Fish on Stamps
This online stamp catalogue is dedicated to the theme of ‘fish’. This website contains over 600 subpages with more than 6,000 images of stamp sets, miniature sheets and blocks with fish motifs.
Click the button: To the Stamps
Information and history of this website
The following pages list and display all stamps known to me on the theme of ‘fish’, sorted by country and date of issue. I have also added some information about the individual issues. However, prehistoric and extinct animals are not part of this collection and are not catalogued here. This website is not commercial and is intended solely as a resource for collectors who share my hobby.
The ‘Fish on Stamps’ website has been in existence since the 1990s. It started back then with about 500 stamps from the themes ‘Fish, Whales and Dolphins’. With the ‘International Year of the Ocean’ in 1998, the number of stamp issues rose rapidly and my collection quickly grew to over 5,000 stamps.
At that time, there were no private fibre optic connections or high-speed internet, and data speeds and storage space for websites were very limited. For this reason, I only included partial images of most stamp issues and kept the images very small.
In the following years, some predominantly African countries saw an immense flood of commemorative stamps, which meant that the collection continued to grow rapidly. These stamps are printed by dubious agencies and feature popular themes that are only intended to extract money from collectors. Many of these issues have no postal significance in their countries of origin.
By 2020, my collection already comprised over 20,000 stamps. However, I wondered what this meant for the future, as interest and the number of stamp collectors in this country has declined significantly in recent years. Unfortunately, my search for a successor for my collection was in vain, so I contacted several stamp dealers. In the end, I sold the entire collection to a dealer for a reasonable, market-driven price.
Although I sold my collection, I decided to continue the website, formerly known as ‘www.fischbriefmarken.de’.
Therefore, I completely redesigned the website in 2025. Due to the size of the collection, I decided to remove ‘marine mammals’. The site now focuses solely on the theme of ‘fish’. Technically, the images have been enlarged and the individual issues are now visualised as completely as possible. Furthermore, the country lists are now clearer and the home page has been completely redesigned.
About me
My name is Carsten Czarkowski.
My favorite hobbies are stamp collecting and aquatics. I have had an aquarium for about as long as I have been collecting stamps. I have been collecting stamps for over 40 years. As a teenager, I only collected stamps from Germany, later I started collecting stamps from all over the world.
in the 1980s, I found a set of stamps entitled ‘Native Fish of Burundi’ at a flea market in my hometown Damme. I was so fascineted by it that I bought the stamps straight away. This was the starting point for the symbiosis of my two hobbies.
In the following years, I continuously expanded my collection. At first, I regularly added to my collection at regional flea markets, later at larger exchange fairs and even at the ‘International Stamp Fairs’ in Essen and Cologne.
The founding of two large online auction houses in 1999 and 2000 opened up entirely new possibilities. Now I could even buy stamps worldwide. In the early years, I still sent the amounts due in US dollar notes by post to the seller. Later, online payment services became available, making the purchase of stamps even easier and more secure. For example, I bought some of my stamps directly in their countries of origin, such as the ‘Fish from Lake Victoria’ set in Kenya. Others came directly from Nicaragua, Mexico and Australia.
After selling my collection, I now limit myself to ‘aquatics’ and the design and updating of this website.
Contact
This site will continue to be maintained and updated. There are still some gaps in the newer editions, but these will also be filled in gradually.
I am grateful for any support in the form of information, high-quality images of individual editions, or even criticism.
Just send me an email at:
stamps(at)czarkowski.de
