"Issued in 1972 in a set of seven, the stamps are miniature, one-sided, 33 1⁄3 rpm vinyl records playable on a standard turntable. You peeled off the backing paper and stuck them on an envelope or postcard. Content includes Bhutanese folk songs and histories of the country in English and Dzongkha, the local language. "
I work in IT. I used to be a philatelist (can you stop?). How on earth did I never think of this.
It makes those bloody awful business card CDs (off of the 90s n noughties) look pretty naff.
Barking mad and quite beautiful. Love it!
xattt · 7h ago
Given the timelines and lead times for production, I assume this was conceptualized on a mid-1960s acid trip.
efitz · 2h ago
In the 70s and early 80s you might get a record like this made of flimsy plastic as a toy in a cereal box, or as a happy meal toy, etc. never heard of postage stamps but seems like a similar use case.
Now I wonder if these were ever really used as actual postage stamps? Besides the size and weight, stamps need to be "cancelled" by, well, stamping them with another kind of stamp (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cancellation_(mail)) before an envelope goes in the mail, and I can't imagine how that would work with these...
I searched @Techmoan’s channel for coverage first, because he seems exactly like a bloke who’d be interested in doing 40 minutes documenting these.
Just from eyeballing the video you linked, I would worry that the playing surface is so small, a normal turntable would refuse to play. An override may be required, because most tonearms would sense the runoff grooves or label boundary simply by distance from the center spindle.
The stamps look barely wider than a standard record’s label.
Rediscover · 9h ago
Interesting! Now I'm wondering if Leighton or Feynman was aware of these stamps (my ddg/google-fu is bad today).
FridayoLeary · 8h ago
I find it fascinating that something so inherently worthless like stamps can sell for such large sums. Old fashioned NFT's?
These stamps however are very cool. And the prices are actually reasonable.
modo_mario · 25m ago
As kids we collected pokemon cards. Even less inherent value and we didn't even really play the game well or certainly didn't know the proper rules.
Stamps are collectibles from all over the world, that keep/kept getting made with varied art, history, etc on it often having interesting factoids to know about em, etc
And with some effort if you were writing letters and postcards anyway you got them for free (with some stamp lines on em from time to time)
eCa · 3h ago
> inherently worthless
There are many things that different people places different value on. The things I don’t place value on aren’t inherently worthless.
rob74 · 2h ago
In the end, it's all supply and demand - even gold is no exception.
I work in IT. I used to be a philatelist (can you stop?). How on earth did I never think of this.
It makes those bloody awful business card CDs (off of the 90s n noughties) look pretty naff.
Barking mad and quite beautiful. Love it!
The curious tale of Bhutan's playable record postage stamps (2015) - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22896682 - April 2020 (30 comments)
EDIT: there are also first day covers using these stamps available (https://boingboing.net/2022/07/07/look-at-these-cool-1970s-p...), and the photo shows that it actually works, but not really well, especially with the black one...
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=H0DXyCiKbDI
Just from eyeballing the video you linked, I would worry that the playing surface is so small, a normal turntable would refuse to play. An override may be required, because most tonearms would sense the runoff grooves or label boundary simply by distance from the center spindle.
The stamps look barely wider than a standard record’s label.
These stamps however are very cool. And the prices are actually reasonable.
Stamps are collectibles from all over the world, that keep/kept getting made with varied art, history, etc on it often having interesting factoids to know about em, etc And with some effort if you were writing letters and postcards anyway you got them for free (with some stamp lines on em from time to time)
There are many things that different people places different value on. The things I don’t place value on aren’t inherently worthless.