Number by catalogue:  Michel: 1445  

Perforation type: 12 ½x12 ¼

Subject:

20 Tanzanian shillings.

The prototype of a bicycle* is a wooden bike-scooter from Russia (1813) against the background of a windmill.

Additional:

*The word bicycle first appeared in English print in The Daily News in 1868, to describe "Bysicles and trysicles" on the "Champs Elysées and Bois de Boulogne". The word was first used in 1847 in a French publication to describe an unidentified two-wheeled vehicle, possibly a carriage. The design of the bicycle was an advance on the velocipede, although the words were used with some degree of overlap for a time.

The "dandy horse", also called Draisienne or Laufmaschine, was the first human means of transport to use only two wheels in tandem and was invented by the German Baron Karl von Drais. It is regarded as the modern bicycle's forerunner; Drais introduced it to the public in Mannheim in summer 1817 and in Paris in 1818. Its rider sat astride a wooden frame supported by two in-line wheels and pushed the vehicle along with his or her feet while steering the front wheel.

Prior to the patent of 1817, von Drese had been experimenting with two-wheeled vehicles for several years. The first “cyclist” was the Russian Tsar Alexander I, who at the end of 1813** during the negotiations on the reconstruction of Europe freed from Napoleon visited his mother-in-law Countess Amalia, the widow of the Duke of Baden (Dreze the father was the supreme judge of the Duchy of Baden). A ride in a car, the king exclaimed in French: “Excellent invention!” - and granted the inventor a diamond ring. As subsequent history showed, the king was not mistaken.

**Perhaps it is precisely because of this fact that the year next to the usual children's sitting scooter is 1813.

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This information inpart has been taken from Wikipedia

Topics: Windmills