Zanzibar. This former British colony is famous not only for its beautiful beaches and luxury tourist resorts, but also for its rare stamps. You might think that Zanzibar has too few inhabitants to have a great demand for stamps that would drive prices up. That is true, however we must not forget that it is a former British colony. And the stamps of the British colonies are collected by tens of thousands of philatelists around the world. This is the ideal point for any price appreciation – just a few stamps available for too many collectors. The price growth is ensured for decades to come.

Stamp #1:

1895-96 1a6p Sepia mint original gum. This stamp comes with “Zanzidar” overprint variety from R4/6, Hall’s setting ‘D’. It is a great rarity, being one of only 5 unused examples known (incl. the one in the Royal collection). I have managed to purchase recently one of those 4 available on the market, which means that there are the last 3 pieces somewhere in the world left for those tens of thousands of collectors of British Commonwealth stamps.

Stamp #2:

1896 2 1/2a on 1a6p bister brown, with two mistakes in the overprint. One of them is again "Zanzidar". The second one is that there is the second "Z" inverted. There are only 10 examples of this variety estimated to exist, one of them is since a few months in my hands, which leaves only 9 items left for the collectors of the British Commonwealth. This stamp comes with 1929 (!) Royal Philatelic Society certificate.