Avid Stamp Collectors Exult Over New Nations

Shortly after it declared independence last June, Croatia took a classic step toward proclaiming national sovereignty. It issued stamps.

Some of the stamps didn’t have glue and had to be cut apart with scissors. One series commemorated air-mail routes established when the resulting civil war interrupted surface mail delivery.

They were the first Croatian stamps since World War II--sort of. Because Croatia’s independence was not established, they were used “more or less out of pride” next to Yugoslav stamps, says Ekrem Spahich, executive secretary of the Croatian Philatelic Society in Borger, Tex.

But the desire for physical proof of independence was there, as it has been in the former Soviet republics, the Baltics, and other new or reborn nations. As the real world changes, the stamp world follows suit. For example:

- In October, Moscow issued a “Victory of Democratic Forces” series commemorating the three men who died in the failed August coup. They were among the last Soviet stamps and the first since czarist times to show the Russian flag.

- Armenia’s first stamp since it became part of the Soviet Union in 1922 is expected to honor a multinational corporation, the United States-based American Telephone & Telegraph Co., which installed telephone switching equipment in Yerevan, the capital, last October.

- A January, 1991, shipment of Lithuanian stamps, printed in Leipzig, Germany, was impounded at the Lithuanian border by Soviet officials until the Soviet Union recognized the Baltic state in September.

None of the new stamps approaches in value the jewels of the philatelic world, valued at more than $1 million each. These include an 1856 penny magenta British Guiana stamp, an 1855 Swedish stamp printed in the wrong color (yellowish instead of blue-green), and an 1840 black British penny stamp pasted on the inverse side of a Mulready envelope--an envelope with the postage printed on it.

Rarity is one of the prime determinants of stamp value. In general, stamps are issued today in quantities that prevent their prices from rising above face value.

Philately has never quite recovered from the boom-and-bust market of the late 1970s and early 1980s, when non-philatelist investors saw stamps as a good short-term investment and inflation hedge. Prices zoomed when they entered the market and plunged when they left.

But the new issues, while not raising stamp prices, are giving new life to philately as a hobby.

“I don’t think the new issues will raise values but it will affect collecting. People will collect the new stamps and then go back for the old ones,” says Keith Wagner, executive director of the American Philatelic Society.

The society estimates that there are some 250,000 serious stamp collectors in the United States. The major industrial nations--Britain, Germany, France and Japan in particular--also have many collectors.

Most philatelists collect stamps from their own country or that of their forebears. But anything is fair game. At least one U.S. philatelist collects stamps from Memel, an area in Lithuania that was briefly autonomous between the world wars.

“Stamps are little pieces of paper with historic and geographic significance. You get to possess a chunk of history,” says Michael Schrieber of Linn’s Stamp News, the leading U.S. philatelic weekly.

The history displayed can be both symbolic and deceptive. Glasnost brought with it Soviet stamps commemorating former non-persons Andrei Sakharov and Boris Pasternak and British double agent Kim Philby.

But East Germany ignored its merger with West Germany on Oct. 3, 1990. The day before the merger it issued stamps that celebrated international aeronautics and the 100th anniversary of the death of Heinrich Schliemann, who found the ancient city of Troy.

Yugoslavia also looked the other way as it was falling apart. While Croatia issued stamped envelopes that displayed the plea “Stop the War in Croatia” in English, Yugoslav stamps showed birds, flowers and Olympic events.

Now, with international recognition of Slovene and Croatian independence, stamps from those states are being used internationally without Yugoslav stamps.

Collecting new issues can be tricky because it isn’t always clear when a stamp is legitimate.

A stamp is whatever a nation’s postal authority issues and accepts for postage. Sometimes a stamp is valid only within a country and for mail to its neighbors.

About 10 years ago, a rebel group in Eritrea--which plans a referendum later this year to cement its independence from Ethiopia--had stamps printed, but they were sold only to dealers, not in Eritrea. Those stamps were not considered legitimate, says Denise Hatton, a new issues expert with Linn’s Stamp News.

But last October, a new stamp from Eritrea was used to mail an envelope to Indiana. It appears legitimate, but has only been received once by one collector, Hatton says.

For other countries, such as those once in the Soviet Union, it’s a matter of picking up where they left off decades ago.

The first new Estonian and Latvian stamps, issued in October, show each nation’s coat of arms and denominations without a currency symbol--likely in anticipation of dropping the Russian ruble.

A Soviet stamp program agreed upon in March--before the Soviet Union broke up--will be carried out by the new Commonwealth of Independent States. But no “Commonwealth” stamps are planned, says Jim Helzer, executive secretary of the Russia Stamp Agency of North America, which formerly sold Soviet stamps.

The first Russian issue, which appeared on Jan. 10, includes three stamps commemorating the 1992 Winter Olympics in France. They are the first stamps to say “Russia” since 1918.

The Soviet Union itself went out with a philatelic whimper. Its last stamps, issued Dec. 12, featured four pre-Russian Revolution historians.