Today's theme in Sunday Stamps is Country Names No Longer Exist, aka Dead Countries (although there is some discussion here).
Côte Française des Somalis / French Somaliland 1958 |
Republique du Dahomey / Republic of Dahomey 1963 |
Republique de Haute-Volta / Republic of Upper Volta 1963 |
État du/Inchi Ya Katanga / State of Katanga 1961 |
Afrique Equatoriale Française / French Equatorial Africa 1947 |
Transkei 1976 |
The equatorial France is gorgeously detailed. I have a few of the Dahomey postage due which that sense of threat, pay up or else... So funny in a dark way. Interesting link, I wondered what counted as an ex country.
ReplyDeleteI love the frame on that stamp, too. The Dahomey one is pretty scary, isn't it?
DeleteI guess you can't say, properly "a country no longer existing". Countries change borders, change names... but they don't disappear! :)
Anyway... I learn a lot of History and Geography thanks to philately.
This is a great post to remember that these countries were all part of our world history and played a part of human events in our lifetimes or shortly before.
ReplyDeleteThanks, Bryon. As I wrote, philately is an excellent tool in order to learn history.
DeleteAfrica has so many "dead names" for countries. I used to collect globes that featured these old names.
ReplyDeleteThese animals look pretty scary! I wonder what Dahomey was thinking when they issued this stamp!!
Africa is a complicate continent, if you want to retain all those names!
DeleteThe stamp of Dahomey really amazes me. It's like... "Don't open this letter"! :D
Great stamps. I had not heard of Katanga.
ReplyDeleteNeither had I, until I saw those stamps!
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