Odd stamps : 05 c Stamps in braille

In 1974, Brazil already issued a sheet with Braille inscription.
The sheet isn't very colourful, and maybe not the highlight of my collection, but the fact that this is one of the first sheets printed with braille on, it's surely is an interesting sheet.

detail of the sheet, stamp of Brazil with braille

The sheet was issued for the fifth general assembly for the blind's welfare
On the sheet, under the stamp, an additional text is aded:
freely translated it means: "a blind man becomes a participating citizen"

full sheet - Brazil 1974

on the way to more ...

Odd stamps : 05 b Stamps in braille

In 1979, Brazil emitted a souvenir sheet dedicated to the blind.

The sheet is very colourful and there's embossed printing.
Reason for this sheet is the 150th anniversary of the first braille printing.
Thanks to the braille writing, blind people can participate in the world's evolution.

Full sheet in braille

detail - stamp out of the sheet

This was not the first braille sheet that was issued in Brazil..
more in my next post...

Odd stamps : 05 a Stamps in braille

This is a very nice subtopic in the series of 'odd stamps'.

A little introduction:

Louis Braille, born on January 4, 1809 in the small village Coupvray, east of Paris, was the son of a leatherer and horse tack maker.
As a child he played in his father's workshop. Trying to copy the work of his father, he got severely injured in his eye. Although he was taken care of, in a specialised hospital in Paris, the infection damaged also the other eye, and by the age of 5, the boy was completely blind.

Brave Louis stayed in Coupvray until he was 10 and went then to a  school on Paris, specialised in higher education for blind youth. This private school however was based on a reading system using embossed latin characters. (the Haüy - system). This was the first and only attempt to allow blind people to 'read' books.
However the process of writing was so complicated that Louis hardly could write back to his family.

Louis Braille

1821, Braille learned of a communication system devised by Captain Charles Barbier of the French Army.
Barbier willingly shared his invention called "night writing" which was a code of dots and dashes impressed into thick paper. These impressions could be interpreted entirely by the fingers, letting soldiers share information on the battlefield without having light or needing to speak. The captain's code turned out to be too complex to use in its original military form, but it inspired Braille to develop a system of his own.

In 1854, two years after Brailles death, his reading system was adopted at the National Institute for Blind Youth, in Paris, and later on also all over France.
In 1855, the first Braille-typewrite was introduced at the World's Fair.

(French) braille alphabeth

Now to the stamps :
In 2009, to celebrate the 200th birth date of Louis Braille, Belgium issued a large stamp with Louis Braille, and his alphabeth.

Belgium 2009 - Louis Braille

back side of the stamp - embossed writing

The stamp was issued for use within Belgium, and was printed in sheets of 10 stamps.

sheet of 10 (reduced size)

more to follow ...