Talk:List of entities that have issued postage stamps (A–E)

2003 edits

To whoever wants to dink with this; the links to renamed countries could go direct, but the country article should have a note about the renaming, including its dates. Dead countries absorbed into a present-day country can link to the country, but the country article needs to say that this happened, and when, and have minimal thumbnail about the absorbee. Anything complicated, like Italian occupation of the Aegean islands, should have its own article. The idea is that a person with a stamp ought to be able to use wikipedia to find out the story behind the mysterious name on the stamp. Stan Shebs 07:44 Feb 18, 2003 (UTC)

There should be a better way to present the entities than to use all those badly named subpages. --Lorenzarius 15:25 Feb 18, 2003 (UTC)

Absolutely. The entries are ugly because they're extracted from a database, and their only virtue is uniqueness. Military occupations can be complicated to describe - the tangle of stamps is mute evidence - but until the articles exist, it will be hard to decide how the links should work. For instance, Horta as a stamp issuer was never more than an administrative district of the Azores, so I made info about the stamps be part of the Azores info, but it also happens to be a town, which is only relevant in that most letters using Horta stamps will have been postmarked in Horta town. Stan Shebs 18:16 Feb 18, 2003 (UTC)

dead countries

What a blunt name! :-) How about provinces that formerly issued postage? Are they called dead "countries" as well? --Menchi 04:49, 2 Dec 2003 (UTC)

Yeah, one of the reasons why I don't favor the term. A nine-week military occupation of a city can and does issue its own stamps, but it consists of a rented printing press and a guy at HQ selling them, a pretty far cry from a "country". I guess it's a useful abstraction for philatelists, and not as alien-invasion-sounding as "entity". :-) Stan 05:14, 2 Dec 2003 (UTC)

---

It's actually universal philatelic usage (including in the UK, for instance by Stanley Gibbons) to say "Great Britain" instead of "United Kingdom". To see it in Google, compare things like '"great britain offices" morocco' to '"united kingdom offices" morocco', you'll see 10x or more in favor of GB. Stan 14:15, 23 Feb 2004 (UTC)

Omissions

Someone with an accurate list of these entities should carefully re-check this list. Or is it true that the peoples of Spain and Togo distain the use of stamps? MeltBanana 16:42, 28 January 2006 (UTC)

As it says at the top, "The list excludes the current members of the UPU", but people are not getting it, because they keep wanting to add countries. This list is really "dead countries that philatelists care about", I've never been happy with the current title. Stan 04:32, 29 January 2006 (UTC)

Ah that will teach me to read an article before complaining about it but I do think the current organisation is far from good. If this is going to be confined to defunct entities it sould be more explicitly said in the title as Togo and Sapin 'have issued stamps but still do. Also the companion Postal organizations is odd as they are not actually organisations like GPO and USPS but just a list of countries. I would think readers are better served if the list are merged with some identifier for existing entites, anyone agree? If not rename them something like List of countries with current Postal organizations and List of defunct postage stamp issuing entities or some combination so they near match.MeltBanana 19:08, 29 January 2006 (UTC)

Soviet Union?

The Soviet Union isn't on this list, and neither are the RSFSR, Soviet Armenia (Independent), The Republic of the Far East, Federated Transcaucasia, the Tuva Republic, the Bukhara Emirate/Buhara Soviet Republic, and so on. These seem to be significant ommisions, is there a reason they're not here that I'm missing? I'm not certain of the qualifications neccesary.

Correction, Tuva is on the list. Crocodilicus 04:05, 25 April 2006 (UTC)

Format Revised

I've been trying for a couple of weeks to put together a definitive list of needed country surveys and it occurred to me that this list is the ideal place to do it. The list itself was not helping us much because nearly all the links were to the entity main articles (e.g., to Peru and not to the postage of Peru). I was also aware, by reference to the compendium, that quite a lot of material could be added so I decided to kill two birds with one stone.

I realise this has left us with three lists instead of one but we did have a size problem that we should have resolved. I also realise that it has created a large and unrecommended number of redlinks but, given my purpose, I feel justified in doing this. The redlinks can be used in the short to medium term to instigate creation of stubs. I have material about most of the redlink entities that, given time, I can use to create a large number of stubs. Stan has provided a huge number of images that can be used and so I think that, providing no one expects Rome to be built in a day, we can use this list as our basis for development.

