United States Plate Block - Scott #1244 - Issued April 22, 1964

Most people don't think of postage stamps when acquiring 1964-1965 New York World's Fair items, yet these are economical and fun ways to enhance a World's Fair collection with semi-precious snapshots of philatelic history.

In regard to the 1964-1965 New York World's Fair, did you know there were over two hundred postage related issues of individual stamps, stamp sets, reissue overprints and souvenir sheets from 30 countries? Well there were and all are to be highlighted over the course of this article. These stamps celebrated such topics as World's Fair pavilions, cultural events, political achievements, feats of construction, scientific efforts and historical heritage.

Of the possible 68 countries that exhibited at the 1964-1965 World's Fair, only 30 of those countries issued postal commemoratives. Some pavilions, such as American-Israel, Berlin and Pavilion of Paris, were not officially sponsored by their respective countries so that may explain why they did not issue postage items. Others such as Mexico and Japan had the Olympic Games on the horizon and may have deemed the New York Fair as secondary to their events.

Surely the Bureau of International Expositions' (BIE) decision not to recognize the New York World's Fair as an official World's Fair played a large part in limiting postal issues. Yet, remarkably, Afghanistan, Bhutan, Dubai, Paraguay and the Yemens were not present at the Fair as far as can be determined but did acknowledge the event on postage!

Stamps were usually timed to commemorate the opening day of the Fair on April 22, 1964. However some countries did not elect to honor that occasion, but released their stamps in a period ranging as early as February of 1964 through November of 1966; a year and several weeks after the fair had closed!

How did the 1964-1965 Fair compare against the 1939-1940 Fair? Well the 1964-1965 Fair had 30 countries resulting in 225 unique items at last count. The 1939-1940 Fair totaled 45 countries providing 173 separate pieces of postage. The 1939-1940 totals can be a bit deceiving though as almost one-third of the stamps (48) were tied to 24 French Colonies, known as common issue CD82. More about that in a future article if it can be determined there is any interest in the 1939-1940 New York World's Fair stamp issues.

Let's explore the 1964-1965 New York World's Fair collection, displayed in alphabetical order. Stamp numbers and release dates are from the official "Scott Standard Stamp Catalog," 2003 Edition, unless otherwise noted. Values indicated are for stamps in Mint, Never Hinged (MNH) condition, as of December 2002. All images are copyright of the respective countries. Stamp colors indicated in images are close to the original colors, but are not represented as 100% accurate due to scanner variations. Stamp images may not represent actual size.