AmateurRadio.com

A few weeks ago I had one of my rare visits to the post office. As I was waiting, I saw a display of a new series of stamps and I just had to buy the one shown here. What caught my attention was not really the artist, but rather the Kurér portable radio.

The stamp was of course not about the radio but was issued in commemoration of the 100 year anniversary of the birth of Alf Prøysen. The English Wikipedia page has this to say about him:

Alf Prøysen (23 July 1914 – 23 November 1970), was a writer and musician from Norway. Prøysen was one of the most important Norwegian cultural personalities in the second half of the twentieth century, and he made significant contributions to literature, music, TV, and radio.

One of his main characters was “Teskjekjerringa” called Mrs. Pepperpot in English. She is shown here in the second stamp in the series. I remember this story very well from my own childhood in the 60’s as told in the characteristic calm and soothing voice of Prøysen himself. The character eventually appeared in 23 different languages. The radio is of course here because this and others of his plays were very popular on radio in the 50’s and 60’s.

And it was this radio, the Kurér (= Courier), that made me buy the stamp. It was a highly successful portable radio from the Radionette factory in Oslo from 1950 to 1958. It has four valves and covers long wave, medium wave, ‘ the trawler band’, and short wave. It has room for batteries (90 Volts and 1.5 Volts). But luckily it also has a built-in mains supply – the 90 Volt battery is hard to find these days. A total of 224 000 were produced and it was exported to many countries especially in the Middle East. It is very easy to repair even today.

I would think the most popular version today among collectors is the dark red one shown in the stamp. I have a grey one shown here with a simple medium wave transmitter that I have described before on top.

• Alf Prøysen honored with stamps
• Kurér radio. This radio could could need an English language Wikipedia page as well as a better Norwegian one.
• The Radionette factory 1927-1972

One Response to “Nice radio-related stamp”