OAF Special Projects | Bogus Cinderella

A postage stamp is a small but mighty symbolic emissary from one particular nation to the rest of the world. A functioning postal service, made visible in stamps, is an unmistakable expression of national legitimacy. Throughout their history, stamps have been prized by collectors for their unique ability to represent a political culture in miniature. As a result, the postage stamp is an excellent vehicle for spurious, tenuous, or completely fictitious states to declare their existence.

In philatelic circles, such stamps are called bogus Cinderellas: “bogus” because the states represented are dubious, and “Cinderella” because they carry no real postal value. Most serious stamp collectors consider them illegitimate despite their extraordinary ability to conjure an entire nation on a tiny piece of paper. In short, bogus Cinderellas are the “outsiders” of the philatelic world.

This exhibition of five hundred bogus Cinderellas offers a glimpse into an alternative United Nations of twenty-five bogus states. They are largely drawn from the former collection of Jim Czyl (1947 - 2014), who wrote the “Cinderella Scene” column in Linn’s Stamp News from 1982 until his death.