Benin is one of those countries that suffers from countless illegal bogus issues floating around, created with their country name, but have no connection at all to the postal service of Benin.
This has been discussed at length online, and here are a few posts dealing with the subject on stampboards( Stamp from Republique Du Benin? Real? Fake? or illegal? ” and “Stamps of the Republic of Cabinda – Discussion on Benin follows” )
Many of the issues are also listed in various UPU bulletins warning of the issue. This 2004 Bulletin describes some. As well as this 2006 one.
I have a few of these issues, but I can’t quite match them exactly to the descriptions in the bulletins I have found.
This first set, featuring birds is the only one listed in StampWorld catalog as numbers 1292 – 1303 (2000) – But not in Scott.
According to StampWorld – This looks to be the complete set of these bird stamps.
This second group of dogs, fungus, and cats I can’t find listed anywhere.
Even though they are illegals – I always keep these examples as I find them, because, they are still part of the story of philately – Even though they were never used on mail.
Update: See note from Keijo below in the comments. Michel does list some of these stamps.
Hi Eric,
actually your bird set is two stamps short. You’re short for both of the 400 franc values.
Re, the birds (as well as the 2000 dogs + 2000 chinese new year) are listed in Michel with roman numbers with note “prepared for issue, but due to technical issues never distributed and used in Benin” (there’s several more similar issues in following year)
The 2002/2003 dogs and minerals are footnoted on Michel but no numbers of any kind assigned due to “released by printer without official authorization”.
Nothing about the kittens ;(
-k-
PS. Nice to see you back on the blog 🙂
Thanks Keijo – I don’t have Michel yet for Africa, Middle East or Asia (most). Glad to see that information is out there on these.
Also – I looked back at the StampWorld link – and sure enough, I see the 2 400fr values – Totally missed them.
Hi Keijo,
A new project is in the works. Illegal Stamps.
Noting in search I found this post.
I have created a 7 page set showing full images of all the Benin illegal stamps created in 2002 and 2003 that are listed in UPU circular 30. There are many more not listed. The immoral sexually explicit section has not been made obviously because any of those are obvious fakes.
You can get to the section from my introductory page on illegal stamps.
Here is the link.
Illegal Stamps
I note that comments above mention Michel stating prepared for use and released by printer without official authorization as excuses for listing them.
They were produced by an immoral and unethical stamp dealer and associates who has nothing to do with Benin at all! This dealer has a notorious history of producing these type of fakes along with many other types such as British locals and fake “reprints”. A professional and lucrative producer with decades of experience who has never been exposed except in small ways. If fully exposed it will rock the stamp community to the very core because so many leaders, dealers and “experts” in the philatelic world have allowed this one group to produce and flood the market with this worthless junk for decades right under their very noses.
Michel listing any of these issues at all without proper identification of what they are which is plain and simple…FAKE ILLEGAL STAMPS….denounced by the Benin postal authorities, is simply enabling the producer to continue to create illegal stamps. It shows that even that catalog has become “unreliable” as a source because of influence by stamp dealers to get this junk listed has been bowed down to.
A problem for most with UPU circulars is that they are difficult to get to, difficult to define, and are not even looked at by most collectors of topicals thus they do not even know they are fakes. Recommended policy for years has been to NOT show images. This has proven to be a complete failure and the policy was influenced by sellers of this junk so people would not SEE them for what they are.
The latest circulars do show images but now you have to be a UPU member to even see the circulars.
My goal for the section is to show the verified illegal issues as images, watermarked with “Illegal Stamps”, which will be picked up by the major search engines and placed right next to images from sellers of this junk.
For Benin the majority of stamps being sold on eBay, Delcampe and many, many other venues for this time era are illegals. There are many large volume sellers peddling hundreds of lots of them. Some considered “reputable” dealers who sell many legitimate issues as well. My recommendation is….if they are selling illegal stamps….AVOID them no matter what they sell. Even if you only buy legitimate stamps from the seller you are still supporting the buying and selling of illegal stamps. To stop the sale of them you must stop the sale of ALL stamps from that dealer until they comply and STOP selling illegals.
Because of the massive numbers of illegals that have been produced for many countries it will take several years to create pages following the UPU circulars. I will produce them as time permits. A major portion of them have been created by this one group and it is absolutely incredible that they have not been exposed for it when it is so obvious as to who it is. For this the U.P.U. has failed miserably in enforcing their own international laws.
Comments and suggestions are welcome if appropriate on the site and you can contact me directly there. Please help in the fight against illegal stamps by getting the word out and not buying from any seller who offers them.
Thank you for the info. Good information
John – nice to see a visual compilation of the illegals. As always, it is highly valued by those of us who (try to) collect the world. Almost wet my pants when I saw those Vin Diesel stamps (who on earth wants to buy ‘labels’ with images Vin Diesel? Seriously???) . So sad to see the number of these, but it’s a crazy world we live in…
-keijo-