The titles I have used in the redlinks are up for grabs given the length of some that I have tried to shorten. I realise a lot of display titles have been missed out but I did the work on a text processor before uploading it and I was a little hidebound by some of the more extensive titles on offer. Our standard is of course "Postage stamps and postal history of X" but please bear in mind that it is not entirely useful when it prefaces the Mahra Sultanate of Qishn and Socotra!! If the article is re post abroad, particularly an occupation issue, then I suggest we should use something like "German post in occupied Poland" or "German post offices in China".

--BlackJack | ^{talk page} 11:04, 23 July 2006 (UTC)

What you're doing is similar to User:Stan Shebs/Philatelic accounts, which I once upon a time intended to be the main list to general surveys, while the "list of entities" was more to ensure that everything had an article irrespective of whether there was any philatelic content for it. That's why current UPU members aren't here, it's the list of "everything else". To some extent this list has outlived its usefulness; when I started it was nearly all red, now only a handful of articles are still missing. Stan 12:32, 23 July 2006 (UTC)

Ah, that's interesting. I admit I didn't realise the "list of entities" was designed re the entities per se (i.e., not necessarily philatelic). In that case, I see the difference and you're right that there were very few redlinks left. But, as you say, that does mean it has outlived its usefulness and we now need to address the philatelic content. I think there is one thing we (especially I) must not forget, and I notice you raised the point way back in 2003 (see above), which is that we must ensure connectivity and cross-referencing between the philatelic article (if independent) and the general entity article. Isn't this word "entity" awful, but it is actually fit for our purpose! --BlackJack | ^{talk page} 14:29, 23 July 2006 (UTC)

Crete

I've removed two spurious entries under Crete. The first was for Ottoman issues; however, there were no Ottoman issues for specific use in Crete (although there were some specific revenue stamps). The second was for Austro-Hungarian Post Office in Crete; however, again there were no stamps issued specifically for use by these post offices. In former years it was traditional in many quarters to refer to the Austro-Hungarian stamps issued in French currency as being for the Post Office in Crete; however, these issues were used in Austro-Hungarian Post Offices across the Turkish Empire and stamps in both Turkish and French currencies (and in earlier times in Lombardy-Venetian currency) were used in the Austro-Hungarian Post Offices in Crete. Nigel Campbell (talk) 01:01, 16 January 2011 (UTC)

Name List Format Revisit Suggestion

Firstly, let me say how great it is that such a list exists. As a collector, identifying the country or entity of origin of stamps have always been somewhat challenging and, to me at least, has been one of the greatest pleasures of this hobby. The process is a lesson in geography and history all rolled in one.

On this premise, I wonder if I could suggest that this list, being the starting reference for a collector especially a new and inexperience one, be sorted according to the name that appears on the stamp. I think this would be the most natural way a person would start searching when using this list. In order words, if I have an "Ajman" at hand (wallpaper or otherwise aside), I would naturally look for the "Ajman" entry on this list, which at the moment, there is none. It would take some off-list research to know that Ajman is listed under the "Trucial States" or the "UAE" entry.

I understand that this could cause the three lists that we have here to balloon, with the possibility of many repeated entries. Hence, it may be that the "Ajman" entry just directs the person searching to the "Trucial States" entry, or even the "UAE" entry, which would have a list of all previous stamp issuing entities within that geographical area prior to it becoming unified under the UAE.

Or there can be a link to the "Postage stamps and Postal History of Ajman" page if there is already one, and a second item on the list (the first item being "Ajman - 1967-1973") which says "United Arab Emirates - 1973-" or whatever the years may be.

I believe this is how physical stamp catalogues are listed and I do not see any reason why our three stamp issuing entity lists here in Wikipedia should be difference, at least from the standpoint of a user.

This forum has been quiet for quite a while, but I have seen people editing the page proper. Hence, keen to hear views on this. Thanks. Slleong (talk) 06:00, 21 March 2016 (UTC)

Mixture in Congo

There's a mixture between the two Congos. Of course the Belgian Congo never was in the Repúblic of Congo (Brazzaville), before Moyen Congo, but in the Democratic Republic of Congo (Kinshasa). Same for Burundi. And the Independent State of Congo was directly the antecedent of Congo Democratic Republic (Kinshaha). In fact the issues of the restablished democratic republic, seems to be still under Zaire. The Republic of Congo stamps must be in the republic of Congo instead in the democratic republic.--Jolle (talk) 21:44, 18 December 2020 (UTC)