Finally completed ...
Initially the stamps were to be compulsory on mail sent during six days beginning May 8, 1925. The quantities of stamps produced were far greater than the quantities used and, as a result, a new regulation was passed making the use of the stamps obligatory from May 5 to May 15 in 1926 and in each subsequent year until supplies of the stamps were exhausted.
Ambulancia (mobile post office) cover for May 12 (?), 1929 bearing
the postal tax stamp that was compulsory from May 5 to May 15.
In 1927 43,962 complete sets of surplus stamps that had been returned to the mint were destroyed as were 4,352,238 postal tax stamps. Having raised an average of 270,000 escudos per year to support the construction of the monument, the postal tax was abolished in 1929. In 1934 the use of the stamps for regular postage was authorized and they continued to be used until 1945.
In 1926, the second year of the postal tax campaign, the cornerstone of the monument was ceremonially re-laid by the president of the republic, Bernardino Machado, shortly before he was deposed in a military coup. The work was designed by architects Adaes Bermudes and Antonio do Couto and work on the statue was started by Francisco dos Santos. This sculptor, who is commemorated on the high value of the Portuguese sculptors issue of 1971, died before the completion of the project because of delays caused by political upheavals. Leopoldo d'Almeida and Simoes d'Almeide were left to complete his work and it was finally unveiled by Marshal Antonio Oscar de Fragaso Carmona, who was the president of Portugal from 1926 to 1951. The statue that I saw towering over the traffic bustling around Lisbon's Praqa Marques de Pombal was finally completed on May 13, 1934, almost five years after the end of the postal tax that had helped to finance its construction.
In 1926, shortly before he was deposed in a military coup, the president of the
republic, Bernardino Machado, ceremonially relaid the cornerstone of the monument.
Work on the statue was started by Francisco dos Santos, the sculptor, who is commemorated
on the high value of the Portuguese sculptors issue of 1971. He died before
the completion of the project because of delays caused by political upheavals.
Marshal Antonio Oscar de Fragaso Carmona, who was the president of
Portugal from 1926 to 1951, unveiled the monument on May 13, 1934.
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