from Hacker News

The curious tale of Bhutan's playable record postage stamps (2015)

by ohjeez on 5/21/25, 6:45 PM with 21 comments

• by gerdesj on 5/21/25, 11:01 PM

  "Issued in 1972 in a set of seven, the stamps are miniature, one-sided, 33 1⁄3 rpm vinyl records playable on a standard turntable. You peeled off the backing paper and stuck them on an envelope or postcard. Content includes Bhutanese folk songs and histories of the country in English and Dzongkha, the local language. "

  I work in IT. I used to be a philatelist (can you stop?). How on earth did I never think of this.

  It makes those bloody awful business card CDs (off of the 90s n noughties) look pretty naff.

  Barking mad and quite beautiful. Love it!

• by efitz on 5/22/25, 6:03 AM

  In the 70s and early 80s you might get a record like this made of flimsy plastic as a toy in a cereal box, or as a happy meal toy, etc. never heard of postage stamps but seems like a similar use case.

• by NaOH on 5/21/25, 9:06 PM

  Previous discussion:

  The curious tale of Bhutan's playable record postage stamps (2015) - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22896682 - April 2020 (30 comments)

• by dtgriscom on 5/22/25, 1:37 AM

  Does anyone know how large these stamps are? (I didn't see any dimensions in the article.)

• by alwa on 5/22/25, 4:19 AM

  In case you’re curious how they sound:

  https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=H0DXyCiKbDI

• by Rediscover on 5/21/25, 11:16 PM

  Interesting! Now I'm wondering if Leighton or Feynman was aware of these stamps (my ddg/google-fu is bad today).

• by FridayoLeary on 5/22/25, 12:08 AM

  I find it fascinating that something so inherently worthless like stamps can sell for such large sums. Old fashioned NFT's?

  These stamps however are very cool. And the prices are actually reasonable.