Israel's first Doar Ivri stamps In 1948, too, Wallish took the lead in designing
Israel's first postage stamps. He chose a design based on ancient coins, found in
archaeological research on the
First Jewish-Roman War and the
Bar Kochba Revolt. He also designed the
first day cover for the stamps' first usage on the first business day after Independence was declared, Sunday, 16 May 1948. Since the name of the state had not yet been determined during the design and secretive printing of the stamps, they were designed with the name
Doar Ivri ("Hebrew mail") rather than Israel, the name found on all subsequent postage issues. In 2007, several original pieces of Wallish artwork for the
Doar Ivri stamp were sold at auction. In one preliminary essay, the stamp is designed as a triangle. Furthermore, in another Wallish essay, the stamps on the first day cover were prepared with the "wrong" name of the state:
Yehudah (, cf.
Judah or
Judea), as shown here. He had also proposed to put
Eretz Yisrael on the stamps, which the
provisional government leaders turned down as well. After speaking privately with German
stamp dealers, who recommended a Hebrew equivalent to
Deutsche Post ("German Mail"), Wallish proposed the phrase
Doar Ivri, which was accepted. Wallish also contributed a variety of original designs, including stamps commemorating
Petah Tikva's 70th anniversary, Israel Independence Day (1951, 52, 54, 57, and 58), World Refugee Year (1960), the 25th
Zionist Congress (1960), and the centennial of the Hebrew press in Israel (with a
Halbanon newspaper page in the background, 1963). He also designed a
menorah stamp (1952) and a defense series (1957), with the insignia of the
Haganah. Wallish lost out to the brothers Shamir again in competing for the 1949 Jerusalem stamp. Whereas the winning design depicts a scene looking up toward the city and the
Tower of David, the Wallish artwork shows a flat approach and two religious Jews on the path to Jerusalem. Less well known are the stamps that Wallish designed but were not mass-produced. In 1948, the
Israeli Army planned to print special
military stamps. Wallish submitted designs that were accepted and printed on a trial basis in July 1958. One stamp (10 mil) portrayed a Jewish warrior from Egypt, another (15 mil) the
Menorah from the
Arch of Titus, and the highest denomination bore the sword and olive branch insignia of the Haganah. However, civilian postal officials turned down the idea and the four-color stamps were never put into use. ==Numismatics==