I was going through some stamps from my old Harris Statesman album - the one I worked on when I was around 10 years old, when I came upon this one. At first, I was going to put it in the junk pile - it seemed CTO and the stamp has quite a bit of damage. Then I decided, "What the hey ... let's see if it appears in Scott". It didn't - no surprise, really - I have a fair number of 'desert' issues. Then I noticed that it is labelled "State of Oman". That raised my eyebrows, since all the stamp issues in Scott are "Sultanate of Oman"
Which brings me to my question ... is this a bogus stamp of some form, or is there another story behind it? Any information would be more than welcome.
APS life member of 25+ years 25 Jan 2016 03:30:39pm
re: Is there a story behind this Omani stamp?
The State of Oman is a bogus entity created by a Scottish stamp dealer (whose name I don't remember). There are a number of issues - some are well produced while others are junk - all are Cinderellas.
The Sultanate of Oman is the official stamp issuing entity of Oman recognized by the UPU.
Member of RPSL, APS, GBOS, India Study Circle 04 Feb 2016 03:26:38am
re: Is there a story behind this Omani stamp?
State of Oman 'stamps' such as the above were issued by the 'government' of the Imamate of Oman in exile. This government in exile was set up after Imam Ghalib bin Ali al-Hinai's followers in Oman were defeated by the forces of Sultan Said bin Taimur in 1957-1959 and had to leave Oman. They set up offices in friendly Arab capitals, including Cairo, Beirut and Baghdad and lobbied for international recognition. Most Arab countries recognised them as the legitimate Omani government.
The stamps were the brainchild of Youssef Salim Tadros, once (in 1963) postmaster in Sharjah and later a partner in Middle East Stamps, Beirut. He got himself appointed as postal adviser to the exiled government. The latter obtained some status with the Arab Postal Union in 1966 and Tadros started issuing stamps in 1967. Since the rebels had long left Oman and did not have any postal services there, the letters with the stamps were dispatched from Baghdad (January 1968 only), then from Amman (until 1971) and later from Damascus (until June 1972). This means that the issues from 1967 to 1972 had postal validity in the abovementioned places. When the stamps could no longer be used postally after June 1972, Tadros ceased to issue State of Oman stamps. The stamp under discussion in this forum falls in the Tadros period but is one of the few which I do not remember having seen on postally used covers.
One of Tadros' partners, the late Clive Feigenbaum in London, continued to print new stamps for State of Oman (and also fur Dhufar, a province of today's Sultanate of Oman) until 1986. These "Feigenbaum issues", of course, did not see any postal use. They were done in sheetlets of 8 different se-tenant stamps, same as Feigenbaum did for Staffa, Nagaland, Eynhallow, ISO, etc.
No Scot involved, as far as I can see ...
Being a collector of Oman in general since 1967, I was first alerted to these State of Oman issues in 1969 and have followed the affair in depth ever since. I have several philatelic publications on Oman in the pipeline but have to wait for retirement to be able to finalise them ...
APS life member of 25+ years 05 Feb 2016 01:41:11pm
re: Is there a story behind this Omani stamp?
Thanks for adding the name of the British stamp dealer who created these cinderellas.
Nagaland is the northeast province/state of India that was grumbling about secession so the bogus stamps were created for that.
ISO is a Swedish island in the Baltic - photo nudes of women on one set of those cinderellas
Eynhallow is in Scotland
Staffa is a volcanic isle in Scotland with Finigan's cave. There was a person living there in the 19th Century. 20 Century tour boar operaters erected a letter box for the tourists to post their postcards - Staffa stamp plus British postage. A later owner of the island removed the letter box. The isle is privately owned.
I'm a cinderella collector so I have done research on these issues over the years.
Member of RPSL, APS, GBOS, India Study Circle 06 Feb 2016 10:58:52am
re: Is there a story behind this Omani stamp?
Thanks for adding the infos about Feigenbaum's "teritories".
On second thoughts: Clive Feigenbaum owned the island of Easdale, west of Scotland. Perhaps that is the "Scottish" connection mentioned above.
Notwithstanding some of his apparently dubious philatelic dealings, Clive was a great character and a very charming person. I always enjoyed our meetings tremendously.
Joachim
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