What's Up With Zaire In The Scott Catalogue?

In the Scott Catalogue, why do listings of the stamps of Zaire (formerly Congo and before that Belgian Congo) stop in 2002? My catalogue is a 2016 volume, so it seems quite strange. That's 18 years ago. They can't have just stopped issuing stamps for all those years . . ? Am I missing something? It didn't change its name again, did it?

It should be under the Democratic Republic of the Congo, rather than Zaire, which was abandoned as the country's name in 1997, when Mobutu was overthrown.

But later listings (after 2002) are not under "Congo". Listings for this country after 2002 are not in the catalogue at all. Listings after 1971 are under "Zaire". But then they end in 2002?! How come?

Here's what I know: After the Belgian Congo ended in 1960, the newly independent country continued from 1960-71 as "Congo, Democratic Republic". At that point, its name was changed to "Zaire" so listings in Scott under that name took over in 1971. But those listings for Zaire suddenly end in 2002. Why?

Although this is not my question, it's worth noting that after the final 1971 stamp at the end of "Congo, Democratic Republic," Scott includes a very odd note that says that despite Zaire reverting to its previous name of "Congo" in 1998 (22 years ago), Scott plans to keep its listings for that country under Zaire "until the situation is resolved". What "situation" are they talking about? They changed Czechoslovakia to Czech Republic and Slovakia the year after they changed their names. But for 22 years now, they still don't quite trust Congo-Zaire to have settled on its correct name? Not that I want to get into Scott Publishing's weird habits or the bizarre legacies of western imperialism!

Anyway, back to my question: Why does Zaire suddenly end in 2002? Sorry, but I do not see later stamps under "Congo". Did Scott just declare it "out of business"?

(This is not to be confused with "Congo, People's Republic" which is an entirely different country on the other side of the river, once the French Congo, aka "Middle Congo" and "French Equatorial Africa". But I'm definitely not asking about this other country.)

1886-1960 Belgian Congo
1960-1971 Congo, Democratic Republic
1971-2002 Zaire (even though the name "Zaire" was abandoned in 1998), but then Scott shows no new stamps after 2002???????

My point was that "Zaire" didn't exist in 2002. From 1998, stamps were issued under the "Democratic Republic" name. An extensive range is listed in volume two of the official Belgian catalogue

https://www.dezittere-philac.be/fr/...ocb-cob.html

I'm not asking what years Zaire existed, I'm asking why no Zaire (or whatever Scott calls it now) stamps aren't listed after 2002? I'm sure they're in the "Officiel" catalogue for Belgium which of course knows what it's doing for Belgium and its former colonies. It's a very good catalogue. I have a copy. But after 2002 what did Scott do to Zaire? That's what I want to know.

Maybe the name changing (about 4x in a century beginning with "Congo Free State" and so on!) just got to be too much for Scott, so Scott stopped listing their stamps completely after 2002. That's a joke (I hope).

This may be a little helpful:

https://www.stampboards.com/viewtop...f=13&t=53207

I would guess that there have been no genuine stamps issued since 2002 which is not surprising given the war (civil and otherwise), corruption, famine, genocide, Ebola and corruption again just to mention a few "problems".

Thanks for that very interesting thread about Congo-Zaire. I read through it just now, and it appears the answer to my question is the most obvious answer of all. There are no stamps listed for Zaire (Congo) after 2002 because there are simply no stamps to list. Zaire or Congo hasn't issued any. Or hasn't issued "many" since the thread does note that some have been issued by someone somewhere for Zaire (Congo) but notes they may be illegal stamps. In some cases, it's unsure who issued them. Some were merely speculative, but what else is new?

As for the Scott catalogue, I'm a little surprised they don't include a note about this. Wouldn't you think they'd mention that after 2002 no new stamps they were aware of had been issued? It's a stamp catalogue, after all. They do find space to make their remark about keeping the name of the country as "Zaire" even though it hasn't been called that for about 20 years now. Come on, Scott, let the buyers of your catalogue know what's going on!

I won't summarize the thread since anyone interested can just read it through the link rogdcam thoughtfully provides. But, wow, what a mess Zaire (Congo) has remained since the Belgians pulled up stakes without warning in 1960 and gave them a kind of independence Belgium had left them completely unprepared for. The British and French used to be proud they had "prepared" their former colonies to become independent. Whether or not you take that seriously is up to you, but clearly Belgium did nothing of the sort. They just left one day without preparing anyone to do anything. So the people of Congo have slogged along for 60 years though civil wars, tyrants, corruption, crime, and other problems. In a very rich country, ironically.

I had no idea a country could just stop issuing stamps. I had always assumed they'd keep operating the postal service and that would require new stamps. It looks like they still do mail delivery but don't issue new stamps. They may have sufficient old stocks of stamps for now. Or maybe mail volume is very small? It looks like anyone collecting Congo would have to pretty much end at 2002 for now.

All very interesting -- and very sad, too, especially for the people who live there. It may seem odd, but I've always wanted to visit Congo/Zaire, but I doubt I will. In the other thread, it mentions Adam Hochschild's "King Leopold's Ghost" as an excellent story of what happened there. Even better (and wonderfully bigger) is "Congo" by David Van Reybrouck which goes into excellent detail. Finally, imagine if they did have a well-run postal service that issued a modest number of new stamps. We'd have stamps with interesting African themes to collect, and Congo Zaire would have at least one source of revenue to help build schools, hospitals, roads, and so on.

This is repeated ad nauseum among many former colonies as their borders were usually drawn without regard to national identities or various ethnic groups that may or may not get along, etc. Often borders were simply drawn with a ruler on a map or along certain rivers without even bothering to consider what the natives might have wanted.

As an aside, Jordan (ironically one of the most stable former colonies) is one of the most "artificial" countries ever. British diplomats used to joke that it should have been called "Trans-pipeline-ia" (as opposed to its original name of TransJordania) as the Brits just drew its borders around key oil pipelines in the region. Decades later they were astonished that Jordanian nationalism developed, not because there was anything wrong with being Jordanian, but because the country was such an artificial creation to begin with.

As an aside I lived in Amman for a while and I loved it.

I'm reminded of when I went to the Scott Catalogue a few years ago to look up some stamps that purported to be from Somalia, to see if they were listed (they weren't). At the beginning of the Somalia section, where basic facts about the country are given, under "Government" it stated, "Apparently none."

Just read this thread for the first time since I'm starting to work on a small accumulation of stamps in the Belgian Congo. I noticed that the online catalog (which Iam unable to name but begins with the C) lists stamps from Zaire from 1971 through 1997. The catalog then lists some issues from 1999 through 2013 under the country name of Congo, Democratic Republic (Kinshasa). The original 1960 through 1971 issues were also listed under Congo, Democratic Republic (Kinshasa).

Yes, it's a country whose leaders (really "leader," Joseph Mobutu) changed its names a few too many times. That gets confusing.

Plus there's the additional confusion of there being two Congos. There's this one, the "Democratic Republic of the Congo" (the former Zaire and former Belgian Congo, and so forth) on the south side of the Congo River. AND there's the similarly-named "People's Republic of the Congo" (Republic Populaire du Congo") through the 1990s, but since then just the "Republic of the Congo". This latter country is the former French Congo on the north side of the Congo River. It's still often referred to as "Congo (Brazzavile)," its capital city, to distinguish it from the other Congo For years, its stamps had a French design quality to them which I like (speaking of stamps), but in recent decades like a lot of similar countries they've issued a bit more junk than they should have.

Scott continues to list the DRC, the former Belgian Congo on the south side of the river, under "Zaire" in its catalogues, clearly not convinced yet that it's settled firmly on its new name! It's not called Zaire anymore. It was Zaire from about 1971-1997, but it's been 23 years since it renamed itself "Republique Democratique du Congo" (Democratic Republic of the Congo). I'm not sure what Scott is waiting for . . . ? Or has no one told them?

When searching for stamps, you need to watch out that one Congo doesn't get confused with the other Congo, and you should be aware of the various name changes -- which get confusing. Both use French names since both were colonized by French-speakers so the population learned French, as well, so that's not going to help.

The Congo Free State/Belgian Congo/independent Congo/Zaire/DRC on the south side of the river has issued far more junk than the other Congo has. And then beginning in 2002, it did the very strange thing of not issuing new stamps at all. I still can't believe that.

As we all know, the fate of too many African countries has been bad -- economically poor, lacking in infrastructure, poorly prepared for independence with uneducated populations and little training in governing, and so on. In too many of them, postage stamps soon became viewed mainly as sources of revenue for their governments, leading to issuing lots of unnecessary junk. That happened elsewhere in the world, as well. If you want to scare off collectors, that's how you'd do it. And if you want to confuse people about what country you are, take a name similar to that of your neighbor -- and then keep changing it.

Zaire is one of many countries most collectors don't care about ,very little interest in over priced stamps that seems to be controlled by a small group who dealers that are trying to sell high face value stamps . I doubt the stamps ever make it to the country .

The country most likely has no postal system. All business most likely forward their overseas mail thru the different embassies.

I have some stamps purporting to be from the Republique Democratique du Congo, dated 2003, but they're obviously just illegitimate wallpaper.

https://www.africanews.com/2016/12/...in-kinshasa/
At least as of 3½ years ago, things seemed to be looking up there. The article mentions their selling stamps, but unfortunately has no pictures of those stamps.