Last Updated
26 September 2005


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Thank You to all the people who wrote me to express their appreciation for the restyled site!
As you may see, I'm trying to improve it further, including also additional info.
I appreciate also the continuous feedback from many of you - sometimes I don't have the time to reply to every message, but they're all taken into consideration to correct/improve the site.

The ultimate resource for collecting new stamp issues from the world
The premier resource for Postal Authorities on the net

News previously featured on the homepage

Starting on June 14, 2001 I put here homepage news when they become obsolete.

Updates of year 2003-2004


30 December 2004 New URL, address, e-mail, tel/fax for Jordan Post. Updated Chile and Romania. Happy New Year to everyone!! See you again at this site on 2005!
11 December 2004 Added email address of Swaziland philatelic bureau. Added site of Chad Post and Telecommunications.
22 November 2004 Received phil. info from Uganda, so I've updated postal address, telephone number and fax number.
14 November 2004 Good news: found the new site of Sri Lanka post.
Bad
news: Dutch Post has removed the english version of www.collectclub.nl
28 October 2004 Added Zambia; New e-mail address of Kiribati and Great Britain.
16 September 2004 Romanian philatelic bureau has now its own website!
New e-mail address for Aruba. New URL and e-mail for Nicaragua.
8 September 2004 Just started the country page with links to Great Britain philately. If you want your site featured on that page - or have a suggestion - please email me!
31 August 2004 New postal address of Pitcairn Islands Philatelic Bureau. Kazakhstan has now an online shop. New contact address for BIOT philatelic bureau!
New email address of Kiribati philatelic bureau.
6 August 2004 New URL for Cyprus. Updated Papua New Guinea. Upgraded country page of Poland.
19 July 2004 Updated Local Posts Page!
13 July 2004 Updated Cyprus, Luxembourg, Senegal, Panama, Aland, new address for Poland. Updated country page of Indonesia and Malaysia.
Added e-mail of Ecuador.
26 June 2004 Monaco is finally online with a great site!!
Deleted Mongolia. Updated Kuwait - Mexico - Morocco and Malaysia.
29 May 2004 Croatian Post in Bosnia has a new URL and a new site. Also Slovakia has a new improved site, soon in english.
20 May 2004 Added site of Nepal and Timor Post; Kuwait is back again.
15 May 2004 Updated Croatia. New postal address + email of Slovakia.
7 May 2004 Added e-mail of Albanian Post. New site for Uzbekistan with a complete catalogue of all the stamps issued!
13 April 2004 New email and phone numbers for Greece; New URL for Brunei; Bahrain is now online.
5 April 2004 New site for Guatemala. Updated Venezuela. Added British Forces Post Office. A website of Jugomarka is under construction.
13 March 2004 Great! Received an e-mail from Bulgarian Post with contact details.
5 March 2004 Updated email of Belgium. Added email address of Rwanda.
30 January 2004 The single country stamp links area is being revised and updated after a long time. New countries have been added: Australia, Canada, Netherlands, New Zealand ; and the older pages will be updated (South Africa has already been rewritten).
19 January 2004 Updated everything of Mauritania (new website, address, and e-mail).
New site of Paraguay Correos (plus new email) Madagascar is now online. Ghana removed. Added email address for Seychelles. Please read the newsletter below.
5 January 2004 Added an e-mail address for Dominica and Zimbabwe. Updated Local Posts page. Updated Country Page of France.
21 December 2003 The site has now a new feature: The page with local posts ! Please help me to complete it.
7 December 2003 New URL and e-mail of stamp department of Thailand.
New details for India; Updated Kazakhtan and Turkmenistan.
28 November 2003

New site of Burkina Faso, added Tajikistan and Madagascar; updated Comoro Islands;

23 November 2003 Added email of St. Kitts General Post Office.
1 November 2003 Added email of Guyana and Comores. Updated Uzbekistan.
28 October 2003 Updated Ukraine. Added working email for Mozambique.
22 October 2003 Added post of Cape Verde. Updated Barbados and Grenada.
8 October 2003 Added site of Belize. New URL for El Salvador. Added email address of Jugomarka.
6 October 2003 Added site of Saudi Arabia! Updated URLs of Vietnam, Thailand, Latvia.
3 October 2003 Information about Kosovo restored: now renamed UNMIK Kosova.
New URLs for Bosnia. Added info on Iraq. Now Morocco has an online shop.
New URLs for Ecuador and Thailand.
10 September 2003 Updated exhibition page.
August 2003 New postal address for Iceland. New URL for SMOM.
14 July 2003 New site of Qatar philatelic bureau and new contact details.
9 July 2003 Updated contact information and details of Argentina.
4 July 2003 Incredible news! Afghanistan has a postal website, a postal address, an email, a telephone number and a fax number!! Added postal site of Armenia.
Updated Taiwan Post links.


