Covers (1930 to 1939)
Part 3 of the covers pages, covering the 1930s.
Baghdad 🠚 Beirut, 3 April 1930
Splendid large cover to a Mr Tabet, a senior(?) postal official in Beirut. Posted in Baghdad on 3 April 1930, was in Damascus the following day, and arrived at Beirut some unclear time later. Also on the reverse is a genteel old-world “Carlton Hotel, Baghdad” handstamp, and possibly the name of the sender, a Mr Jagger(?). The text in red pencil is of unclear purpose: it adds a “recommandé” which was missing, and then gives the registration and airmail superscriptions in English, rotated ninety degrees.
Postmarks: “Baghdad Reg.” on obverse dated 3 April 1920. On the reverse, Damascus dated 4 April and an illegible Beirut.
Franking: 30 annas: subtract 3 for the registration fee and the letter must have weighed between 101 and 110 grams, as this gives us 10½ annas for postage and 16½ annas airmail surcharge.
Karbala 🠚 Yazd, 9 May 1931
Mixed frankings of the 1923 and 1931 issues are very tricky to find, even though there’s no particular reason (so far as I’m aware) why they should be. This rather charming cover was off to Yazd, Iran (or, as rendered here, Yezd, Persia). And that’s it, I suppose.
Postmarks: on the reverse, Kerbela 9 May 1931 twice, Basra sorting office 11 May 1931, Bandar Abbas arrival mark with the date illegible. Obverse, Yezd Arrivée. I can’t resolve the date into anything sensible.
Franking: 3 annas for an international letter.
Kirkuk 🠚 Langley Mill, 3 July 1931
Sent by an employee of the notorious Iraq Petroleum Company, whose unbalanced arrangements with the Iraqi government were a perennial source of nationalist grievance. The addressee, G. R. Turner Ltd., was a producer of rolling stock and etc.
Note that the embossed seal on the envelope flap reads “Tuz Khurmatli” (sic) but the postmark is Kirkuk. There had been a post office at Tuz Khormatu since 1920, so presumably our sender was actually in Kirkuk when he posted this.
Postmarks: Kirkuk 3 July 1931 on obverse, Baghdad sorting office 10 July 1931 on the reverse. Quite a delay, actually.
Franking: 4½ annas: 3 annas for a basic-weight foreign letter and 1½ annas for the airmail surcharge.
Baghdad 🠚 London, 12 May 1932
Registered airmail letter from a Mr Zilkha of Baghdad to Lloyd's Bank, London. Posted at Baghdad's Exchange Square post office on the 12th May 1932, arrived later that day at Baghdad's main office, and reached its destination on the 18th May.
Of note here is the combination of the first and second 1932 issues: this was posted on Thursday 12th May — that is, the fourth day the second issue was available (it having been issued on Monday 9th). Evidently post offices were authorised to use up whatever stocks of overprinted stamps they still held before moving onto the second issue. We can see here that the Exchange Square office had already run out of overprinted 8 fils stamps (these paid the standard internal letter rate and so were presumably in high demand), but still had some of the overprinted 30 fils stamps left.
Postmarks: two “‘Exchange Square’ Baghdad” postmarks dated 12 May 1932 on the obverse and a “Baghdad Reg.” on the reverse, also 12 May. The purple thing I assume is a Lloyds received stamp rather than a British postal marking.
Franking: 98 fils. Second weight step for an overseas letter (21-40 grams) is 23 fils (15+8) and the third weight step for the airmail surcharge (21-30 grams) is 60 fils (20+20+20), so 83 fils in total plus the standard registration fee of 15 fils.
Basra 🠚 Ivybridge, 26 July 1932
This evidently suffered some kind of mishap in transit, hence the nice “found opened or damaged / and officially secured” tape. The addressee wasn’t at the Stoke address indicated, and the correct address (Ivybridge) is also where the tape was postmarked. Did the damage occur during the re-routing within the UK? On the subject of damage, this has been hinged together crudely and stored imperfectly. But still an interesting item, I think.
Postmarks: Basra 26 July 1932 twice on the obverse. Ivybridge 3 August on the tape.
