Any aquarist-philatelists out there?

Innesfan · Feb 25, 2026

Something Innes wrote about often was how many countries around the world depicted aquarium fish--tropical and goldfish--on their postage stamps. To my knowledge, Canada and the USA have yet to do it. Here's a sampling from around the world spanning issues from the 1960s through the near present featuring species we have often discussed here.

Hungary:

Guniea-Bissau:

Mongolia:

Bulgaria:

Singapore:

P.R. China:

Indonesia:

gwand · Feb 25, 2026

The stamps are beautiful. It’s ironic that Mongolia, one of the coldest countries on earth, has tropical fish stamps. Wishful thinking I guess.

GaryE · Feb 25, 2026

You can see how the choices were dictated by stamp markets. There you have Guinea-Bissau - not the richest fish fauna in Africa, but with some pretty species. But they went with stamps commemorating non native fish well known to collectors of stamps and fish.

When I was a kid, there were several stamp stores for collectors in the city, and there was a lively mail order business in exotic stamps. My mother bought packets of stamps once every couple of years. Now we no longer even have mail delivery to our doors since the system came under semi-privatized control here. That was a big changeover socially.

TwoTankAmin · Feb 25, 2026

https://www.etsy.com/listing/1487174082/25-fish-stamp-pack-beautiful-stamps-for

TNG · Feb 25, 2026

Innesfan said:
Something Innes wrote about often was how many countries around the world depicted aquarium fish--tropical and goldfish--on their postage stamps. To my knowledge, Canada and the USA have yet to do it. Here's a sampling from around the world spanning issues from the 1960s through the near present featuring species we have often discussed here.

It seems that some countries decide not to have aquarium fish on their stamps. I have a US and a Canadian stamp of marine fish. Australia has quite a collection of marine fish stamps, but I have never seen one of aquarium fish.

Fish and Coral (bottom right)

From the early 80s

1980s - 2000

Innesfan · Feb 26, 2026

GaryE said:
You can see how the choices were dictated by stamp markets. There you have Guinea-Bissau - not the richest fish fauna in Africa, but with some pretty species. But they went with stamps commemorating non native fish well known to collectors of stamps and fish.

Absolutely. The two hobbies, stamp collecting and tropical fish-keeping, both experienced booms that coincided which in part explains the above. Guyana and Brazil did celebrate their own. Nicaragua, not so much. Note the Nannostomus beckfordi from Guyana. To my knowledge, the only Nannostomus depicted on a postage stamp.