Stamps Illegal To Sell/Trade/Purchase?

In the course of going through some treasures, I came across several pages of stamps from Cuba and the Islamic Republic of Iran. I thought that, before I flog them on ebay and then experience a call from the FBI, I should probably check to see if it's legal. I'm pretty certain that, despite the US embargo on many Cuban products, that somehow there has been a dispensation for US collectors to sell/purchase/trade stamps from Cuba. I have not a clue on Iran. I imagine that North Korea might also be problematic for American collectors. Anybody out there got the skinny on this? Are there stamps from any countries that it is illegal for Americans to deal in?

That is very interesting.
I wonder what the answer is too?

Thanks

Thanks Russ. Here are some other discussions on this subject for you.

https://goscf.com/t/12593&SearchTerms=Cuba,legal

https://goscf.com/t/5283&SearchTerms=Cuba,legal

Officially these stamps have no value in the US. I believe that Scott doesn't even list Cuba in their catalog. Which is a shame.

I've only shipped stamps once so far..my 50 post giveaway thing, but at the post office, they checked each country that I was sending to (Canada, US, Finland) to make sure it was legal. So I am guessing that there are some countries you cant ship to from the UK.

All the Cuban, North Korean, Iranian and other blacklisted countries are listed in Scott, but they do not give catalog values to those stamps that were issued during the time period of the current embargos. Iraq had this at one time too and newer Scott volumes should starting listing values for all Libyan stamps too.

I really think the U.S. laws are to prohibit large companies like Mystic and Kenmore to import vast amounts of stamps for their approval trade. As for selling a cheap cover or trading a few stamps, I don't think the government enforcement will come a knocking.

Speaking of countries with mailing prohibitions. If you look up Italy on the USPS list of prohibitions:
Albums of any kind (of photographs, postcards, postage stamps, etc.).
Postage stamps in sealed or unsealed First-Class Mail International shipments.

I've shipped to Italy numerous times with no problems thus it's probably not enforced. They also prohibit playing cards, typewriter ribbons, toys wholly not made of wood, shoes and so much more.

All Cuba issues ARE listed in Scott, complete WITH values. The following note is placed before 1962 issues:

darn I got stuff on the way from France and now you got me worried. I won an auction on the SCF auction of an old french cover with contents and never received it. I wonder if that's why?

While there may be some specific products from those countries which are illegal to possess, in general the State Department rules are intended to block the importation for commercial purposes. It is not illegal to trade/buy/sell those stamps already in the US. The stamps are not illegal, it is the importation into the US that is illegal. It is not illegal to receive mail franked with stamps from those countries. The rules ONLY apply in the US, as they are US rules, not international rules.

Over the years, the State Department has clarified those issues. So you now see Scott has listed Cuban, Vietnamese... stamps from those time periods. The reason many of those prices are blank is because there is little domestic sales information available. Despite what we often might think, Scott doesn't always assign arbitrary/formula values just to fill in the blank.

The real problem for international sellers today is actually the UN. In the past couple of years, several countries (especially in Europe), have begun enforcing UN rules regarding import/export of artifacts. Some of those countries have interpreted the UN rules to include old stamps/covers. As a result, some registered/insured stamp shipments have been confiscated. I have been told, specifically, that shipments to/from Italy are a major problem.

About 1-2 years ago, Google Checkout also began enforcing the ban by rejecting international payments for old stamps/covers. I believe the policy has been changed since then, but it did cause a few headaches for buyers and sellers for a couple of months.

I was reading some accounts of Cuban stamps that may be acquired, collected and sold by residents of the US and apparently it dates back to 2001 when a special decision was rendered making it "legal" to own and sell stamps as collectibles in the US, but there was still a prohibition against selling "mint" Cuban stamps for other than personal collections. The reference went onto to suggest that the stamp collecting community didn't become aware that this ban was lifted until an article appeared in Scott Stamp Monthly specifically referencing it.

Does anyone has an archive of the Scott Stamp Monthly (presumably from 2001) where this article first appeared?

Keep your Cuban stamps. Give me some darn cigars! Embargoes against foreign countries don't do anything. How much did we really hurt Cuba?

Well, the good news is that all these Cuban stamps are cancelled. To put an additional spin on the argument, they all seem to have been commercially cancelled - all have perfect Havana cancellations. I doubt that any of them have been anywhere close to an envelope. Perhaps they/ve read the US importation rules and that's how they get around it. One question remains: how about these absolutely beautiful unused (but hinged) Islamic Republic of Iran stamps? Some of them are very very pretty.

I'll take them if you don't mind :D There is no rule to sell Iranian stamps. No FBI will come to you.

I think a more likely explanation is that the stamps you describe are "cancelled to order" (CTO), a practice that was popular with Communist countries (although they are/were not the only countries to do this). With CTO, a postal administration prints fake cancellations on mint stamps, and sells these at a discount from mint postage. A lot of these stamps end up in packets.

I doubt that circumventing the US embargo is a motivation for the practice. All the countries of the late Soviet bloc did this to raise hard currency.

I seriously doubt that the various regulatory agencies are interested enough in the traffic of mint Cuban (or North Korean, or Iranian) stamps on the secondary market to conduct investigations or prosecutions. I doubt the authorities are very interested in the incidental importation of such stamps in lots or collections. However, I suspect that sales to new issue dealers by the Cuban postal administration would be interdicted at customs, and never even get into the country.

Have individual collectors tried to buy new issues directly from the embargoed postal administrations? What is their experience?

My wife was in Cuba in 2004 on an eductional visa through the university. She bought me just a few small sets of mint Cuban stamps as well as some cto's and brought them back home. Customs didn't care. The photos she took of Havanna are beautiful, but then she and her classmates were mugged at machete point so it diminished her opinion of the place by a few levels.

This looks to be a "draft copy" of a webpage of some sort but contains some interesting perspectives into US/Cuban relations and some background behind collecting Cuban stamps in the US:

http://www.shafr.org/passport/2006/...paterson.htm