Franking: 83 fils. See the calculation immediately above:23 for postage, 60 for airmail fees.
Baghdad 🠚 NASIRIYAH, 23 January 1933
Several uncommon features here: postal stationery, a roller cancel, and an internal destination. And my linguistic limitations prevent me from saying much more.
Postmarks: Baghdad roller postmark dated 23 January 1933 with slogan “always prepay full postage” on the obverse. On the reverse, Nasiriyah 30 January 1933.
Franking: 3 fils, which was the standard printed matter rate.
Basra 🠚 Leipzig, 27 September 1934
Fun item. Our roguish sender has attempted to “defraud the revenue” by affixing, in place of a second 15 fils stamp, a cancelled 3 annas stamp of the invalidated and obsolete 1927 issue — hoping, no doubt, that the lightness of the stamp’s cancellation, and its similarity in colour to the 15 fils, would let it pass unnoticed. Not so, and the fraudulent stamp was duly isolated in pink pencil and left un-postmarked.
Further curiosities beyond that. This is endorsed for airmail, but the purported franking is 30 fils — not enough for airmail carriage unless the letter was light enough to fall into the first airmail weight step, which these things almost never do. Regardless, we only have 15 fils of real postage, enough for surface mail and nothing more, and so the purple airmail handstamp has been crossed out in the same pink pencil. This hasn’t been assessed for postage due — I cannot guess why. It’s appropriately franked for a surface letter, granted, but I understand postage ought to have been charged on the attempted airmail as well — see 12.XI.1937 below for example.
Postmarks: Basra sorting office 27 September 1934.
Franking: 15 fils 3 annas.
Basra 🠚 Lourenço Marques 🠚 Aden 🠚 bombay 🠚 Baghdad 🠚 Basra, 22 October 1934
Heavily marked letter from Basra to Lourenço Marques, Portuguese Mozambique (now Maputo). Best to take this one in reverse order I think.
Franking: 30 fils: 15 for registration and another 15 for a standard-weight international letter.
Postmarks: in order, and on the reverse unless stated:
“Basra Reg.”, 26 October 1934 (obverse)
Another “Basra Reg.”, 26 October 1934
Lourenço Marques arrival mark, 3 December 1934
Undated Lourenço Marques “return to sender” mark (obverse)
Aden, 16 January 1935
Bombay G.P.O., 25 January 1935
Bombay dead letter office, 25 January 1935
Bombay dead letter office, 31 January 1935
Undated “not claimed” — my best guess is that this fits in here.
Baghdad dead letter office, 3 February 1935
Baghdad dead letter office, 9 February 1935
“Basra Reg.”, 11 February 1935
Quite a curious trip taken here. The dead letter office sticker obscures the addressee, but it was evidently a company: “… Shipping Ltd.” I imagine a letter to a company would have a much harder time becoming undeliverable than one to an individual — had it become insolvent or dissolved itself by the time the letter arrived? At any rate, undelivered it was. Then, instead of being returned to the sender, whose name is clearly printed on the back flap (albeit without the country name), it was sent via Aden to Bombay, where it ended up in the Bombay dead letter office. Unsurprisingly, it wasn’t claimed at Bombay. Someone must have eventually realised it needed to go to Iraq, and so it was sent there, arriving at Baghdad on 3 February. There it sat until 9 February, before finally being returned to the sender. It arrived at Basra on 11 February.
Andrew Weir & Company had an advertisement in the 1948 Baghdad College yearbook. It described itself as “engineers and general importers & exporters.”
Najaf 🠚 Bushehr, 19 December 1934
Again, linguistic difficulties prevent me from saying much about this letter to Iran. Main attraction, apart from the elegant handwriting on the obverse, is the franking, comprising a strip of five 3 fils from the top of a sheet.
Postmarks: all on the reverse. Three Najaf postmarks dated 19 December 1934 and Basra sorting office dated 21 December. Finally, a Bushehr (“Bouchir”) arrival mark dated 22 December.
Franking: 15 fils, the basic-weight international rate.
