I'm working on a new web page about a cover posted by the Armenian-American writer, William Saroyan. Could someone with a Scott Specialized U.S. catalogue please look up the quantity of William Saroyan stamps issued in 1991? It's Scott # 2538, and was a joint issue with Russia.
I don't know if information about the Russian version is available (nor do I know the catalogue number of the Russian version), but it would be useful to have the quantity of that stamp as well.
They who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety. -Benjamin Franklin 27 Apr 2014 01:13:22pm
U.S. #2538 - 29¢ William Saroyan - Literary Arts
Issue Date: May 22, 1991
City: Fresno, CA
Quantity: 161,498,000
Printed By: J.W. Fergusson & Sons for American Bank Note Co.
Printing Method: Photogravure
Perforations: 11
Color: Multicolored
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"The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing. -Edmund Burke"
Here's a puzzle: In working on my William Saroyan web page, I learned about a 2008 Armenian stamp commemorating his birth. On eBay, I found and bought a maximum card for that stamp, shown below:
Aside from a mint pane and a single mint stamp, I have not been able to find one other stamp, mint or used, in an extensive google search. No FDCs or postally used covers, either. EBay and Delcampe offer scores of mint U.S. and Russian stamps and FDCs, but none of the Armenian stamps, at least currently. Why is that? Our experience in the last several decades is that most countries issue so many copies of any given issue that they essentially have no market value, but are nevertheless commonly available. Not so with the Armenian Saroyan stamp. Is it because there was a very small number of the stamps issued? Is it because there is little demand? Your thoughts will be appreciated.
There was an article in Linns a few weeks ago regarding new issues. Countries used to print stamps in the millions. With the lack of demand for stamps over the past couple of decades, countries are still putting out large numbers of new issues, but instead of printing them in the millions, they are now just printing them in a couple hundred thousand or even just tens of thousands.
This does not bode well for collectors on several points:
- too many new issues are being released
- new issues tend to have high face values
- dealers cannot afford to obtain supplies of new issues from all countries
- new issues are being released in greatly reduced quantities
- collectors cannot find the new issues
- high face value and demand for many new issues will push after-market catalog values high
Too many new issues indeed! Too many new countries!
Just today I received an eBay purchase from someplace I'd never heard of, identified on one stamp as the Republic of Nagorno-Karabakh and the other as the Republic of Mountainous Karabakh.
According to Wikipedia, the official name is the Nagorno-Karabakh Republic. Wikipedia goes on to say,
"Nagorno-Karabakh or Mountainous Karabakh is a landlocked region in the South Caucasus, lying between Lower Karabakh and Zangezur and covering the southeastern range of the Lesser Caucasus mountains. The region is mostly mountainous and forested.
"Most of the region is governed by the Nagorno-Karabakh Republic, a de facto independent but unrecognized state established on the basis of the former Nagorno-Karabakh Autonomous Oblast within the Azerbaijan SSR of the Soviet Union. The territory is internationally recognized as part of Azerbaijan, which has not exercised power over most of the region since 1991. Since the end of the Nagorno-Karabakh War in 1994, representatives of the governments of Armenia and Azerbaijan have been holding peace talks mediated by the OSCE Minsk Group on the region's disputed status."
Now, really, is there anyone who would be seriously interested in the stamps and postal history of the Nagorno-Karabakh Republic? Will anyone publish stamp albums for this area? Who has the patience and desire to keep up with these political perturbations? Well, I'm sure that there are indeed some collectors willing to work on such collections, but not me!