ABSTRACT
In 1979, the Walt Disney Company entered into an agreement with the Inter-Governmental Philatelic Corporation (IGPC) to produce a series of postage stamps for several Caribbean Island nations and the Republic of the Maldives in the Indian Ocean. The stamps featured Disney cartoon characters to celebrate the United Nations International Year of the Child. The sets that were issued in the following years were wildly popular with both stamp and Disneyana collectors worldwide. Although popular culture portrayed on stamps was not new, the Disney stamps provided the impetus for a veritable explosion of interest in placing themes related to international popular culture (e.g., movie stars, famous athletes) on postage stamps and, in some extreme cases, almost completely replacing more staid nationalistic topical themes. While some of these issues were used locally for postal purposes, the vast majority were produced for collectors worldwide and the postal authorities of these small, sovereign island nations received revenues from the sales from the IGPC and other private companies that designed, produced and distributed the stamps on their behalf. Attention is focused on the period from 1979 until 1999 when the IGPC produced most of the stamps for these island nations. Some examples of corruption and abuse are presented and the future of Disney on stamps is discussed.
