Beneath a glass counter in a Prague flea market, inside a leather billfold stiff with age, lay a passport unlike any I had handled in twelve years of archival work. The pages bore overlapping impressions in faded violet and blue — twelve borders crossed, fourteen stamps pressed. Each one a small, irrevocable decision made by someone behind a wooden desk.
The Weight of an Official Cachet
The League of Nations' 1920 Conference standardized the passport booklet, but the stamps themselves remained stubbornly particular. Each border post kept its own rubber die, its own ink pad, its own officer's hand pressing down with unpredictable force. A heavy impression meant approval; a faint one suggested hesitation — or haste.