Radiated Tortoise

Stamp from souvenir sheet.
Although this issue was authorized by the Togo postal administration, it was not generally sold in Togo, but only distributed by the Togo philatelic agency IGPC for dis.. Read more »tribution onto the philatelic market. Due to this and the fact that this item was excessively produced makes it of little to no philatelic value.

The list of stamps to avoid and resist states all stamps for Togo from 1990 forward should be avoided unless on the UPU's WNS stamp system.
This is due to excessive production and /or no evidence of sales and usage within Togo. Between 1990 and 2001, the stamp agencies IGPC and Impressor S.A. abused their rights to produce stamps in this way. Numerous issues were used on commercial mailings but were extremely overproduced as sales on the IGPC website continue to offer them decades later and the Impressor issues are massively offered still by associates of the agency.
One can simply see the waves of abuse by looking at the numbers of issues for each year on Colnect.
Where evidence of this abuse is solid, this description has been added for collectors to understand and do their own research before investing in the particular issue.

Country:	Togo
Type:	Postage stamps
Series:	Turtles (1996)
Nominal:	1,000 CFA
Year:	1996
Size:	40 x 32 mm
Perforation:	comb 13