New stamp on Louis Braille

Date of Issue - 4 November 2009

Hi ! Here is the latest stamp issued by Vatican City on 4th November in honour of Louis Braille to celebrate his 200 Birth Anniversay .The stamp features a portrait of Braille and his system's raised dots that spell out Braille, Vatican City State and the price. The French creator of the writing and reading system for the blind, was born in France in 1809 and lost his sight at an early age. He then developed a reading and writing system based on patterns of raised dots that allow blind people to recognize the alphabet with the tips of their fingers.The Vatican post office has issued it's first ever Braille stamp to celebrate the 200th Anniversary of the birth of Louis Braille. I have written about other stamps issued earlier this year in my previous Posts. This stamp will be a new addition in the collection of those collecting worldwide stamps on Louis Braille. This is all for Today....Till Next Post....Have a Great Time !

Louis Braille

Two hundred years ago in Coupvray, near Paris, Louis Braille was born. At the age of four he became blind after an accident. Despite this physical challenge, at the age of ten he started going to school. Given that he could not attend an ordinary school, he was accepted at the Institution des Jeunes Aveugles (Institute for the Blind in Paris) where the Hauy method for teaching the blind was used, a system which did not allow for writing. At the age of only 18, Braille became a teacher at the Institute. Two years later he developed a simpler and more intuitive learning method compared to the Hauy method. This new method included a system for writing using a combination of six raised dots representing every letter of the alphabet. Later he expanded the system to include musical notation with a method of translating the symbols into musical notes. Two years after his death France adopted his system, and at the World Congress of Education for the Blind held in Paris in 1878 it was declared a universal method.

Cover from Poland

Thanks to Andrzej