Talk:Lists of countries with people on postage stamps

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International people on stamps[edit]

For an example, what if US person appears on Australian stamp. Should I mark this somehow? —Preceding unsigned comment added by St220 (talk • contribs) 19:06, 2 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]

2002-2004 posts[edit]

There seems to be a prominent country missing from this list i.e. United Kingdom. Not being in anyway shape or form a stamp collector or enthusiast I can't add it with authority.

Ah yes, the originator of stamps. Why should they be on the list?  ;-) --KQ
What exactly would be the difference between a list of people on British stamps and the list of British monarchs? KF 00:17 Nov 28, 2002 (UTC)

The only reason the UK isn't there is that it is normally under G in alphabetical. "United States" comes before A in most American alphabetical sources. If you want all the British monarchs, I can pay attention to the stamps of Barbuda. Eclecticology

Sorry I don't understand this. To answer KFs question. Thousands of people other than the monarchs have appeared on British stamps. There used to be a guideline that no-one still alive other than the current monarch could appear on British stands, but I'm not sure if that rule still applies.
That's basically true, but it should read the royal family, not just the current monarch. Canada has a similar policy. The United States also does not put living persons, not even its current monarch, George III.


The basic rule is that only dead people, the monarch, and members of the royal family (and people marrying into it) appear on British stamps. This is not quite strictly adhered to - Sir Francis Chichester appears on the 1967 stamps honouring his solo voyage round the world, but only as an unidentifiable blob (but since there was nobody else on the boat it had to be him!), and there's recently been a stamp honouring Freddie Mercury where other (living) members of Queen can be seen in the background. I'm removing links to Thomas Lawrence, George Stubbs, LS Lowry, Murillo, and Louis le Nain from the British section of the article because they don't appear on British stamps of 1967, they painted the pictures that appeared on the stamps. Arwel
I hope I'll never again be caught joking on Wikipedia talk pages. It's just that, compared to other countries, whenever I buy a British stamp all I can see seems to be Her Majesty's silhouette. By the way, although I'm no philatelist, I believe this page would be even more interesting if it contained a few images.
Joking on a talk page is not shameful. It keeps the atmosphere light. You are right, you lick the Queen's back side every time you apply a British stamp. Britain has always been a well-behaved country in terms of stamp issuing policy. It has not tried to illustrate all of its past monarchs. Barbuda did produce such a set in 1970.


I agree that the illustrations would be welcome. Eclecticology 02:07 Nov 29, 2002 (UTC)

I've added the first pic to this article, have a look at Barbados. It was done with my Epson flat-bed scanner. I'll try to find some more people pics but my stamp collection is very small. Anyone else with a scanner can just copy my code. I uploaded two pics, one at 250 pixels wide for the "thumbnail" (a big thumb!) and one at 500 pixels wide for the one you get when you click on the message.
I (or anyone else) can put the date of issue into the caption if someone knows it.
Arpingstone 21:53 Feb 19, 2003 (UTC)

Nice scan. It even picks up what appears to be a fold in the stamp on the left side near Nelson's shoulder. How many d.p.i.? Eclecticology
Only 600 dpi setting on the scanner. I never go beyond that for line art, every detail is picked up at that setting as you can see. Now busy looking for a couple more stamps! Thanks for the kind words, it's appreciated. Adrian
Arpingstone 08:27 Feb 20, 2003 (UTC)

So, uh, this list is going to be huge when it gets completely filled in. Is it better to just keep growing it until it has to break, or to plan some sort of multiple article layout? Stan Shebs 22:06 Feb 19, 2003 (UTC)

The idea was to spin off National lists as they advance. That has already happened with a few.Eclecticology

I've just added a scan of an Australian stamp commemorating the Coronation of Queen Elizabeth the Second in 1953. Hope you like it.
Arpingstone 23:22 Feb 19, 2003 (UTC)

Very nice images! This is exactly what was missing from this page. KF 23:28 Feb 19, 2003 (UTC)

Shouldn't this be at a list of people who appear on stamps or something similar? -- ヤギ

Probably. Gets to be a little wordy that way, but in theory there could be an article about the activity of depicting people on stamps (decision process, etc), and it would by rights get the "people on stamps" title. Stan 06:33 Mar 8, 2003 (UTC)


Can someone revert my deletion? (Blushes) It was an accident, a browser gone bad.