BAGHDAD 🠚 Winnipeg, 8 June 1935
Taxed covers to destinations outside the UK aren’t particularly common, so this is slightly interesting. The recipient, Dr J. E. Mackacek, seems to have achieved some fame as an expert on plant pathology. The sender appears on covers of this period not infrequently — he was a member of “Weko”, a correspondents’ club of which I can find no mention whatsoever online.
Postmarks: Baghdad sorting office, twice. The circled T mark was applied at Baghdad, and the “2 cents due” in Canada. The Canadian postage due stamp has an illegible pen cancellation.
Franking: 13 fils, versus the 15 fils surface rate. So, a deficiency of 2 fils — multiply by two for penalty purposes to get 4 fils, which is equal to 6 and two-thirds “UPU Centimes”. I understand that, at this point, an external letter from Canada was 5 cents, so 1 cent Canadian would equal 5 UPU centimes I think. In this case we have 2 cents payable — 6.66 rounds down to 1 but perhaps the Canadian postage-due policy was to always round up to the next cent.
ERbil 🠚 Ballymena, 16 December 1935
Letter from Kurdistan to the strange, exotic destination of Ballymena in County Antrim. A traveller to Ballymena in the 1930s described it as “…the mother of cities… mistress of broad provinces and fruitful lands, boundless in multitude of buildings, peerless in beauty and splendour, the meeting-place of comer and goer, the stopping-place of feeble and strong… she surges as the waves of the sea with her throngs of folk, and can scarce contain them…”
Joking aside, this is an intriguing combination of elements. An uncommon origin and destination, and the sender, per the use of “Irland”, may have been German. And possibly not entirely familiar with recent Irish history. Very unfortunately I can find nothing about the addressee. The clasped-hands motif is curious: one sees it not uncommonly on envelopes of this period, and its use (at least from my entirely anecdotal experience) seems to be restricted to envelopes franked at the printed matter rate. I’ve stared at the Arabic text through my Urim and Thummim and am given to understand it reads “may Allah bless your days”, which doesn’t clarify the matter.
Postmarks: Arbil 16 December 1935 on obverse, Baghdad sorting office 17 December on the reverse.
Franking: 3 fils for the printed matter rate.
Baghdad 🠚 Baghdad, 23 December 1935
Abysmal condition (though the taping job is as good as one could wish for, despite me wishing it wasn’t there at all), but this is one of those “try and find a better one” sorts of items — in a few years of keeping an eye out this is the only pre-WWII local rate cover I have encountered. I understand this is addressed to no less than future prime minister Hikmat Sulayman, which adds a bit of extra colour.
Postmarks: Baghdad 23 December 1935 (the final digit is unclear but I think I see the vertical stroke of a 5 — it’s an 8 otherwise) on obverse, Baghdad (delivery?) 24 December on reverse.
Franking: 4 fils for a basic-weight local delivery letter.
Baghdad 🠚 Stockholm, 31 March 1936
Slightly creased, but it’s a nice colourful large thing. Sent by the Tehran branch of Svenska Entreprenad AB, a construction company which happily seems to still be in business. A few more seconds of internet searching offers me the figure of major Hugo von Heidenstam, who according to Wikipedia was the director of Svenska Entreprenad between 1930 and 1936. In 1936 he was promoted to lieutenant-colonel and made the Swedish envoy to (if I read this correctly) both Iraq and Iran, a position he held until 1942. Perhaps not too fanciful to wonder if this cover is his work. The Swedish-Iranian connection is a rather Gnostic subject: the Qajars in their declining years terrorised their subjects with bands of marauding Swedish cossacks. Or something like that.
More prosaically, this cover is a good illustration of as “jusqu’a markings”, as they’re inelegantly called in English. This letter was transported by the Dutch KLM airline from Baghdad to Munich, and the leg from Munich to Stockholm was made by surface mail. On arrival at Munich, the airmail endorsement and “par avion jusqu’a Munchen” handstamp were both crossed out in blue pencil.
Postmarks: four Baghdad Ar-Rashid postmarks dated 31 March 1936 on the obverse. A Baghdad sorting office postmark also dated 31 March on the reverse.
