"The early days of a better nation..."

23 years ago, philatelists were given a wonderful gift: the birth of 15 (or 16 or 17, depending on how you count) new nations when the USSR fell apart.
Yes, I know that's a grotesquely shallow way to look at an event that brought a lot of misery to a lot of people, but this is a philatelic blog, what do you expect me to write about, Sumerian grammar?
The new nations were faced with the giant task of constructing a functioning state out of the wreckage of the USSR. Some inherited structures were more hindrance than help - how many former Soviet republics found themselves saddled with a Soviet-oriented parliament?
Postally, the main ingredients were:

1. Outdated postal rates (7k letter rate of April 1991) which rose quickly after independence;
2. A large supply of USSR postal stationery, which was uprated - usually with overprints - on a massive scale;
3. A large supply of USSR stamps - mostly definitives - which were used without overprint, used with overprints and even used with manuscript revaluations;
4. Not much of a local logistical structure - new post-independence stamps had to be printed abroad quite often, and supplying stamps to the post offices was a continual headache, with stamp shortages the frequent result;
5. Sharply reduced control over postal operations, with speculators taking advantages of the chaos in many places.

This transitional period lasted anywhere from a few months (Russia) to several years (some Central Asian republics), and it gave us an almost infinite field of interesting things to collect. Whether the post-Soviet republics are indeed "better nations" is not for me to say, but speaking as a philatelist, YIPPEE!

Mysterious 1994 stamp booklets of Azerbaijan

Towards the end of 1994, Azerbaijan issued two topical sets: "Birds of prey" (5 stamps and a miniature sheet, issued 15 November 1994) and "Wild cats" (5 stamps and a miniature sheet, issued 14 December 1994). Both sets have since been spotted imperforate, but it is extremely doubtful that they were ever issued in Azerbaijan in that form.
A few years ago I became aware that both sets had also spawned stamp booklets. For both sets, a booklet was produced, with a block of 4 of the 20m value and a block of 4 of the 25m value. Both blocks are tied to the inside of the cover by the official First Day of Issue postmark. Here is the "Birds" booklet:

Note that the number on the outside is repeated on the inside, tying both blocks of stamps.

The "Cats" booklets exists in two subtypes. Low-numbered copies are in this format:

Copies with higher numbers are in a slightly smaller format:

I am not aware of any catalog that lists these booklets. I occasionally see them offered at fantastic prices (and they're certainly not common), but nobody collects Azerbaijan, he said bitterly. Print runs are guesswork only but I'd guess 2000 for the Birds booklet and 4000 for the Cats booklet? It's interesting that the two values used in the booklets had slightly higher print runs than the other stamps in the set, so perhaps this was a way of using up the extras.

I've heard some unsubstantiated rumors that these booklets were on sale at philatelic exhibitions where Azermarka had a stand, and that certainly makes sense to me. They look like official Azermarka productions, but they are not even listed in Azermarka's own catalogs...