A what if of philately...the US overseas possessions....

The most recent post to JKJblue's excellent blog deals with the stamps of post-partition Samoa.  This of course means the stamps issued for the western half of the Samoa archipelago, as from the time of its annexation by the United States in 1900, the eastern half of the archipelago used (and still uses) the postage stamps of the United States.

This is not an exception for American overseas terrtories.  With the exception of the Philippines, which did issue its own postage stamps during the United States administration of 1899-1946 (likely because the Philippines had its own currency at the time of annexation, the Philippine Peso, and that currency was retained by the US Administration), and the overprints issued in the immediate aftermath of the Spanish-American war of 1898 for Guam and Puerto Rico, American overseas terrritories have used the postage stamps of the United States from the time they came under American rule.

One of the most beautiful stamps issued during the US Administration of the Philippines, the 1932 2c Mount Mayon pictorial (image courtesy mountainstamp.com)

USA 1c Benjamin Franklin stamp of 1894 overprinted -GUAM- for use on that island after its capture by US forces during the Spanish-American War of 1898. Regular USA issues would be used on the island after 1901.  (image courtesy pecollectibles.com)

Similarly, after the US annexation of Hawaii in 1898 separate postal issues would be superceded by regular United States issues in 1901.

1899 stamp issued by the US administration in Hawaii, the high value in a set of three stamps that would be the last separate issue for Hawaii before its stamps were replaced by regular US stamps. (image courtesy treasurecoastamps.com)

The same fate would befall the Western Virgin Islands after they passed from Danish to American rule in 1917 when the US government bought the islands from Denmark.

Danish West Indies stamp depicting King Christian X, one of a set of eight issued in 1915 that would be the last stamps released before the transfer to American sovereignty in 1917 and the end of the Western Virgin Islands separate philatelic identity (image courtesy linns.com)

I always thought it was a pity that the overseas external territories *cough colonies* of the United States lost their philatelic identity so quickly after they came under American administration. As the Mount Mayon stamp from the Philippines shows, the potential for some truly beautiful stamps that depicted these, to Americans in the contiguous 48 states, exotic lands governed by the United States would have been great.

The Postal Service would, to a degree, do this with the Overseas Territories issues of 1937, although Guam and American Samoa were not given any recognition in this series.

The 1937 External Territories issue of the US Postal Service, honoring Hawaii, Alaska, Puerto Rico and the US Virgin Islands, but NOT Guam or American Samoa. (image courtesy delcampe.net)

A lovely set, isn't it?  Now imagine what *could* have been had the external territories been given postal autonomy to issue their own stamps under US Postal Service oversight.

But...it never came to pass. Alaska and Hawaii acceded to Statehood in 1959.  While Puerto Rico became a Commonwealth/Estado Libre Asociado in 1952, it did not regain postal autonomy, and given recent events on the island, the likelihood it will become a full-fledged state in the next decade seem quite high. And the US Virgin Islands, American Samoa and Guam remain external territories, with varying degrees of self-government, and (non-voting) representation in the US House of Representatives. And they continue to use regular United States postage stamps.

On a similar note, I think it is also sad that the five French overseas departments (départements d'outre-mer) also have lost philatelic autonomy. No more separate issues for Guadeloupe, Martinique, French Guiana, Reunion or, more recently, Mayotte. The distinctive cultures of these five territories produced some gorgeous stamps during their philatelic lifetimes, and while the French have issued stamps depicting scenes or personalities from these regions from time to time over the past sixty years, something I think was definitely lost to philately with the end of their philatelic independence.

Iconic low value stamp from the 1947 pictorial issue of Guadeloupe.  Alas this would be the final set of stamps issued specifically for the island, as stamps of France itself would replace Guadeloupe stamps shortly thereafter. (from author's collection)

Stamp issued by France in 1970 depicting the Rocher du Diamant in the overseas department of Martinique.  Martinique, like Guadeloupe, issued its last stamps in 1947. A beautiful stamp to be sure, but only one of a handful of stamps released in the past nearly seventy years depicting the overseas departments (image courtesy delcampe.net).

Of course, philatelic independence can also go horribly wrong, as the recent philatelic histories of the external realms of the Kingdom of the Netherlands - Curacao, Aruba, Saint Maarten, and the Caribbean Netherlands communes of Saba, Saint Eustatius and Bonaire, will attest. Philatelic independence for these external territories had in the past five years led to their selling their philatelic souls to a philatelic agency that issues stamps in their name with often only little relevance to the local cultures. But this is a recent phenomenon, and in particular I always found the stamps of Aruba in particular to be gorgeous until it made its bargain with the philatelic devil. 

