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From My Old Stamp Album: Exotic Tales of Lost Countries
Pickup an old stamp album and flick through it. You'll find a host of exotic and unfamiliar Cyrenaica, Fernando Poo, Fiume, North Ingria, Obock, Stellaland, Tuva, – distant lands, vanished territories, lost countries. Do they still exist? If not, where were they? What happened to them? From My Old Stamp Album goes in search of the truth about these and many other amazing places. Stuart Laycock and Chris West unearth stories of many kinds. Some take you to long-disappeared empires; others throw light on the modern era's most pressing wars. You are invited to enjoy them all, in a collection of historical narratives as broad and enticing as that old stamp album that you've just discovered in the attic.
- GenresHistoryNonfiction
265 pages, Kindle Edition
Published November 24, 2017
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Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews
August 30, 2019
This book covers, in around 240 pages, some 75 no-longer-existing states or quasi-states which once issued stamps. The problem with doing that is self-evident: superficiality.
Some territories lend themselves to the approach better than others. The story of Biafra, for example, lasted three years, which can be summarised reasonably well in 3 pages. Trying to tell 1,000 years of history of the Schleswig-Holstein issue in 3 pages (as the book does) is another matter. They would have been better off, in the latter example, to have had a single paragraph to the effect that the region had long been disputed by Germany and Denmark, and to then have simply dealt with the circumstances of the stamp issue. After all, the Biafran section didn't attempt to summarise 1,000+ years of the history of the conflict between the Hausa and the Igbo.
On the positive side, there's some interesting stuff in the book, and the brevity of each chapter makes it perfect if you're looking for a five-minute read. It's therefore an excellent book to keep in the loo, which one suspects was what the book was specifically designed for anyway.
Some territories lend themselves to the approach better than others. The story of Biafra, for example, lasted three years, which can be summarised reasonably well in 3 pages. Trying to tell 1,000 years of history of the Schleswig-Holstein issue in 3 pages (as the book does) is another matter. They would have been better off, in the latter example, to have had a single paragraph to the effect that the region had long been disputed by Germany and Denmark, and to then have simply dealt with the circumstances of the stamp issue. After all, the Biafran section didn't attempt to summarise 1,000+ years of the history of the conflict between the Hausa and the Igbo.
On the positive side, there's some interesting stuff in the book, and the brevity of each chapter makes it perfect if you're looking for a five-minute read. It's therefore an excellent book to keep in the loo, which one suspects was what the book was specifically designed for anyway.
January 9, 2026
This is more than just a book about stamps—it's a vibrant exploration of historical geography and the fluid nature of borders. It’s an intoxicating mix of art, history and travelogue. I really enjoyed it.
December 27, 2023
Really interesting book - looking at countries that issued stamps for their brief times as countries. Lots of places that use to be or hung out for a bit before being swallowed into history!
March 4, 2024
Interesting exploration of some of those countries that appeared in my old stamp album, and in some cases which I get in trouble for confusing with their new name. Brief piece about the history of each country and its stamps, which would encourage me to find out more about some of them.
June 23, 2019
I have never collected stamps but had many friends in my teenage years who did. When 'pen pals' were a thing - long before social media made everyone in the world a possible 'friend' - I can recall avid collectors begging for stamps when people received letters from exotic locations. This book looks at the exotic locations that no longer exist or, at least, no longer issue their own stamps. It is an interesting journey around the world and the authors do a good job of relating the lesser-known histories of these, usually, far flung remnants of empire.
February 23, 2019
I wish I could give a better rating to this book, but I just can't. It could have been so much better.
I love history, geography, and stamp collecting, so I thought I would love this book. I didn't. This book suffers from several problems.
One problem is probably due to the sheer scope: I believe I counted seventy-six chapters (some dealing with multiple stamp-issuing entities) crammed into roughly 250 pages. Nearly all of the chapters are only two or three pages long. With so much territory to cover, and so few pages to do it in, very little of interest can imparted to the reader. Unfortunately, most of what is told is simply a brief, dry listing of what wars the country has been involved in from the middle ages on. Royalty, the nobility, and generals occasionally show up - but the actual inhabitants of the country never do. Neither does their culture or anything not of a militaristic nature. A number of colonies are listed in this book, but most of the time we are never told what is being extracted and exported, simply who invaded. Almost all of the military history could have been summed up as "Then (*) happened. So, anyway...". (*Insert any war from the middle ages to the present).
