Here's a real neat story that keeps getting better as information becomes available.  The Tuvan government wanted to make its own stamps as it watched the breakup of the Soviet Union.

Before asking for permission, they commissioned Tuvan stamps to be made by security printers in Vienna and China.  When Moscow said no, they already had two sets of those stamps on hand.  The Tuvan president said they would sell them as stickers if need be, and they pretty much did.  Thing is, there weren't a lot of them and they are pricey now...and they are beautiful. 

The first Vienna set is the above three stamps, plus a souvenir sheet of two of those stamps. The second produced set is of six triangular stamps like this.  The quality of both of these sets is superb...better than most of the issues of the USA in the last few years.  The Tuvans also had a contract with a Chinese printing firm for stamps.

Moscow said NO, but as a consolation to Tuva it did issue a stamp showing the center of Asia monument in Tuva.

A strange thing...these stamps go for a lot of money in Europe...and yet somebody got enough of a supply of them to overprint and produce labels from these quasi-stamps.  I can make no sense of that action.

Y2K Update:  now we can make sense of this!  Hit Next