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In many ways, Ethiopia is a land that time forgot. Always independent, Ethiopia was ruled by a monarchy that traced its origins back to the second century. Because of its strong internal government, Ethiopia was one of the two African countries that was able to resist the European imperialism of the nineteenth century and retain […]

The political history of South Africa is fascinating. Originally settled by the Dutch in the sixteenth century, South African areas long bounced back and forth under control of the Boers (as the native Dutch decedents were called), the British, who added South Africa to their list of imperial ambitions in the eighteenth century, and native

It’s no great revelation that the Internet has revolutionized all businesses and the stamp business in particular. Much has been written about the impact of EBay and, clearly, EBay has changed the way stamps are sold. But perhaps equally important, especially at the higher end of the stamp market, has been the impact of Stamp

Located 30 miles off the coast of mainland Germany, Heligoland has a long philatelic history. Originally ceded to Great Britain by the French after the Napoleonic wars, Heligoland had long Danish roots and the local language is a variant of Frisian which is the dialect of Danish that is thought to be the basis of

Anjouan is part of the Comoro Islands group which are a small group of islands between Madagascar and Africa. The islands were long a French dependency and for a brief period around the turn of the last century issued their own postage stamps. The stamps are part of the design called the Peace and Commerce

Civilization requires communication. As societies have developed, communication has developed with it, both for personal use and for commerce. Throughout the early stamp issuing period many different ways have been tried to speed mail delivery (and remember before electronic communication, the only way to communicate at a distance was by the post). Postal agencies tried

Collecting airmail stamps was a far more popular specialty forty years ago than it is today. Airmail was a major technological advance in communications. Before 1920 the quickest any paper communication could get from one place to another was approximately five hundred miles a day providing expensive railroad lines had been laid. Railroads were ubiquitous

There are an increasing number of philatelocracies-countries that exist largely to issue stamps and whose independent political status is made possible by the revenues generated by the sale of philatelic items. There are scores of philatelocracies now-places like the Grenadines of St Vincent or Guernsey- places which exist because of sales of stamps to collectors.

Attempts to help balance postal budgets produced many advertising ideas over the years since the first postage stamps were issued. The Great Britain Mulready envelope which was issued coincidentally with the Penny Black in 1840 was the first to bear advertising. In this case it was privately done but the advertisers sold the envelopes to