Azerbaijan

Azerbaijan is a country in western Asia, on the western edge of the Caspian Sea..

With the fall of the Russian Empire in World War I, the Transcaucasian Democratic Republic declared independence in April 1918. It was made up of current Georgia, Armenia and Azerbaijan. See: Transcaucasian Federated Republic.
 * In May 1918, all three declared independence. Azerbaijan's first issue followed in 1919.
 * In May 1920, Russia invaded Azerbaijan and made it a Soviet republic.
 * In 1922, Azerbaijan issued its own stamps, later surcharged due to hyperinflation.
 * In the same year, Armenia, Azerbaijan and Georgia were combined into Transcaucasian SFSR. They woould remain as one Soviet republic until 1936 when once again separated into three parts.
 * With the fall of the Soviet Union, Azerbaijan declared independence once again in October 1991. Its first stamp was issued in May 1992 inscribed AZÄRBAYCAN.
 * This was followed by several unissued Russian stamps surcharged similarly.
 * The issues that followed are inscribed either AZAzeri schwa A.pngRBAYCAN or AZAzeri schwa A.pngRBAYAN POÇTU.

 File:Azerbaijan first.jpg|5 ruble value from the 1919 issue. File:Stamps of Azerbaijan, 2010-911.jpg|2010 Mausoleum of Noah. 

Bogus pictorial issue
A set of six values from 500r to 25,000r, both perf and imperf, was produced in Italy, inscribed REPUBLIQUE D. AZERBAIDJAN, circa 1921. These would be forged at least twice besides. See: the Stamp Forgeries site for comparison.  File:Azerbaijan bogus 10k.jpg|10,000r genuine/original bogus stamp, imperf 