What Are United Nations Stamps

I am coming across a few UN stamps, see below
I guess they are like foriegn stamps, of which I have boatloads I inheirited, but my dad kept them all with the US stuff. Nonetheless, where do I look them up. None of the websites seem to have numbers for them, Sets maybe but individuals, not so much

United Nations stamps are exactly what they sound like: stamps issued by the United Nations in New York City, Vienna, or Geneva. They can only be used by the public if mailed at the UN offices in those cities.


Same place you would any other stamp, a catalog. Your example is Scott NY 377, Michel NY 400 (other catalogs also list them).

This was part of a large series featuring the flags of the UN member states. UN stamps were popular with collectors for a time, but these days are a drug on the market. Lots of attractive designs, though.

Regarding UN Geneva: Besides the stamps shown under "UN Geneva" in the catalogs like Scott and StampWorld, there is another section, under Switzerland, as BOB. In Scott, under "OFFICIAL STAMPS - FOR THE UNITED NATIONS EUROPEAN OFFICE". The stamp number is preceded by 7O??, ?? being the stamp number.
What and how was the usage of these Swiss stamps, and how do they differ from UN Geneva stamps?

Switzerland issued stamps for the UN European Office until October 4 1969 when they were replaced by UN Geneva issued stamps.

Thank you Chesham85. So before that Switzerland issued stamps for the League of Nations, "Societe des Nations".
Are these stamps, that Switzerland issued for the UN, considered Swiss stamps or UN stamps?

UN stamps were once usable for mail in an unrestricted manner. Now with the severe limitation on the mailing at UN Post Offices, the "stamps" are really no more than worthless colored stickers.

Thank you very much. While all catalogs regard them as Swiss stamps, from the postal point of view one entity (Switzerland) produced them for the sole use of another entity (UN).
Are there any more philatelic examples where entity A produced stamps to be used only by entity B, and the stamps are attributed to entity A?

France produces Unesco and Council of Europe stamps, which are listed under France in catalogues. I think the pre-war League of Natiosn etc stamps are listed under Switzerland.

International Court of Justice in The Hague ( 'sGravenhage ). Stamps are not being issued any longer


Peter

Before they were restricted to being usable only at UN Post Offices, where else could they have been used?

The restriction tsmatx is now upon where you can use the stamp but what days and how many piece of mail you are allow to deposit in a day or week. This came about when the mint UN stamps traded at such a low percentage of face value than bulk mailer would buy them well below face, apply them and do bulk mailing at the UNPO in NYC, NY USA. Think hundreds or thousands of pounds of Priority Mail at one time. Often these were bulk mailing of stamp auction materials. The UN began to dislike the actual use of their stamps for postage as it cut into their profit. So the UN put a cap, a very, very low cap on how much mail they would accept from one entity at one time.



Edit:



Yes, that quote is from Wikipedia but that is good enough for the clown show called the UN and UNPA.

Thanks. I don't think I ever realized that the public could use UN stamps to send mail to anywhere (as long as from one of the handful of post offices in the world) and I always thought it was for mail between UN offices or something. And surprised to learn that you still can use them today just with the quantity restriction.

Over the years, Switzerland has also issued stamps for use by the IOC, UPU, ITO, ILO, IBE (International Bureau of Education), WMO (World Meteorological Organization), WHO, IRO (International Refugee Organization), and WIPO (World Intellectual Property Organization).

Illustrating Petert4522's post

The stamps were not available to the general public without cancellation (the uncancelled stamps are very expensive because they would have been obtained by an insider who broke the rules).

Stamp were issued 1934-1938 and 1940: Cour Permanente de Justice Internationale (the 1940 issues are not very expensive without cancellation).

Stamps, then, were issued 1947, 1950, 1951-1953, 1951-1977 (last three designs shown): Cour Internationale de Justice.