Is this a Cinderella or a real stamp? Legal or illegal? I say legal and official, because I received it from a postal agent in Ukraine in 1992, in response to my request for a stamped cover. His/her bonus enclosure of this mint stamp was accompanied by the hand-written note, which displayed a touching sense of national pride, complete with awkward syntax and a misspelling of “independent.” At my next Syracuse Stamp Club meeting I will try to remember to check an up-to-date catalogue to make sure this really is a first. Certainly it’s not the first Ukrainian stamp, which would date back to 1918 and the Ukrainian National Republic. Moreover, numberless Ukrainians, proud and stubborn and creative, would point to the many issues put out by exiles through the years of Soviet rule. Given the demise of the Soviet Union, the thought suddenly occurs: Might it some day be time to review those “illegal” Ukraine issues, and to reconsider those Cinderellas as authentic, flickering emblems of a nation that went to sleep in 1923 and awoke in1992? If so, some kind of a fairy tale would come true …