Information about UN (United Nations) stamps

My Neighbor gave me these stamps. Are they real? I asked her but she has no idea either. I’ve never bought stamps from UN stamp website. Anyone seen these kind before? Thank you!

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Hi Violet,

yes, they are real

there are three kind or administrations

New York ( issued in US$)
Geneva ( issued in swiss francs )
Vienna ( Issued in Schilling until around 2000 after that in Euro )

All issues are still valid except for the Schilling issues

For using them you have to send them to the postal administration
i.e. with the New York type you set up a letter with 1.50 and you send it in a cover to NY postal office and they will postmark it and send it to the according destination on your letter

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Good to know! I never knew I will have to “activate” and then mail them. Thanks for your help!

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Well, its a bit of extra effort of cause, so I normally bundle a few cards and letter then send them
( in my cases mainly to Geneva ) link this bunch

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They look so cool! Thanks for sharing!

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yes UNO really has nice issues, i.e. the endangered species, they coming in a sheet of 16 with 4 different stamps

like those:

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I never heard about these stamps before either. :flushed: Apparently the price varies for where you are sending out to. As in, if you are sending from Geneva to the EU or from Geneva to overseas. I found much more detailed information on their website. It also has instructions on how to send them mailan envelope to have them mail the inner envelope back to you with a UN headquarters cancellation.

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I feel like its kinda same way to get postmark in the US. I read the Postal Bulletin (not sure if you are familiar with it) another day, there’s different postmark samples people can get for that month. If we want get the special postmarks from certain post offices, we will have to do the same thing, put one envelope in another, mail them to those post office stations and they can mail it back or to wherever you want to after they stamped. Too much informations, I’m still learning…

https://about.usps.com/postal-bulletin/2021/pb22565/pb22565.pdf
From page 33

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exactly the same thing, except , that you don’t have to wait for a certain postmark, they will use a standard daily postmark, doing a hand cancel. So the next nice thing is you avoid a killer cancelation :wink:

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Thats a huge help!! I’m learning little by little! :+1:t3:

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There are also Dutch UN stamps, issued for the International Court of Justice in The Hague. Only the ICoJ can use these stamps, but other people can buy the stamps.

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Wow, never knew that some stamps can only be used by certain ppl

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I’ve read on an old website that visitors of the Peace Palace in The Hague can mail items with those ICoJ stamps. Perhaps I will try that.

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Thanks for the info! I didn’t know about UN Stamps, but many of them are beautiful

The rates for the Geneva UN stamps are the same as the Swiss rates which is 150 (1 franc 50 centimes) to Europe, including Russia, 200 (2 francs) to the rest of the world.

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Are you sure about this? I bought the ICoJ stamps (international 1) and was planning to use them like any other international stamp. In the same collection, there is also Europa and Wereld. And I take it that they are valid stamps as well. I would use the 0.61€ stamp to send to a postcrosser as well but add extra postage to make up the 1.55€. But i haven’t mailed them yet and am now hesitating to do so after reading your message. :thinking:

Thanks for the info!

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It is my understanding that the ICJ stamps can only be used on mail originating from the ICJ, not on ordinary Dutch mail dropped in postboxes, but I cannot find confirmation on the PostNL website.

the United Nations Post Office (at least the one in NYC) has not been open to the public since Feb or March of last year (2020) due to the pandemic. But understand that you can purchase stamps online via their website. the price of sending a postcard within the USA is 36¢ and a 1st class letter up to 1oz. is 55¢. Postcards and letters toward international destination are $1.20.

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Neither can I! So weird. I will try sending one on the next official PC card I draw and will let you know if it works :smiley: