Imperforated Stamps From Former African French Colonies - Which Catalogue?

Hi all!

I have lots of imperforated stamps from African countries - Mali, Djibouti, Cameroon, Congo and other former French colonies - like the samples presented below.


I fail to find them listed in Stanley Gibbons, Yvert et Tellier or Michel - those catalogues list just perforated stamps and there is no mention of imperforate varieties.

I would appreciate your advise on where to look for them, i.e. which catalogue, and for their CV's.

Maybe there is a rule ("rule of thumb"??) how to value them? Are they the same price, cheaper, maybe more expensive than perforated standards?

Greetings from Gdynia to all members!

*** Moved by Staff to a more appropriate forum. ***

Not being able to find them in any established catalog should tell you all you need to know. Being serious, there may be a blanket statement somewhere in the listings that just says something like, "imperforate varieties exist," or something similar. Alternately, these could be cutouts from a souvenir sheet. There's pretty much no way these are worth any more than the perforated versions, and even those are barely worth anything to begin with; a lot of African nations print millions of stamps each year solely to sell to collectors as a source of revenue.

Generally, there's no good rule of thumb for knowing whether the perf or imperf variety of a stamp is worth more or less than the other, it's really a case-by-case thing.

You can find these from many of the former French Colonies. Logically, as far fewer were produced, they should have more value than the standard issue, but the lack of demand for the issues in general is likely to keep prices low. The exception may be for a particular theme - Olympics stamps can generate more interest, for example.

There is this note in the Scott catalog: "Nearly all French stamps issued from 1940 onward exist imperforate. Officially 20 sheets, ranging from 25 to 100 subjects, were left imperforate." A similar policy may apply to French colonies and former colonies.

Robert

Thank you very much for all inputs. I will try to research on the case-by-case basis.

They look & feel somehow nicer than perforate. Many of them came from sheets of 4 or more, so they were not de luxe prints.

Adam