What was the Republic of South Maluku?

I collect all kinds of stamps but I am especially interested in butterflies. Recently I bought a small collection of butterfly stamps that included these. I thought they were very attractive and they're very nicely done. I like the fact they are triangles and the background is plain so the beautiful butterflies really stand out. These are unusual butterflies and I have not seen most of them before. The one on the top left is definitely a Ulysses butterfly and the one on the bottom right is some kind of birdwing butterfly but I don't know the others.

I am sure you will agree that the butterflies are fabulous. But where do the stamps come from? What is REPUBLIK MALUKU SELETAN? Is it a country? Where is it?

The Republic of South Maluku, sometimes called the Republic of the South Moluccas, was more of a political movement than a place. It has a very complicated history but basically there were a group of people who felt that the Islands of South Maluku would be better independent than part of Indonesia, which had only recently become independent from the Netherlands. In 1949 Indonesia came to an understanding with the South Maluku rebels and agreed some kind of "federal arrangement" for all states. However, this promise was broken so the rebels declared an independent republic in 1950.

It didn't go too well for the South Malukans. They were no match for the Indonesian army and were beaten on the island of Ambon (part of the South Maluku area) in November 1950. After that, the struggle went on until the end of 1963, and then the South Maluku government went into exile. There is still a Republic of South Maluku resistance movement and there is a government-in-exile in the Netherlands. However, the Republic of South Maluku was never recognised by any other country.

So, what about the stamps? Where do they fit into this story? Well, my butterflies were not the only stamps created for South Maluku. There were many others, and often they were very beautiful and well designed. Take a look at these.

I like the design of all of these but I particularly like the fish. And here is a sheet from the butterflies set.

They look great. But why did a country that was never recognised and only existed for a short time create so many stamps? They are not actually stamps and they were never used for postage.

They are a kind of Cinderella stamp called bogus stamps. This means that they were not created by a genuine postal service and seem to have been made to deceive collectors. It seems some of the stamps may have been printed by the government-in-exile but most of them seem to have come from a stamp dealer called Henry Stolow. Peter Doerling explains it better than I can:

"...in 1954, some gentlemen appeared at the Vienna Staatsdruckerei, among them a German stamp dealer, who wanted to have stamps printed for the new REPUBLIC MALUKU SELATAN. The republic was in existence for only a short time; warships fired on Ambonia and many inhabitants fled to the Netherlands. Of course, this was only a pretense for the speculators, because they ordered about 150 stamp issues, among them a lot of beautiful animal and plant themes as well as a UN series, all of them merely fantasy issues without any philatelic value."

I didn't know any of this until I investigated online. I didn't really learn much about postal history, but I did learn something about South Maluku and Indonesia and it is interesting. It is fascinating how even Cinderellas like these have a story to tell.

So these aren't stamps but Cinderellas. Does this make them less interesting? In some ways yes, in some ways they are still interesting because they tell us about a part of the world most of don't know much about and they also tell us about how a stamp dealer tried to trick collectors in the 1950s. That's all part of history.

I still think they're very beautiful and I will keep them in my butterfly collection. They are of course nice pictures of butterflies even if they are not stamps, but I don't think I'll be looking out for any more sets from South Maluku. Many thanks to my mum and dad for helping me write this.