Cryptozoology Stamps
Posted by: Loren Coleman on May 29th, 2012
Peter Rogerson recently posted about some interesting stamps. He wrote: “Iceland has some of the weirdest water monsters, including the mercow, the mouse-eared whale, the scaly monsters and the like, which the enterprising Icelanders have featured on a set of special issue postage stamps.”
This was followed by “Fortean Philately” noting that “their Nordic neighbours in the Faroe Islands, a self-governerning Danish dependency in the Atlantic about 300 kilometers north-west of Scotland, have issued stamps depicting some of the creatures that haunt the islanders’ dreams and legends.”
The four stamps are the 6.50kr. stamp of the Grýla – the bogeyman; the 17.00kr. stamp of the Niðagrísur – the ‘child ghost’; the 19.00kr. stamp of the ‘beach troll’, the Fjørutrøll; and the 11.00kr. stamps of the Marra – the ‘mare’.
The unnamed author of this piece ends with a question: “Besides the Iceland stamps mentioned above, some Yeti stamps issued by Bhutan a number of years back, and the UFO stamps issued by a number of countries – usually just before a violent change of regime! – does anyone know of any other stamps for a Fortean philatelic collection?”
Of course, frequent readers of Cryptomundo are well-aware of many cryptozoological stamps.
Philip R. “Pib” Burns has an entire website entitled “Cryptozoology and Philately.” Pib combined two of his favorite hobbies, stamp collecting and cryptozoology. Although it has not been updated mostly since 2003, with little attention up through 2008, it continues as an important resource illustrating many examples of cryptids on stamps.
Needless to say, Karl Shuker’s book Dinosaurs and Other Prehistoric Animals on Stamps: Plus An Exclusive Listing of Cryptozoological Stamps, published in 2008, is an excellent and invaluable source on the topic. Your cryptozoology library is incomplete without it.
Thanks PH for the idea.
About Loren Coleman
Loren Coleman is one of the world’s leading cryptozoologists, some say “the” leading living cryptozoologist. Certainly, he is acknowledged as the current living American researcher and writer who has most popularized cryptozoology in the late 20th and early 21st centuries.
Starting his fieldwork and investigations in 1960, after traveling and trekking extensively in pursuit of cryptozoological mysteries, Coleman began writing to share his experiences in 1969. An honorary member of Ivan T. Sanderson’s Society for the Investigation of the Unexplained in the 1970s, Coleman has been bestowed with similar honorary memberships of the North Idaho College Cryptozoology Club in 1983, and in subsequent years, that of the British Columbia Scientific Cryptozoology Club, CryptoSafari International, and other international organizations. He was also a Life Member and Benefactor of the International Society of Cryptozoology (now-defunct).
Loren Coleman’s daily blog, as a member of the Cryptomundo Team, served as an ongoing avenue of communication for the ever-growing body of cryptozoo news from 2005 through 2013. He returned as an infrequent contributor beginning Halloween week of 2015.
Coleman is the founder in 2003, and current director of the International Cryptozoology Museum in Portland, Maine.