Aruba 1993 Folklore issue, from the days when Aruba's philatelic production was conservative, relevant to the island, and the stamp designs in general of a very high quality. (image courtesy delcampe.net)

Aruba 2014 Classic Cars issue, released by the philatelic agency the Aruba Post Office sold its soul to.  Higher-than necessary face values, little cultural resonance to the island, and less that stellar artwork.(image courtesy delcampe.net)

So perhaps this is one of those double-edged sword issues, since the temptation by almost all postal services these days semes to be to to use their philatelic programs as cash-cows, cashing in on the popular topics and generally ignoring the culture, history and society of the countries or territories the stamps purport to represent.

Are Philatelic "Rogue States" helpful or harmful to stamp collecting????

Over at his excellen Big Blue 1840-940 blog as part of his post on the classic era stamps of St Vincent, jkjblue discusses some interesting data he crunched comparing stamp output to population for modern issues (he based his study on the issues of 1980 to 2012). His results were quite interesting based on the number of stamps released per 1 million people in population

"The Top 51
(Total Stamp issues 1980-2012 normalized for one million population )

1. Grenada Grenadines – 4410/.008* = 551,250
2. Grenadines of St Vincent – 3153/.009* = 350,333
3. Nevis – 2753/.009 = 305,888
4. Palau – 3256/.019 = 171,368
5. Antigua & Barbuda – 4423/.064 = 69,109
6. Grenada – 5528/.1 = 55,280
7. St Vincent – 6586/.121 = 54,429
8. Dominica – 3467/.065 = 53,338
9. Marshall Islands – 3056/.066 = 46,303
10. St Thomas & Prince – 4363/.155 = 28,148 
11. Micronesia – 2408/.13 = 18,523.
12. Maldives – 4011/.3 = 13,370
13. Guyana – 7606/.7 = 10,865
14. Gambia – 6293/1.1 = 5,720
15. Guinea-Bissau – 5855/1.2 = 4,879
16. Comoros – 2535/.6 = 4,225
17. Liberia – 4990/2.6 = 1,919
18. Guinea – 8750/7.5 = 1,166
19. Mongolia – 2591/2.6 = 996.5
20. Sierra Leone – 5204/5.3 = 982
21. Central Afr. Rep. – 3205/3.4 =942.6
22. Togo – 3202/4.3 =744.6
23. New Zealand – 2178/3.7 = 588.6
24. Nicaragua – 2430/4.4 = 552.3
25. Libya – 2259/5.0 = 451.8
26. Mozambique – 5569/16.5 = 337
27. Cuba – 3189/11.1 = 287.3
28. Portugal – 2330/9.9 = 235.4
29. Belgium – 2283/10.4 = 219.5
30. Hungary – 2197/10.2 = 215.4
31. Ghana -3372/18.1 = 186.3
32. North Korea – 4128/22.2 = 186
33. Cambodia – 2110/11.6 = 181.9
34. Australia – 3188/17.9 = 178.1
35. Tanzania – 4806/31.3 = 154
36. Romania – 2992/22.6 = 132.4
37. Uganda – 2742/21.6 = 126.9
38. Taiwan – 2442/22.1 = 110.5
39. Venezuela – 2175/23.3 = 93.3
40. Spain – 2297/39.2 = 58.6
41. France – 3080/59.0 = 52.2
42. Bulgaria – 2213/42.9 = 51.6
43. Philippines – 3481/68.6 = 50.7
44. Great Britain – 2741/59.1 = 46.4
45. Japan – 4870/126.2 = 38.6
46. Thailand 2305/60.6 = 38.1
47. Vietnam – 2567/77.3 = 33.2
48. USSR/Russia – 3030/147.1* = 20.6
49. Brazil – 2296/157.1 = 14.6
50. United States – 3518/281.4 = 12.5
51. China – 2915/1,246.9 = 2.4"

Source : Big Blue 1840-1940 Blog

The top 20 nations are of course nations that have huge stamp outputs and small populations, and are dominated by nations represented by a few (in-)famous philatelic agents who release issues in the names of these nations depicting all sorts of topical themes, from Cats and Dogs to Pop Stars and everything (and anything) in between.

