Relations With The Collector Market
Many stamp sets of North Vietnam and post-reunification Vietnam are available imperforate, as opposed to the regular perforated versions. This goes for stamps printed domestically and abroad. At present, Vietnamese stamps are officially offered in both regular, imperforate and specimen versions. The imperforate and specimen versions serve no postal purpose and are thus entirely aimed at the collector community.
During the war of independence (1946-1954) and immediate aftermath, some stamps were issued imperforate due to technical shortcomings. These may, of course, have inspired later collector oriented imperforates.
Apart from the regular issues (for postal use), a large proportion of the stamps of Vietnam have been made available to collectors as cancelled-to-order (CTO) versions. The Havana printed stamps of the 1980s usually have the CTO cancellation printed directly onto the stamp along with the rest of the design and are solely aimed at the collector community. While the majority of the stamps of this category found in the collector market are CTO versions, this should not overshadow the fact that similar stamps (non-CTO editions) are found postally used.
While a large proportion of the stamps of the 1980s appear to deliberately appeal to thematic collectors (cars, dogs, cats, etc.), 21st century stamps are broader in scope, and the issue rate has declined. This seems to reflect a shift in issuing policy away from the orientation towards thematic collectors, thus making the field of Vietnamese stamps more appealing in its own right.
Read more about this topic: Postage Stamps And Postal History Of Vietnam
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