Another problem is how little anything remotely philatelic is discussed. The chapter on Thurn und Taxis does mention the postal service, but that's because the Thurn und Taxis family was the postal service. We aren't told how many people are using or interacting with a particular service nor are we shown many stamps. Out of more than 70 countries, only 28 are depicted in color photos. The rest are given a one or two sentence description in the text.
Still another problem was the uneven writing. Part of this may have been due to the fact that there are two authors. Some chapters were very casual, even flippant in tone while others were written in a more normal manner. I don't mind casual, humorous writing, but I do mind paying nearly twenty dollars for a book that contains entries that wouldn't make it into a Cracked "listicle". (I love Cracked sometimes, but still). I do appreciate British humor, but none of the references were funny. Some chapters read like a kid trying to pad out the word count in a school paper.
I did enjoy some of the chapters, although one of the chapters I enjoyed most, Sedang, is only about three-and-a half pages long. Half the chapter isn't even about Sedang, instead it discusses "Cinderella" stamps which aren't actually postage stamps.
All of the countries are listed alphabetically (to imitate a stamp album?) but really ought to have been grouped by geographical area. This would have prevented multiple chapters rehashing the same war or political situation again and again, or chapters referencing something that happened literally dozens of chapters ago.
I really can't figure out who this book is for. Neither serious or casual collectors or history buffs will find much of interest here. Its not written for children either. This book might have been better in the pre-internet age.
The dust-jacket for this book is great. The cover and its tagline (Exotic Tales From An Old Stamp Album) is what convinced me to buy this book. I wish it had lived up to its cover. It contains only one "Exotic Tale" and I already knew about it: that time Alexander of Greece was bitten by a monkey and died. While that is both a great and terrible fact, I really expected more of interest in the book. How can such material (countries & colonies, wars & revolutions, knights & pirates) be so, so dry?
I love history, geography, and stamp collecting, so I thought I would love this book. I didn't. This book suffers from several problems.
One problem is probably due to the sheer scope: I believe I counted seventy-six chapters (some dealing with multiple stamp-issuing entities) crammed into roughly 250 pages. Nearly all of the chapters are only two or three pages long. With so much territory to cover, and so few pages to do it in, very little of interest can imparted to the reader. Unfortunately, most of what is told is simply a brief, dry listing of what wars the country has been involved in from the middle ages on. Royalty, the nobility, and generals occasionally show up - but the actual inhabitants of the country never do. Neither does their culture or anything not of a militaristic nature. A number of colonies are listed in this book, but most of the time we are never told what is being extracted and exported, simply who invaded. Almost all of the military history could have been summed up as "Then (*) happened. So, anyway...". (*Insert any war from the middle ages to the present).
Another problem is how little anything remotely philatelic is discussed. The chapter on Thurn und Taxis does mention the postal service, but that's because the Thurn und Taxis family was the postal service. We aren't told how many people are using or interacting with a particular service nor are we shown many stamps. Out of more than 70 countries, only 28 are depicted in color photos. The rest are given a one or two sentence description in the text.
Still another problem was the uneven writing. Part of this may have been due to the fact that there are two authors. Some chapters were very casual, even flippant in tone while others were written in a more normal manner. I don't mind casual, humorous writing, but I do mind paying nearly twenty dollars for a book that contains entries that wouldn't make it into a Cracked "listicle". (I love Cracked sometimes, but still). I do appreciate British humor, but none of the references were funny. Some chapters read like a kid trying to pad out the word count in a school paper.
I did enjoy some of the chapters, although one of the chapters I enjoyed most, Sedang, is only about three-and-a half pages long. Half the chapter isn't even about Sedang, instead it discusses "Cinderella" stamps which aren't actually postage stamps.
All of the countries are listed alphabetically (to imitate a stamp album?) but really ought to have been grouped by geographical area. This would have prevented multiple chapters rehashing the same war or political situation again and again, or chapters referencing something that happened literally dozens of chapters ago.
I really can't figure out who this book is for. Neither serious or casual collectors or history buffs will find much of interest here. Its not written for children either. This book might have been better in the pre-internet age.
The dust-jacket for this book is great. The cover and its tagline (Exotic Tales From An Old Stamp Album) is what convinced me to buy this book. I wish it had lived up to its cover. It contains only one "Exotic Tale" and I already knew about it: that time Alexander of Greece was bitten by a monkey and died. While that is both a great and terrible fact, I really expected more of interest in the book. How can such material (countries & colonies, wars & revolutions, knights & pirates) be so, so dry?
December 12, 2019
For non specialist audiences.
Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews