Comoro Islands

15th May 1950


	Sc30	Sc33	Sc36	xxx

perf 13, no wmk, engraved

Description	Design	Scott †	SG
10 centimes blue	1	30	1
50c green	1	31	2
1 franc dark olive-brown	1	32	3
2f bright green	2	33	4
5f purple	2	34	5
6f violet-brown	2	35	6
7f red	3	36	7
10f dark green	3	37	8
11f deep ultra	3	38	9

† Grand Comoro accounts for Sc1-Sc30.

To summarise Gibbons [1], the Comoro Archipeligo comprises the islands of Anjouan, Great Comoro, Mayotte and Mohéli, all of which became French colonies or dependencies and issued their own stamps between 1891 and 1914. From 1914 until 1950 they were administered from and used the stamps of Madegascar. Three of the islands declared independence as Comoro in 1975 following a 1974 referendum, while Mayotte, after several referenda, became an Overseas Departement of France, using its stamps.

Comoro Islands

Africa


State of Comoro	Federal Islamic Republic of the Comoros
1975 Sc131	1978 Sc357	1978 Sc393 SG300

The islands of Anjouan, Great Comoro and Mohéli declared independence as the State of Comoro in 1975.

other overprints

Scott [2] starts the State of Comoro with 25 surcharges on Comoro stamps, Sc131-155. Gibbons Part 12 (pub. 1980) [1] does not show these surcharges, but begins with one of the stamps listed by Scott prior to the State.

In 1978, following a coup d'état, the name of the state was changed to the Federal Islamic Republic of the Comoros. The first stamps Scott lists for the Republic are overprints that are interesting because in addition to the change of name, they are also overprinted with EIIR and a crown to commemorate the 25th anniversary of QE2's coronation, presumably a commercial motivation. In the following months and years there were overprints of the same stamps celebrating the Olympics, the World Cup, Albrecht Dürer and other events. Gibbons mentions these but suggests that the overprints were made at some later time: Gibbons starts the Republic with SG300, Sc393.