text: Imperforate sheetlet (2R) produced under the ‘Dhufar’ name to celebrate the 1976 US Bicentennial, depicting various American flowers.
  Cancelled-to-order (CTO) condition (see our glossary page for an explanation of what CTO means).
  Dhufar (also spelt Dhofar) is a real place - the largest of the eleven Governorates within the Sultanate of Oman - but its stamps are somewhat less authentic.
  Plans for Dhufar stamps were first made by the stamp agent Youssef Salim Tadros in early 1971, before the Sultanate of Oman had acceded to the Universal Postal Union (UPU), and at a point where Dhufar issues might conceivably have warranted a genuine postal use. An excellent article by the Oman Philatelic Network sets out the complicated political and legal picture in Dhufar and Oman at this time.
  The controversial English stamp dealer Clive Feigenbaum - who was also responsible for Eynhallow, Nagaland and Staffa issues, among others - produced Dhufar's first definitive stamps. These were issued in April 1972, and do exist on postally used covers, albeit originating from Damascus in Syria rather than from Dhufar itself.
  After this, Feigenbaum continued to product a wide range of thematic issues under the Dhufar name from 1972 until 1986, but these had no postal use; rather, they are essentially fantasy or bogus issues, and are hence included here in our Cinderellas section.