Cambodia 1975 - Traditional Musical Instruments with new value overprinted

A279A/H279A were later removed from Michel and added as an extra additional text after A432/H432. Mi. A432/H432 were overprinted on the original small sheets, of 25 pieces each. (A279A/H279A from 13 October 1970). Catalogvalue Michel 2026 is 1000€. Gum is always toned. See text and description from the history of these very rare stamps, surviving a dark age during the political chaos in Cambodia from 1970 until 1979. See scans. The dark story is that the stamps were printed between 5 and 21 october 1970 and were flown to Cambodia. That was 8 days after Lon Nol changed the name of the Cambodia in Khmer Republic. So the stamps arrived 8 days too late with a wrong country name. The complete issue was stored in the vaults of the General Post Office in Phnom Penh. In 1975 a large part of this issue was overprinted with a new value and Khmer Republic, due to hyper inflation. Also this time , the timing was terrible. Then the overprinted sheets arrived the end of March 1975. 2 weeks later when the stamps were overprinted , the Khmer Rouge took over Phnom Penh, and the General Post Office was heavily damaged. Including the vaults. April 1975 The Khmer Rouge took over all of Phnom Penh and partly destroyed the Post Office, the vaults deep in the ground where damaged but a part of the stored stamps survived 5 years of heat, rain, humidity. Only a small part of the remaining sheets where intact and collectable. The gum is always lightly toned to heavily toned. It is one of the details that proves that the the stamps are genuine. A very small number of sheets and sets managed survive, which explains why rare surviving mint sets are valued at incredible prices. Only 2000 sets have been printed in 1970 and more than half of the issue was overprinted in 1975. So remaining 1000 sets without overprint and 1000 sets with overprint. The general assumption is that around a 200-300 sets from both issues have survived thrroughout the dark ages of the Khmer Rouge. And this makes both sets incredible rare ! Pictures also including articles from the total history. See images for a good impression.

Estimate:£39.77

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