Some stamp ID confirmation and questions

The last one is from Estonia

Well I kinda got them right! Though Italy and Libya are quite a distance apart! 😀 Thanks for the quick response.

The first stamp is from the R.S.F.S.R (Russian Socialist Federation of Soviet Republics, I think it means). This is from the period 1917-1920 after the Bolchevik Revolution but before the Soviet Union was formally established. The 40P overprint is an overprint of a tsarist Russian stamp in the early Revolution and Russian civil war era. The other ones with the eagle design are tsarist Russia issues (i.e. pre-1917). I'm not an expert in this area so I'll defer to more knowledgeable members for exact identification.

Bohemia and Moravia (Böhmen und Mähren) was the German puppet state installed in Czechoslovakia during their Occupation in 1939-1945.

Fezzan and Ghadamès correspond to Western Libya, and were indeed the parts of that then-Italian possession that the Free French Forces invaded during World War II from Algeria/Tunisia in the West and Chad in the South. Fezzan has some beautiful designs and is one of my favourites countries, but difficult to find!

Identifying Western Sahara (RASD = République Arabe Saharaouie Démocratique) with Morocco is as insulting to some as misidentifying Catalonia for Spain! Western Sahara has been in the throes of a civil war of independence from Morocco since Spain pulled out in 1976 (after Franco's death) and gave the territory to the Cherifian monarchy, while a significant portion of the local population wanted outright independence and formed the Polisario front that has been fighting the Moroccan army ever since, with the support of Algeria (and, for a time, Mauritania as well). This conflict flared up again a few weeks ago, actually. The RASD has not yet been formally recognized internationally, though, so the RASD stamps were more a public relations effort to get the country noticed, and I've only seen them as mint or CTOs, with no real postal usage, so most catalogs do not mention them. The UN has resolved for an independence referendum to be held, but Morocco has always refused (or demanded that all Morrocans, not just the Saharaouis, take part in the referendum, to ensure annexation would win). This resistance to the referendum is what got Morrocco kicked out of the African Union.

Wow!  Thanks for all this background! I had no idea of the history. I just googled West Sahara occ RASD. My guess is this stamp has been in my collection a long time.  I certainly don’t remember buying it. I haven’t purchased world wide stamps for many years. Maybe a decade or more. 

Thanks, khj and wakeybluenose and hrdoktorx for the history lesson! 🙂

As vikingeck said, the "Marka" currency is a hint of Finland. This was their currency before the Euro.

There are numerous sites to help identify a stamp by country/area, but not many of them are truly illustrated.  You can do some googling for stamp identifier, but avoid the "catalog" sites if you are simply first trying to find out the country/area.

For the Russian area issues, the Scott catalog does have a basic illustrated identifier section (about 2 pages covering the Russia area).  Linn's had it available online for downloading at one time, but I can no longer find the link.  Maybe someone else has the link.

Since Linn's had it available online, I assume it is public domain.  If you are interested, I can email it to you.  However, it is from last decade.  They upgraded the identifier since then, but I can only email you the one that I believe is in public domain.  Send me a PM if interested.

Ah yes, the Finland serpentines are to die for! Once I saw them, I ended up not only jumping into Finland 15 years ago, but dug into Scandinavia. Technically I still collect WW, but my desk has been surrounded by Sweden and the other Scandinavian areas for the past 5 years.

The Estonian language is closely related to Finnish. Their currency names are similar but not exactly the same.  On old Estonian stamps (1919-1928), you have 1 mark / 2 marka (and penni for smaller amounts, like our cents), whereas on Finnish stamps you'll see 1 markka / 2 markkaa (and penniä for smaller amounts).  After 1928, Estonia called their currency the kroon, and eventually like Finland they moved to the Euro.

A more certain way of identifying Estonian stamps comes from finding "Eesti" somewhere on the stamp.  There are some low-priced occupation stamps you might see where you also see the German name "Estland" on the stamp.

Ryan (who is 1/4 Estonian ...)

polarbear , hun, compared to the general population here in the USA, as a stamp collector, your knowledge of geography easily places you ahead of 95% of most Americans! You go, girl! 

LoL if you were to ask many Americans “What is Estonia?” in a multi choices quiz, they would probably pick “a marijuana shop in Colorado.” Hahaha!

philatelia 😂😂😂. Thankfully I’m not that bad!

We're so US-centric, too.  I always get it wrong when I reply Tbilisi to the question "What is the capital of Georgia?"

Regarding the Canadian Fortress of Louisbourg stamps:  Are these stamps? Or what?

In the future, if you want to delete a post, you can click on the gear icon at the top right of your post.  There should be a "Delete Post" option between "Report Post" and "Member".  I believe there is a time limit regarding deleting/editing posts, but not sure what is the current time limit.  If you don't see the "Delete Post" option in the drop-down, that means it's already past the time limit.

But don't delete it this time, because then my post looks strange.