To a large percent of the stamp collecting community, these -stamps- are little more than glorified wallpaper being peddled under often questionable circumstances with little relevance to the nations they purport to represent, all in the quest to part (mainly topical) collectors from their coin.

Exploitative stamp issues released with an eye to cashing in on collector interest is of course nothing new. The United States Columbian Exposition Commemorative of 1893, an issue of 16 stamps in a range of values from US$0.01 to US$5,00 (which in 2015 dollar purchasing power, would be well over US$130 today!), resulted in howls of protest from the philatelic media of the day, and the issue would not really begin to sell over face value for the high values until the 1930s when a whole new cadre of collectors entered the hobby in wake of both the Great Depression and the high profile philatelic activities of both a British King (George V) and an American President (Franklin Roosevelt).

In the 1970s the American Philatelic Society, which at one time included global new issue listing in its journal The American Philatelist, created the "Black Blot Program" program to list new issues its editors felt were exploitative to the collector community, often issues of a topical nature from developing nations in Africa, Asia, the Pacific Basin and the Caribbean.  In the end the APS would end listing global new issues altogether, and the Black Blot program was soon just a memory.  Interestingly enough, many of those 1970s issues that received Black Blots have gone on to appreciate in value somewhat more (and sometime very much more) than their face value at release than stamps whose release were not seen as a threat to the philatelic wallet.

Since then the tide of new issues has truly become an antidiluvian flood of issues, and not just from countries who have "sold their philatelic souls to agents." Japan now regularly tops 300 stamps per year, while nations as respectable as New Zealand, the United States, Australia and Great Britain routinely have more than 100, and total cost due to much higher face values means keeping up with new issues can be a challenge financially for many collectors. A large percent of the collector community shun modern-day issues as a result.

At the same time though, if there was not a demand for the -wallpaper- issues of Saint Vincent, Central African Republic and the like, why do nations continue to allow these agents to issue stamps in their name.  There must be some benefit to at least someone in the issuing nation (even if not to the budget of the issuing nation or the general population as a whole) and the market must be large enough to keep demand for these issues growing. There must be a large enough cadre of "casual collectors" purchasing this material because the images on the releases appeal to the them enough to pay hard cash for the stamps. What perecent of this group moves beyond the occasional purchase of the latest Formula 1 stamps from Mozambique or Obama stamps from Saint Vincent is hard to qualify,

In the end collectors collect what they like, and they determine what they want to collect.  As I have been working on French colonial issues the last couple years, I have also begun collecting stamps from the independent successor states.  While one can often quibble that there was no reason for, say, Cameroun to honor Space Achievements as it did on a series of issues in the late-1960s, I would argue that at least in comparison to much of the production today (both by countries represented by agencies and nations that still control their new issue programs) the quality of design was much higher (many of these issues were produced in France by the French post office printers by multi-color engraving, and are really stunning pieces of artwork). And in comparison to face value at time of release, some of these "international" topical issues (though not all, to be fair) have appreciated quite nicely in the intervening decades.

Cameroun's 1968 Satellite Communication issue. Directly relevant to Cameroun, not really, but design-wise quite beautiful and a nice example of the growing "internationalization" of culture in the 1960s.

In today's interconnected global village, the idea that there are topics that are "irrelevant" to certain societies is an increasing difficult assertion to maintain.  Vintage American films, Japanese anime, British pop music are as much enjoyed and appreciated in Freetown, Sierra Leone or Georgetown, Guyana as they are in any Western city.  The number of stamps issues per year may make it difficult for collectors raised on the traditional -collect the country- model to keep up with, but personally I do not think these philatelic "rogue states" are harmful in and of themselves,  unless those buying the issues believe they are making an investment that will pay off in the future.  Stamps only are a good investment in terms of leisure time to relax and discover the world. Financially a collector *might* make a financial gain from the expenses put into the hobby over time, with a bit of luck. But more often than not that does not happen. However, I've never really seen any advertising from these agencies touting their productions as an investment tool, something that can not be said for other retail branches within the world of organized philately.

Personally I do not really collect the post-1980 generation of stamps produced by agencies for these "rogue states" - their design ethos for me is just not appealing - but I can see how they can become a "gateway" to attract new collectors into the hobby. I think perhaps a bit less "pooh-pooh"-ing of the issues and a bit more outreach to these casual collectors to show them the vast variety and diversity of the hobby would be a wiser approach when these issues come up for discussion.