Looks like Danny beat me to the punch, but for future reference you can do that kind of thing quite easily; just click on "older versions", then click on the version you want to revert to, and then edit that version and save it. You might want to do this now, since it looks like Danny reverted all of the changes you made rather than just the last one which cleared the article; you can salvage any alterations you made that you want to keep that way. Bryan
Gotcha. I just couldn't find the revert link/button in the older versions page. user:zanimum

I propose to change the inclusion rule to omit any dead countries that never featured any persons on their stamps, and to prune the entries for countries with separate lists down to the single link. An alpha-TOC would not come amiss either. Stan 06:34, 25 Dec 2003 (UTC)

Not that anybody cares :-), but inspired by list of people on stamps of Papua New Guinea, I'm thinking we should do this in general - separate list articles for each live country, and group preceding dead countries as sublists of the present-day one. Dead countries not fitting this scheme neatly can have their own articles, but won't be too many of those. Stan 05:51, 15 Aug 2004 (UTC)

New list design[edit]

I've created a new design at List of people on stamps/Temp. With some 700-odd stamp-issuing entities and most of them having depicted people at one point or another, I think we have to bite the bullet and make it a relatively spare list of lists. To forestall a deluge of tiny lists, I propose to continue with the current practice of redirecting most former colonies to the list of people for the modern country, and maybe have lists like list of people on stamps of the British Empire for any "leftovers". On the off chance that anybody cares :-), I'll wait a week for comments. Stan 14:58, 7 Nov 2004 (UTC)


I have a couple of questions: Question 1: I'm putting together lists of people on the stamps of Ukraine and Israel. I'm pretty sure most people would consider David and Solomon to be real people, and their likenesses (in the form of stained glass) are on stamps from Israel. However, what about Noah, or Jonah? While these people are real to me, I'm also sure that is not the case with many readers of Wikipedia. Should they be in the list?

Question 2: As regards works of art. It is noted that "the depiction of a work of art (such as for a Christmas stamp) is not considered to be honoring the artist." What about a work of art on a stamp that was specifically issued to commemorate the artist. The stamp I'm thinking of is Scott #25 (Painting: Negev) on a stamp specifically honoring Reuven Rubin. Should this be included since the artist is not incendental, but rather the focus of the issue?

fiat lux 20:54, 12 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

This article should probably deleted[edit]

This article should probably deleted. It has no sourcing for the dates it gives. Basically this is a category with unsourced dates. A well sourced article on general trends of who has been put on postage stamps might have merit, but this article is not that and probably never will be. Especially now that it is shrinking as the other lists get deleted. John Pack Lambert (talk) 03:58, 5 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Please do not delete the red links[edit]

User:Johnpacklambert please do not delete the red links, please see WP:REDLINKS red links are a good thing, not something to be deleted. CT55555 (talk) 13:00, 22 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Quoting from the above In general, a red link should remain in an article if it links to a title that could plausibly sustain an article, but for which there is no existing article, or article section, under any name. Remove red links if and only if Wikipedia should not have an article on the subject. CT55555 (talk) 13:01, 22 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]
    • Well my most recent removal of redlinks was of articles that had been deleted. I believe you are also ignoring how huge numbers of unwatched and unmonitored redlinks leads to lots of false links. There is no reason to assume that some random fireman pictured by a country on its stamps is actually notable.John Pack Lambert (talk) 13:37, 22 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]
      I think the guideline I quotes supports red links remaining for deleted items unless it is a topic for which Wikipedia should not have an article. I have neither made, not shared, assumptions about firefighters. It is foreseeable, however, that lists per country are notable topics, which is exactly why red links should exist.
      Of course, I could be wrong. This is the first time I've commented on red link removal. So please, let's wait for consensus before you delete more of this list? CT55555 (talk) 13:41, 22 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]
        • If an item gets deleted, there has clearly been a decision it is not a suitable item to have an article on, so leaving a redlink to it makes no sense at all.John Pack Lambert (talk) 13:52, 22 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]
          I assume you saw enough of the conversation to catch that people were struggling to find offline sources quick enough. Notability has not been proven yet. I'm asking you to pause and see what others say, I can't force you. This is just an appeal to slow down and see what others say. CT55555 (talk) 13:57, 22 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]
  • Considering that the redlinks I removed were deleted at discussion, there is no reason to keep them.John Pack Lambert (talk) 13:38, 22 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]

The article does not match the contents[edit]

This name implies that the list is of all countries that put people on their stamps. This is not what this list is. It is a list of countries for which we have articles on the people on their postage stamps.John Pack Lambert (talk) 18:33, 30 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Closely connected with the above problem is the listed dates. These appear to be the years the countries in question issued stamps. For a matching of the heading, we should only list years in which countries issues stamps with people on them. That may be almost the same, but someone needs to make sure it is actually the same.John Pack Lambert (talk) 18:33, 30 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Do fictional people belong?[edit]

Are these meant to be cases of people who are real? Or do fictional people belong on such lists?John Pack Lambert (talk) 18:33, 30 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]

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