Problems with Philatelic Bureaus...
29 Jun 2003

I received these messages from collectors which I publish "as they are":

Troubles with GUYANA and ANTIGUA BARBUDA
"Unfortunately, I have also faced ordering problems with two other philatelic bureaus I would like to let others know about. A year and a half ago I ordered stamps from Guyana post with a money order, and when I received my order there were half the stamps missing even though they showed it in the receipt and had charged for it. I wrote them a complain with my documents over a year ago and they haven't responded. Also, I sent a money order to Antigua and Barbuda philatelic bureau and they replied saying that the stamps I wanted were offsale but they had kept my money order and sent me a stocklist of stamps to choose from. I sent them a reply ordering new stamps with the credit I had with them, but I haven't heard back in over 10 months. It seems that the small and hard to reach countries that make many stamps especially for collectors have problems with their customer services!"

Troubles with BHUTAN...
"I want to aware al the Philatelist friends regarding Cheating by Bhutan post to me.
Recently i order USD100 worth of Stamps and sheet to Bhutan post according to their stock list and year pack they sent to me and also posted their web site. But upon received my order i am shoked that I received
all the year Pack incomplete ,even stamps set are incomplete , and also order is incomplete .my two year set is missing. I am writing to them from last 7 days regarding this but they are not even replying my mail. I am unable to undestand what to do. Money is not all but they broke our TRUST.
I just writing you to inform all the Philatelist friend BEWARE OF BHUTAN POST."
"At last Bhutan post send me new stamp on behalf of my 2 missing set. And also agree to take back all the incomplete year set"

...and people satisfied with Bhutan Post

"I read the complaints about the philatelic services of Bhutan. i made several orders to the bhutani philatelic bureau a few years ago, and i would like to tell you my experience. The kingdom send collectors a complete stock list (so honest that they even tell you the number of unsold stamps remained in stock!). Since all stamp sets can be broken up for purchase, and the stock list ONLY lists values > which are STILL in stock, collectors should be smart enough to stay alert that the "sets" in the stock list may actually not be in full sets (some odd values may be sold out). it is a responsibility for collectors to check before placing an order if the sets have all values in stock. I do not think the bhutani are "cheating" any collectors regarding this. Now, about the year pack. if a collector is subtle enough, he should notice that the price of a year pack is LOWER than the total face value of all full stamp sets of that year. The year packs only contain stamps of the year which are STILL available in stock.
"


EuropeanStamps.net
28 Apr 2003

Visiting Belgian Post website I found this link: http://www.europeanstamps.net/
This is a great starting point for collectors of whole Europe. It was a nice surprise for me to discover this great resource. If you are looking for stamps of an european country you will find there a list of dealers, clubs, links, auctions, exhibitions and more. And it's available in 7 languages!

Swapping dutch stamps for birdsets
17 Mar 2003

The Dutch PTT has stopped supplying single sets to foreign collectors. People looking for recent single set(s) may contact Mr Gerard Kolman, a collector from the Netherlands. He will be happy to send in exchange for mint birdsets all over the world. He's not a dealer and don't want to sell large quantities.

Happy New Year 2003 and new e-mail address..
7 Jan 2003

Dear friends and regular contributors, thanks again for your help & support with the site.
Recently I didn't have the time the update it regularly, so please be patient if your link request is not yet satisfied. I will consider every message I receive. Thank you! Have a nice 2003!
Please note that, with the end of January my current e-mail account will be DISABLED.
So start immediately to use my new e-mail address. As I don't want anymore spam into my mailbox, I have to put my email address modified here then you will have to remove a part of the text to write to me.

new email address to use: STOPSPAMfabio.alarici@alice.it

Just remove the word STOPSPAM and you have the right address.
(click the link, then open your address book and correct my address).
If you don't remove STOPSPAM I will not receive the message.

It's simply my name, surname plus @libero.it. I'm sorry I have to do this, but this guarantees me that spammers will not be able to fill up my mail box with bad messages everyday. In fact, their programs watch every site on the web and catch up every e-mail address on a webpage. But STOPSPAMfabio.alarici@alice.it is a BAD address so ... I will be free of spam.

Countries refusing to sell their precious stamps to collectors...
7 Aug 2002

After many years of some business and many contacts with philatelic services worldwide, I found that only a very small number refuse to deal with collectors. Here is the list; do you know more of them?

1. Russia

They will reply you they don't serve single collectors. So if a dealer ask 5 sets is ok, while they will not do business with a collector asking for more. Great!

