Zimbabwe 2009 Contemporary Paintings, set VFU (PB86)

Nice set with a real postmarks, not the CTO postmark from the Philatelic Bureau. Onky 20,000 sets of this issue where printed -- which makes it the rarest issue ever (apart from the 2006 trees issue, that had the same print run). Hard to get & rare! Please also take a look at my other auctions; postage applies once only, regardless of final shipping weight. Happy bidding!

 

A short note on Zimbabwean stamps: With the economic crisis in the country, it has become increasingly difficult to obtain Zimbabwean stamps from abroad – payments and deliveries get lost in the mail, many sets are virtually unaffordable at the outrageously overvalued exchange rate, and many collectors have left the country. Also, domestic demand for mail (and therefore stamps) has dropped with declining incomes and declining population. As a result, the quantities printed by the Zimbabwe PTC have plummeted: 300,000 or 400,000 sets used to be the norm for commemorative sets, but now often as little as 28,000 sets are printed (and still fewer mini-sheets, often in the order of 3,000 to 5,000). Since Zimbabwe is still one of the few African countries with a very conservative stamp issue policy, it has however remained popular with collectors. Many will hope to fill gaps in their collection later on – however, there are naturally very limited stocks available so that it seems likely that the that prices of recent issues will go up significantly in the future (especially for those issues that are also popular with thematics collectors, such as birds and nature). Some of the recent sets are already valued at GBP 22 by Stanley Gibbons or around USD 20 in Scott.