My Foray Into Worldwide Stamps-- And A Quick Question!

Hey all!

Until now I had exclusively been looking at US stamps and filling my album with used examples, also planning to complete my favorite years in mint in stockbooks.

I decided to fish through a world mixture I bought two years ago and was pleasantly surprised! It is a lot of fun to see different styles of stamp and be exposed to all new artwork beyond the US examples I've been seeing over and over.

My favorites so far are stamps from Poland. They are BIG. I love the artwork. My question is: What countries are known for having large postage stamps? I like these big ones and think I will specialize in a country like Poland or another with larger stamps.

Edit:Ah! Just realized I was faked out by some similar language on some stamps. A lot of the big ones I like are from Hungary.

I well remember getting those big Polish cats, dogs, dinosaurs, stamps on mail from Polish relatives in the mid 60's. As a schoolboy they were wonderful. Yes, they were aimed at the philatelic market, but they were also massively used.

The communist countries from the 60's onwards is what you want for large colourful stamps. The market for this sort of material is virtually non-existant now, there's a mass of this era on ebay & Delcampe & I would recommend buying collections as the most economical way of acquiring these. Make sure to have a look at Czechoslovakia from this period - wonderfully engraved.

Here's a link to Ben's Poland site to see what's out there. The large stamps start about 1960

http://www.stampspoland.nl/

A lot of countries have issued 'big & bold' stamps; besides the countries already mentioned I'd add Mongolia.

But since speaking of Poland and Hungary here's a bit of stamp beauty to marvel ;)





-k-

Liberia, Burundi, Bhutan, Equatorial Guinea and Grenada are a few others that put out a lot of large stamps in that same era. You don't see as many super-large format stamps being issued today, with most of the aforementioned countries changing their stamp-issuing policies or going to the souvenir sheet format. Personally, I wish the US would issue at least a couple stamps every year in that format. There's no better way to get someone's attention than to have a massive, oversized stamp on the envelope when it arrives.

My SCF Postulate: there is just about nothing that you can add to your collection that will not, sooner or later, be fodder for a post to SCF.

Check out the Trucial States - eg, Ajman, Sharjah, Umm Al Qiwain.

Yemen too, roughly mid-60s to mid-70s.

Artful Hinger: the Civil War commemorative stamps issued by the USPS, one sheet per year since 2011, might be large enough to meet your request. I know that they won't fit onto regular business reply envelopes. There is also the Wilt Chamberlain stamp issued some months ago.

Large stamps are fun... The $10 Canada Blue Whale stamp would challenge most envelopes.

Yep, the Civil War stamps are pretty large by US standards and I've used a few panes of them. I also liked the American Art pane from a couple years back. Those were some real attention grabbers, in my opinion. The recent circus panes as well. I'm actually thinking a little bit larger than those, but those are good stamps to use on mail, nonetheless.