2. China
They will reply their company was setup to sell on the international market, wholesale only. But they were unable to give me at least a name of an agent selling their stamps here in Italy. This is ridiculous!

3. Bulgaria
They are much better than Russia & China; simply they won't reply to you, no matter if write by letter or e-mail.

I collect Russia and I'm very disappointed with them. Even North Korea is selling directly to collectors by their stamp company based in China!
I think that behind this behavior it is the idea (as in the past soviet era) that foreign collectors cannot pay face value but have to pay their precious stamps much more. Fortunately today there are free stamp dealers in these countries selling their stamps at decent prices even on Ebay.


Timor independent stamps
25 May 2002

You can buy newly independent Timor stamps and FDC's from Australia Post website.

Site moved and going ...
25 May 2002

I recently moved the site to a new server, but you shouldn't notice any difference, (except the missing counters). The "true" address is always masked by http://fly.to/philatelic.


IMPORTANT: UPDATE YOUR BOOKMARKS!

http://fly.to/philatelic

is the new address of this site. It is a redirection service.
Why this move? Because Yahoo Geocities is becoming a service for paying members only and I want to host this site on a free server. They disabled the email service (since 29 April), so please don't send me messages to fabioala@yahoo.com because I will not read it anymore. They disabled the FTP service which I used to upload very fast the pages to their servers . This means that now I have to upload one page at once with their web based "File Manager", too slow for me.


Anwway these pages on geocities will never be deleted by me, but they won't be updated anymore after the move.Of course there is the possibility that one day the guys at yahoo.com will delete my site, so please update your bookmark as soon as possible.


Address of TIMOR post office ? YES!
20 jan 2002

I have updates with Timor. Here is a message I received by Richard Lam from Singapore (thanks Richard!):

"I managed to buy some stamps and FDCs of the first series by contacting the following:

Sancho Saldanha
Correios Timor Lorosae
Dili
Timor Leste

Stamps cost US$0.60 per set, but FDC is at an expensive US$5.00 each. I think the FDCs are printed in Portugal as they have the same format of Portuguese and Macanese FDCs when the later was still a Portuguese colony. Postage was at US$2.50 and you get 5 international rate stamp on the envelope (which they charge US$0.50 for) sent to you by registered post. This guy seems to have some problems with his English, so if you can, try writting in Indonesian. And oh, I send cash with my order."


Season's Greetings to all the visitors!!
21 dec 2001

Thank you to those offering continuous support to keep the site updated (especially you, Francesco)!

Merry Xmas and a Happy New Year 2002 !!


Address of KOSOVO philatelic bureau !!!
23 nov 2001

Kosovo stamps are issued by United Nations because Kosovo is not an independent state, but a province of Yugoslavia administered by UN. Stamps of UNMIK are obtainable by:

Daut Hoxha
Filatelic manager PTK
Dardania p. nr.,
Prishtine
Kosove
(via Zurich, Switzerland)

I also added it on list of postal authorities under Yugoslavia / Kosovo.

Guestbook Added !
5 oct 2001
Add your suggestions, opionions about the site, your exchange proposal with other collectors, and everything you want on my guestbook and every visitor will be able to see your posting!
Anyway, please continue to send me private emails when you have updated info for me to be added to the site. Thank You!

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Geocities GAME OVER?
I've recently received this kind message from Yahoo! GeoCities, the provider of this free webspace:

Congratulations, http://www.geocities.com/fabioala is very popular and has been receiving a large amount of traffic. Your site has become so popular, in fact, that our records indicate that you're using more than the allotted amount of data transfer we provide for a free web site, which is 3GB/month (measured on an hourly basis).
In the past we have not enforced that limit, so your site has been uneffected thus far. However, shortly, all free member sites transferring more than the allowable data limit will be disabled for portions of the day until usage falls to within the prescribed limits.
If you'd like to prevent this from happening to your site, you may join one of our new premium services, GeoCities Pro or GeoCities Webmaster. These packages allow for 10 GB and 20 GB of data transfer respectively, and also give you the option of purchasing unlimited data transfer so your site will never be disabled. These packages also enable you to run an ad-free site at your own domain name (for example,www.your-dot-com.com) AND get matching email accounts at that domain (like you@your-dot-com.com).
For more information about our new packages, please visit http://geocities.yahoo.com/ps/info?.refer=bwe. Upgrading your current GeoCities site to one of our new premium packages is easy - just a few clicks away - and you don't have to move any of your files. If you'd prefer not to receive notification when your site is shut
down for going over the transfer limit, you may visit http://geocities.yahoo.com/opt/bwemail?.refer=bwe to take your name off of our list. Of course, we will continue to monitor your site's data usage and turn it off if it exceeds the limits.
Thank you,Yahoo! GeoCities
http://geocities.yahoo.com/

I have some comments about this:
1) I'm not going to pay $ 9 a month, for this webspace - the site is free of ads and I earn 0 $ with it,
so I don't want to spend even money into it!
2) Please advise me if the site become not accessible. If the site will be really disabled, let me know and I will build a mirror with another free space provider (suggest me other free webspaces).


