the Kingdom of the Netherlands may be, the harvest of 'works' by Ravelo Nadal can undoubtedly be called rich. His production only falters with two statute stamps on which symbolic representations of birds and flags merge. Yes, he has put in hard work, Oscar Ravelo Nadal. This is an edited version of a previously published article on Postzegelblog.