Dahomey: Stamps

Dahomey suffer like all French Colonies from Hirschburger forgeries of the early issues:

stampforgeries.com/forged-stamps-of-dahomey/

The faux is only present on some of the forgeries. It Can be removed.

See the difference in the fruit to the right (comparison on the Moheli page)

Most of the overprinted issues from the Navigation & Commerce allegory series, from 1912:

Four Dahomey issues from the second French colonial motif, featuring General Faidherbe and palm trees, issued in 1906-07:

Second tax stamps issue from 1914 and overprints from 1927:

The Dahomey contribution to the French colonial series for the Paris 1937 world expo (6 issues plus an imperforate block)

Then follows the René Caillié colonial issue series:

A new series of definitives was issued in 1941. All stamps now carry an AOF mention:

The horizontal design from the 1941 definitive series was re-used for the Pétain series issued by Vichy France (again never postally used). These are the last standard postage stamps from Dahomey before the switch to French West Africa, until independence in 1960.

Lastly, for French Dahomey, there is another airmail series issued by Vichy France, another common design used for most colonies:



I also have the issues as half-sheets:






















The 50 Fr stamp is known to have been postally used, but not the lower values.

After these, Dahomey disappears philatelically for some 15 years, with a single exception, one of the AOF issues from the F.I.D.E.S. series in 1955, which carries both an "AOF" and a "Dahomey" mention (and which I deeply regret being unable to show you).

Like several other francophone African countries at the time, Dahomey chose se-tenant triangular stamps for its first postage due issues, here featuring transportation themes:



There are also stamps at 10Fr and 30Fr values, which I haven't been able to get yet.

The first block issued by Dahomey after independence was for its admission to the United Nations:

The next series of definitives, issued in 1963, with overprints from 1965 and 1967:

We have seen a similar design already, in thestampforum.boards.net/post/67392/thread, when it was reused for Bénin definitives, but here is an earlier apparition of Dahomey's coat of Arms on its stamps: