Rediscovery!

Internet is still growing, and is for us philatelists a source of information that we can not ignore anymore.
When I recently got a repeated remark that there would be a motorcycle on a stamp from St. Vincent and Grenadines, a stamp that we (read: I) long ago had labelled as non-motorcycle stamp, I have looked at it again. It concerns the image on the stamp with the funeral procession of John F. Kennedy from 1996.

The stamp with the funeral procession

The complete block

Bye the way, the same image is also shown on the 2 stamps of 3 ct and $ 1 from Antigua and Barbuda (also with the imprint "Barbuda Mail") from 1988:

The stamps from Antigua & Barabuda

The stamps with imprint "Barbuda Mail"

At that time I have checked many available pictures from the funeral, and there was nowhere a motorcycle to be seen. It also did not seem logical or appropriate to me.
With the feature that Google now offers to search on image I searched again. And see: after a few seconds a picture came out from the start of the funeral procession at the Capitol in Washington to Arlington National Cemetery. And this clearly shows a motorcycle with sidecar.

Detail of the picture with on the left next to the car a motorcycle with sidecar

The same fragment of the stamp, strongly zoomed in
(due to the low printing-resolution not clearly recognisable)

The aim of this sidecar combination is not clear to me, but it could be to transport a reporter. The motorcycle joined until Arlington Memorial Bridge. On a picture of this bridge with the procession there are even 2 motorcycles visible.
Although these will not be the most enjoyable stamps in the collection, they will thus be put back in the catalogue.
Antigua & Barbuda: 1988-11-25, Funeral J.F. Kennedy (3 ct + $1.00), stamps idem as Antigua & Barbuda with imprint Barbuda Mail, and the stamp of St. Vincent & Grenadines: August 1996 (date unknown) from the series "Public and Private moments from the life of J.F. Kennedy", issued in 4 blocks of 9 stamps.

During the search another picture passed along which I recognized and that also shows a sidecar-motorcycle. During the inauguration ride of Kenndy on January 20th 1961 also reporting was done from a sidecar:

On the bottom of a block from again St Vincent & Grenadines we find an image of the carcade that rode the Kennedy family from the Capitol to their new (White) house, on the moment that it turned from Pennsylvania Avenue into 15th Street. Here we know for sure that the motorcycle with sidecar was used by a reporter to cover this ride. This block has been issued on May 16th 2011, and the issue counts 2 blocks of 4 stamps each.

That St. Vincent & Grenadines is also a "stamp spitter" is confirmed by the fact that on this day not less than forty (40) different stamps have been issued by this group of islands.

Well, for this moment thus a few rediscoveries that we have to search for. My excuses.

Hans de Kloet

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