Stamp Sleuth Looks Into The Complex History of Stamps From Czechoslovakia

[@lucchese20]

While I don’t collect stamps from Czechoslovakia, I find your overview very interesting. Thank you for sharing. 🙏🏻

[@StampSleuth]

Thanks for watching!

[@GreatStampAdventure]

I also don't really know Czechoslovakian stamps, but I really like the stamp designs of a certain period - I am not exactly sure, but it could be about the 50s and 60s. Thanks for showing us the stamps, Sleuth.

[@StampSleuth]

Thanks for sharing!!

[@Robertbrown08049]

The first stamps of Czechoslovakia were designed by the famous artist Alfons Mucha. I love his art. There are others but any Czech stamp that say Doplatit ot Doplatne are Postage Due stamps. When I first started collecting stamps I bought a lot of country packets. All the sets were missing the high values. I did not think anything about that as I assumed that I could just pick those up later. Unfortunately I was new and did not realize that nobody would have just the high values and that I would have to buy the whole set again to get them. I also remember buying a year set- all the stamps issued by Russia in 1964. After putting them in my album, I was so proud to have all these pages completely full. I did not learn until much later that they were all CTO's and being a kid collector I did not know what they were. I loved space stamps when I was a kid (we had not landed on the moon yet) and Czechoslovakia had a lot of space stamps. The stamp with the leaves are Linden leaves which is the National Tree of Czechoslovakia. Please recheck your catalogue as the Ceska Republic does continue after Czerchoslovakia starting in the 90's.

[@StampSleuth]

I think we all went through like experiences as youngsters! Many thanks for watching and leaving so great a comment. I will check that catalogue again!

[@voneschenbachmusic]

I like Czechoslovakia stamps, the designs are nice and the illustrations can be entertaining. I am glad that Czechia and Slovakia continued the design language. There are a lot of interesting used varieties in the early issues from towns that continued to use old Austro-Hungarian cancellations for a bit.

[@StampSleuth]

I totally agree!

[@kozzackkelt]

Thanks for the video! Czechoslovakia had some great, beautifully engraved, colorful postage stamps - a real shame so many are CTO.... Just a bit of trivia - several of the early CZ. stamps were designed by Alfons Mucha, a great Art Deco artist. In my 2022 Scotts, "Czech Republic" follows the Czech. section in the volume with "Cz"..... Slovakia in volume with "Sl"....

[@StampSleuth]

One of my all time favorite artiest is Mucha! I had a chance to buy one of his posters once but lost out on the bid ah... regrets. Many thanks for the superb comment and for watching!

[@ptrinch]

In Scott's, Czech Republic simply continues the Czechoslovakia section, while inexplicably keeping "Czechoslovakia" as the page header. Also, Slovakia picks up in it's own section from where it left off in 1944. The Czech section starts in 1993 with stamps #2877. Incidentally, I'm still trying to figure out how Scott's catalogue decides the country headings. For example... Upper Volta becomes Burkina Faso in 1984 - Stamps listed as Burkina Faso Burma becomes Myanmar is 1990 - Stamps listed as Burma Czechoslovakia becomes Czech Republic in 1993 - Stamps listed as Czechoslovakia Ceylon becomes Sri Lanka in 1972 - Stamps split under each name so you have to buy two different volumes if that's what you collect.

[@StampSleuth]

Yes its very confusing at times! Thanks for watching and leaving such a great comment.

[@DrewM91105]

If you give it some time, it will make sense. Scott uses the commonly-used name of a country. In 1960, when it became independent, the Belgian Congo became Democratic Republic of the Congo which became Zaire a few decades later which then reverted to Dem. Rep. of the Congo. All countries have a right to name themselves and have no obligation to keep an older name. For example, Croatia and Slovenia are not longer "Yugoslavia". Upper Volta was the old name of that country, Burkina Faso is its current name. That's pretty straightforward. Czechoslovakia ended in 1993 when it broke up into the Czech Republic (sometimes called "Czechia") and Slovakia, its two constituent states. That's where all subsequent stamps will be found. That's also easy. Ceylon, as you note, has not been the name of the country of Sri Lanka for 50 years so why would anyone think to look only under "Ceylon"? Did you not get that memo? As for Myanmar, the problem is that this name was somewhat forced onto Burma by its ruling military government so the world is not ready to use that name, therefore many people still prefer "Burma" so Scott has also kept that name. That may be hard to understand, but (1) it's been in the news for many years, and (2) even if you've been too busy to know that, these catalogues include a complete index of ALL countries giving the volume they are in. It's in the back of every volume of the catalogue.

[@attylahun5462]

Czechoslovakia had very nice stamps, very often engraved, which I really appreciate. Unfortunately, they are often undervalued by collectors due to their high circulation numbers during the communist era and the mass production of CTOs.

[@StampSleuth]

I fully agree, they are also great for topical collectors

[@attylahun5462]

@@StampSleuth Of course. If you're not looking at stamps in terms of their rarity, value, or investment opportunity, this is a great material to collect. Yes, it's a real gold mine for topical collections - flora, fauna, sports, space and, of course, communism.

[@StampThis-1963]

There are CTO's that have Catalogue prices soooooo I collect ALL stamps 😂😂😂

[@StampSleuth]

Great reason to collect them plus they often are quite lovely! Many thanks for watching and for leaving a comment, much appreciated!

[@DrewM91105]

I don't see any point in spending even this much time looking through a collection like this. Only a few stamps from Czechoslovakia have high value, including a few early airmails, a few semis, and a very small number of other stamps. The vast majority of Czech stamps, all issued in the 20th century after all, don't have much value. Look for those high value stamps in the collection, and you can ignore all the others. Turning the pages, that should take almost no time to do. I didn't see any of these stamps, so as someone who has a Czech collection, I can say this collection is somewhat of a beginner's collection and is worth very little. The only other possible value might be if the collector had an enormous number of the common stamps in very good condition year after year. Some collectors would like that to fill many empty spaces in their album especially if many were MNH. Since it's quickly obvious that neither of these applies to this collection, it's just not worth much. This should take any experienced stamp person just a few moments to determine. If you aren't sure about a country just browse the catalogue for a few minutes and look for the higher value stamps -- usually in a country's early years. Then look for those stamps in the collection. Also, if I can say this, it made me very uncomfortable to see you running your hands over the pages as you were. I realize they're in plastic page holders, so no damage, but if you got into that habit, with a different collection you could do some real damage -- and you'd make that collector very upset.

[@StampSleuth]

Many thanks for watching. I understand your point and only put this video up to show stamps from that country. For me, its not all about values but about the love of collecting.