International Olympic Committee Presidents

My last post highlighted the King of Sweden opening the 1912 Summer Olympic games and the stamps and cover I bought to illustrate that part of the Olympic event.

Today I want to highlight stamps picturing the International Olympic Committee presidents from the beginning of the Modern Olympic Games. There has always been an elected president of the International Olympic Committee since Pierre de Coubertin founded the Olympics in 1894.

San Marino issued a set of stamps commemorating the first seven presidents. While not as colorful or as interesting as the Olympic sports stamps, they are still stamps that have been issued that are part of the story of the Olympics.

1. Demetrius Vikelas

(1894–1896)

2. Pierre de Coubertin

(1896–1925)

3. Henri de Baillet-Latour

(1925–1942)

4. Sigfrid Edström

(1942–1952) 

5. Avery Brundage

(1952–1972)

6. Lord Killanin

(1972–1980)

7. Juan Antonio Samaranch

(1980–2001)

 
And here is a picture of the page I created to display them.

While Pierre de Coubertin founded the Modern Olympics he was originally the General Secretary of the first International Olympic Committee. Demetrius Vikelas was the first IOC president, but only served for two years. Pierre de Coubertin served from 1896 until 1925. Coubertin was later elected as honorary president of the IOC until he died in 1937.

IOC presidents I don't have stamps for are: Jacques Rogge who served from 2001 to 2013; and Thomas Bach the current IOC president who has served since 2013.

King Gustav V Opens 1912 Summer Olympics

Part of the development of my stamp collection has become telling the story of the Olympic Games through stamps, postmark cancellations, and first day covers. Telling the story sometimes goes beyond just collecting "Olympic" stamps. It now includes adding stamps that commemorate the associated events and people connected with the Olympic Games.

For example, I discovered this First Day Cover featuring the US stamp commemorating Jim Thorpe the most decorated athlete of the 1912 games in Stockholm, Sweden. But it wasn't the stamp that drew me to the cover. It was the cache depicting King Gustav V who officially opened the 1912 Summer Olympic Games.

The cache was designed by Lorraine Bailey, a cache maker in the Washington, DC. area.

Then I searched for stamps commemorating King Gustav V and found several. I bought these five that were issued in 1911 to 1919 adding them to my collection and creating this new page.