Dead country stamps

I recently put up the entire country collection of Allenstein here. Just do a search on Allenstein.

I think that is the only 'dead' country I have.

I do collect «  dead country » stamps, but not exclusively. When price is right and I like the stamp, i acquire. I do not have that many as I try to focus on other areas. I love the history involved with these countries.

A great site that you might find interesting is :     www.dcstamps.com.   I found out about this site on the Forum a few months ago. A well written and interesting site.  The writer gives his explanation as to what he considers a «  dead country » to be.  

I think there may be a thread or two about these countries here on the Forum.

happy collecting,

David

Thanks for starting this thread, nikhil .  This has been an interesting discussion.  Sorry to be a little bit late to the party.

With a primary collection of worldwide material from 1840-1930, in fact, many of the stamps in my collection from that time period are considered to be from so-called "dead countries".  Personally, I was never a big fan of the term, as I find the word "dead" to have such a strong negative connotation.

There is no doubt that the term has long had a place in stamp collecting, as I can recall seeing and hearing it back when I first started collecting more than 50 years ago.  Stamp dealers seemed especially fond of using the term, I think, to attract interest from young collectors.  "Dead countries" sounds a bit sensational, I always thought, and of course, attracted my interest almost immediately, so I guess it was used effectively as a marketing strategy anyway.

But perhaps more importantly, at least to me, is that the term is not really accurate.  If something is truly dead, it should not be able to return to being what it was before it died.  In the case of dead countries, I can recall that with the coming of the Soviet Union, stamp-issuing entities like Latvia, Estonia, Lithuania, Azerbaijan, Ukraine, etc. were all considered dead countries back in the 1960s and 1970s, but of course, with the eventual demise of the Soviet Union, they have all become stamp-issuing entities again!

So, to my thinking, these countries were never really dead in the first place.  They were temporarily part of another country, and now are independent again.  In fact, throughout world history, there are many such changes that happen as a result of colonization, movement of borders, formation of empires/unions/countries, dissolution of empires/unions/countries, independence, war, annexation, etc.  These things are still happening in our world today, of course.

Getting back to the other part of your request, if you do a little looking on TSF, you will find many posts with photos of material from so-called dead countries.  One of my personal favorites are the stamps of Lagos: thestampforum.boards.net/post/46930/thread

Today, Lagos is part of an independent Nigeria, so I think that this would be considered, at least as a stamp-issuing entity, to be a dead country.

Edit:  Another entity which should also qualify as a dead country is Hawaii, now part of the U.S., of course:  thestampforum.boards.net/post/45012/thread