About this site... and your support
Regular visitors and contributors of these pages, have seen recently that the site is not as regularly updated as before. Don't worry, the site is still alive and will continue to be updated. Main reason is that the site was intended to list all postal authorities on the web; now the job is almost complete, so there's no need for weekly updates -yes, there are other sections like country pages which have been not updated for long time. But considering the poor number of visitors (try to see the counters) and inexistent help, I'm forced to stop expanding this section further. In particular I would like to underline that today 99% of my mail about this site is reduced only to a link request (and sometimes people are requesting links without offering a reciprocal one!). I'd like to see much more people submitting info to improve the various pages including catalogues,country links, exhibitions.
Fortunately there are exceptions, and people whose help is widely appreciated, even when I have no time to email them my "thank you". I would like to apologize to Mr Thomas Lippert from Germany who sent me months ago a proposal for starting a Germany country page, which I never realized.
Thank you for recent messages of support received by some of you :-)


A new collection - 1st postage stamp from Montenegro?
It seems that the first postage stamp of quasi-independent Montenegro, (still part of Yugoslavia), has been officially issued. There are still some doubts about the legitimacy of this stamp - we'll see what happens in the future.

First issue: 17 April 2001
The stamp shows two hand ball-players and it's inscribed "CRNA GORA" (Montenegro)

The face value of 0.10 DM (german marks) seems to be inconguent. But you should consider that since November 2000, the DM is the only valid currency in Montenegro. The stamp was issued in a sheetlet of 8 stamps + a label. The stamp should be valid only for inland use.

For details see post of Montenegro (no english): http://www.posta.cg.yu/

Postal Authorities discovering the e-commerce ?

During recent years most of postal authorities have put themselves online, some with good sites other with poor/not updated information. Today, the number of philatelic offices who have started to offer full online shops to sell their products, is growing. Recent additions are Ascension, Indonesia, Aland, Guernsey, Greenland, etc. And a larger number is planning to sell online very soon (i.e. I heard about Slovenia, South Africa). Others are still offering the possibility to order by e-mail (like Belgium, Ireland) but this is unsecure, especially if you have to send credit card number ! Anyway most of the authorities are using their website only to publicize the new stamp issues, and if you want an updated stock list you still have to ask and receive by snail-mail. Full online shop means that you choose and order your stamps within your browser, and the transaction is instantly completed, including payment (usually by credit card). And you can order everything, not a restricted range of products (like is doing Royal Mail).


Stamps from Kosovo and Timor
The firsts stamps of UN mission in Kosovo and free Timor have appeared. Kosovo stamps are issued by United Nations because Kosovo is not an independent state, but a province of Yugoslavia administered by UN. Stamps of UNMIK are obtainable by UN Postal Administration.

First issue: March 14, 2000.
Stamps inscribed UN Interim Administration Mission in Kosovo (UNMIK)


The situation of Timor is different, and after a transitional rule by UNTAET (United Nations Transitional Administration in East Timor), it will become fully independent.Stamps of Timor are obtainable by Posts of Portugal.

First issue: April 21, 2000. Stamps inscribed Timor Lorosae - UNTAET

domestic fee
international single fee

For details: info is not anymore available on site of Portuguese post.

I will add Kosovo and Timor under my list of postal authorities when a local address and additional information will be available.

Sydney 2000 Olympic Stamps
Do you collect Sydney 2000 related stamps? If yes, you could get in touch with this collector, which is looking for OLIMPHILEX 2000 and Sydney 2000 stamps and cancellations issued by worldwide postal administrations. Here are the details:
Carlo Morselli, Via Matteotti # 49, I-40013 Castel Maggiore ( Bologna ), Italy.
Member of: U.I.F.O.S. (Italy) S.O.C. (U.K.) S.P.I. (U.S.A.)
e-mail: CAMORS@TIN.IT or morsi@virgilio.it - Fax: +39 51 71 26 00

Please, advise me of new links. I will try to do my best, but your help, if you think this is a useful resource, it's fundamental to keep the information correct, updated and to expand it.
So your cooperation is really appreciated.

I'm glad to add a link to your website, if you send me an email with your URL and site description
(a reciprocal link is required). If you have a country specific resource, I can also put a link to that page.

Special THANKS to regular contributors as well as to everyone
who made possible to keep these pages updated


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