Etat Ind Du Congo?

I can't seem to figure out what country this is or what year. Any ideas?

Quoted from

http://www.shoeboxstamps.com/stampid.htm#e

When I looked in my Scott catalog, this stamp wasn't listed in either the Peoples republic of Congo or Democratic republic of the congo? Is there another place I should look? There doesn't seem to be just a Congo that I can find.

Try Belgian Congo

Duh...that's why many heads are better than one--I was stuck on just Congo and didn't think outside the box. Thanks..that was it.

#1, 1886 5 centimes.

It doesn't appear to have any cancellation, the back has some pretty crackly gum on it. I think it's quite pretty

Thanks again

Hi Stampdog. Try looking up Belgian Congo. I don't have a Scott, but in SG it is SG1 under Belgian Congo. The person pictured is Leopold II. This one did take quite a bit of searching.

The reason it was called "Etat Independent du Congo" is that originally the huge country was run as a private enterprise by Leopold II, king of Belgium. And a very nasty piece of colonial history it was too - as you can see from wikipedia or any number of other sites e.g.

http://socyberty.com/history/a-list...o-1885-1908/

Joseph Conrad's "The heart of darkness" was set in this period.

Even the other colonial powers were embarrassed by what Leopold and his henchmen got up to . . .

There is a good website that illustrates the complicated stamp history of the former Belgian Congo area, which covers the Congo Free State, Zaire, Katanga, South Kasai, etc.

http://www.congostamps.com/

Great site BC, thanks. I've never seen many of the stamps on the site before and I collect African stamps.

This place -as search result for Katanga, so I post it here: my first Katanga stamp, received yesterday from Tunisia. I`ve never heard of it before, but the story of this breakaway state is interesting.