CPS Resource Centre
Germany 2012-03-01
The 500 year anniversary of the birth of Gerhard Mercator on March 5th was marked by German Post with a new high denomination stamp. The€2,20 square format issuefeatures an image of Mercator in the foreground holding what appears to be a pair of calipers placed on a small globe resting on a table. In the background, is a map of Europe and a series of white construction lines radiating from a single point forming what appears to be the graticule of the famous Mercator projection.“Mercator was born Gerard de gemor or de Cremer in the Flemish town of Rupelmonde, Mercator is the Latinized form of his name. It means merchant”. In 1554 he completed a large six panel map of Europe, with a second edition in 1572. Originally created by Erhard Etzlaub in 1511, Mercator refined the techniques and used the projection in a large world map, published in 1569. The projection had parallel lines of longitude to aid navigation by sea, and compass courses could be marked as straight lines. It was this projection that now bears Mercator’s name. Mercator was also thefirst person to use the term “atlas” for a collection of maps. Mercator started production of an atlas that was not fully published until after his death in 1594.
[ in searching around on the internet, besides a number of articles celebrating Mercator’s birth, i found a very interesting item which indicates that there is an error in this stamp. if anyone has some additional information regarding this, please contact the web admin.]
