Hundreds Of Minisheets Since 2010 From Africa (Guinea, Togo, Niger, .)

Hi,

I just started collecting astronomy-themed stamps. Looking at the online catalogues, I noticed that around 2010, hundreds of minisheets per year were suddenly issued in African countries without any concept, just random themes. What are these stamps? Did all these countries find a business opportunity?

Many African nations with very high rates of analphabetism issue stamps as if they are a nation of literary geniuses. Many refer to the issues as wallpapers - they only are good to cover your walls -.

These stamps are issued to attract foreign funds from thematic collectors. They will see little or no use at all.

The real explosion began in the 1970s, with large-scale junk issues - airships, US bicentennial etc - often accompanied by mini-sheets. The issue of a mini-sheet along with individual stamps seemed to become the norm for many.

As long as a country shows its own history and culture on stamps (+ minisheets), or as long as these are really significant events/people, I have no problem with that. But look at this page:

https://www.stampworld.com/en/stamp...19?year=2017

Minerals, mushrooms, pandas!! (in Togo), Ferrari, Kennedy, polar bears, etc.

As I wrote before: it is all about taking money from thematic collectors. Carribean islands are also good at this.

If you collect football stamps, you should not find your favourite Bundesliga team on the stamps of one of these African nations.
I am waiting for them to issue a series with Dutch Tulp Hoofdklasse Ladies teams.

"Dutch Tulp Hoofdklasse Ladies" :D

But yes, they issued stamps about space missions or people who don't overcome the threshold of other countries, like New Horizon to Pluto, Mars orbiting satellites or Stephen Hawking.

I still don't understand why they put a train next to Einstein, but this is my problem :-))

I, actively, support one of the teams.
But I imagine such a series might soon sell out.
The Dutch national team:

I'm in the same situation with darts. No stamps, but they will come soon I hope.

Greetings Klgya and all,

In my opinion there is a distinct difference between a "postage stamp" and wallpaper issues that never see use on a postal cover. Was the issue made widely available in the country that issued it for postal purposes? Was the rate it would pay appropriate for that country rate structure?

Scott excludes many of these wallpaper issues from its "postage stamp catalog" for good reason, they are NOT postage stamps.

Collectors are free to and encouraged to collect whatever fits their interests.

The question is do you chose to collect "postage stamps"?

That is an opinion, not a fact.

There are enough examples of one catalogue editor listing a stamp and another not. Scott does not define what a postage stamp is. Nor does Stanley Gibbons, Yvert, or Michel.




Many countries issue stamps with a very low face value as a make-up value. In Europe, a number of countries no longer have post offices. There is not a bureaucrat who decides whether to send stamps to all offices. Retailers look at their stock of stamps and decide whether to order a new issue. No stamp is widely available even if all are used frequently on mail.




No make-up value pays the appropriate rate for the country. Combined, they can do so.

A souvenir sheet with £6.50 face value of stamps, is unlikely to see much postal use. Yet a £1.50 and £5 stamp, frequently, may be seen on items of registered mail where neither individual stamp covers any existing tariff. Both can be used for the same purpose. Furthermore, it would be ludicrous to have stamp for every rate.

Earlier this week, I paid € 22.50 to send a parcel, registered, to Russia. We do not have a € 22.50 stamp. And in most cases the parcel point will apply a label from a counter machine that exactly covers the tariff, is widely available, is frequently used on mail, but will hardly be available unused. I doubt many people will add these labels to their postage stamp collection. I would not add them to my stamp collection. I have absolutely no problem with the next person calling this a postage stamp and adding it to his collection.




If someone wants to add a Togo stamp depicting Raymond van Barneveld and paying 2.065432 times the country's rate for a postcard sent to Europe to his or her stamp collection, it is as much a postage stamp to that person as a stamp that pays a fraction of the basic inland letter rate is to another.

GOOD NEWS for everybody ----- They are now printing so many Souvenir Sheets the stamp auction firms can't sell them fast enough .

They are now selling them in boxes stacked on pallets ,so now you buy them 5,000 to 20,000 of the same sheet with maybe 15 different countries on the same pallet . So you can now get 150,000 sheets in one purchase for less than $2,000 plus add shipping to your house . So you are getting 75 nice valuable future investments at a steal price of 75 sheets for a dollar .

Just a side note here ----you will run out of money before they run out of stamps .

If one looks through the listings for these countries in Scott's, there are issues of local importance occasionally, and some of these can be quite scarce. In almost all cases definitives and a few commemoratives are issued periodically for use locally within these countries. The one exception would be Somalia which may or may not have a functioning postal system.

As I've mentioned before, if you want stamps with a genuine local theme from the formef French Colonies/Protectorates, Morocco, Tunisia and Algeria are the best bet.

Historically, this basically started with the so-called "Sand dunes" stamps. Stamps issued by the emirates that make up the nowadays UAE -- Abu Dhabi, Ajman, Dubai, Fujeira, Ras al Khaima, Sharjah, Umm al Qiwain. They were prrinted in huge quantities, way more than were actually needed. Some even had the cancels already printed on them - to sell them wholesale in "Kid's packages".

Next came the Eastern Europe stamps, printed in huge quantities, usually already canceled on the printing machine. Again, "kid's packages" to get hard needed revenue from western collectors thinking they buy "stamps".

Then there aremany of the African and Carribean States. They often do not have the technology to produce stamps so they outsource stamp printing to some agency. Basically a "You print stamps having our country name on it and we get $xxxx every year" business deal.
The result is that these agencies print stamps with whatever could be printed on paper, with whatever face value they could think of. None of the stamps ever see the country the name is printed on, usually. For the agencies, it's all about grabbing money from collectors. Of course, if you can print stamps, you can also print souvenir sheets, "errors", imperforates, colour stages, and whatnot. Somebody will buy some of it, usually at a small fraction of face value.

As a side note, if any of those "stamps" do show up on a real, actual use commercial cover, the prices paid for such covers usually are very high, as noone actually expects these "stamps" to be really used.

So if I'm brave enough to travel to Togo and send a postcard home to myself using these "stamps", the postcard's value will be very high. Of course, if I'm lucky enough to receive it. But this is kind of cheating.

You might want to send yourself a few of them and earn back the ticket, saving one or two for your collection.