Franking: 151 fils, which is exactly the tariff for a letter weighing between 51 and 60 grams (31 fils for postage and 120 for airmail).
Baghdad 🠚 Düsseldorf, 8 October 1936
The elusive pre-stamped postcard, here doing as quotidian and “commercial” of a service as one could possibly ask for. Sent by the appositely-named M. Glaser of Baghdad to Henkel & Cie. AG, which is still very much in business.
Postmarks: Baghdad as-Samawal 8 October 1936 obverse, Baghdad 8 October 1936 reverse. The double-circle “Erl.” mark on the reverse doesn’t look like a postal mark. Something about it smells German to me — a Henkel mail room mark of some description?
Franking: 8 fils for the basic foreign surface postcard rate.
Nasriyah 🠚 Baghdad, 3 january 1937
Damaged and imperfectly repaired, but this is like the local cover above in that it will absolutely do until I can obtain a better one. A curious additional similarity to that local cover is that this one is also addressed to Hikmat Sulayman, who at this point was prime minister. Whether this cover contained a warning that the Bakr Sidqi “thing” wasn’t going to work out, or merely something less useful, I cannot guess.
Postmarks: Nasriyah 3 January 1937, and what I assume must be Baghdad delivery, 4 January.
Franking: 28 fils: 15 for registration and 13 (8+5) for the second weight step for internal letters.
Baghdad 🠚 Washington, 19 August 1937
Apologies for the quality of the scan — the seals on the back have some depth to them. The main attraction here is, of course, the tiny handstamp on the reverse, indicating that this cover was once owned by homme politique Franklin D. Roosevelt. This is not nearly as exciting as it might appear. My understanding is that interesting foreign covers received by the government departments in Washington were habitually forwarded to the White House, their senders looking to curry some presidential favour, and so most of Roosevelt’s collection consisted of things that were sent to him unprompted and which he exercised no personal discretion in acquiring. But it’s at least a slightly interesting provenance.
Postmarks: On the obverse two Baghdad Ar-Rashid postmarks dated 19 August 1937. Another one on the reverse, as well as a “Baghdad Reg.” dated 19 August, two New York Registry Division postmarks dated 31 August, and “Washington D.C. Reg. Sec.” also dated 31 August.
Franking: 92 fils. 77 with the registration fee taken into account: a letter weighing between 21 and 30 grams cost 23 fils for postage and 54 for airmail.
Basra 🠚 Devonport, 12 November 1937
Another one in the “charming, despite condition” idiom — or, perhaps, because of the condition. Anyway this one had a more complicated journey through the mails than the typical letter. Going in reverse order:
Franking: 39 fils. This would have exactly paid the postage for a basic-weight letter sent by KLM (15 postage + 24 air fare), so this one must have crept into the next weight step (10-20g), in which case the total fee was 63 fils. According to the regulations then prevailing,* if a letter was underpaid but, despite that, paid sufficiently to cover the airmail fee, the letter could be sent by air. Here, if we’re into the second weight step, the total air fee would be 48 fils — so, not enough. This must then have been carried by surface mail, and the arrival postmark on the obverse is dated 19 November, suggesting a journey too long to have been made by air (though, that said, a week is still rather efficient even by modern standards).
We now get into some occultism. The deficiency here is 24 fils (63 minus 39). Multiplied by two, for postage-due purposes, we get 48 fils. Multiply that by 1.67 (1 fils equalled 1.67 “UPU Centimes”) to get 80.16. At a rate of 1 centime = 0.1d, we get slightly over 8d, which rounds down to that. And, accordingly — a total of 8d in British postage due stamps. I note, however, next to them, someone has written “78 / C” in red pencil. As far as I can work out, there’s no way to arrive at 78 centimes — if the deficiency was 1f lower (which it couldn’t be — if the airmail charge was 23f then the total deficiency would be 2f lower, as we’re into the second airmail weight step) we’d end up at 77 centimes, after rounding. Perplexing.
Postmarks / pencil marks: I set these out in order, or at any rate what I think is the order. Some of the pencilled text I can do nothing with, unfortunately.
Maqil 12 November 1937 (twice, obverse)
Basra sorting office 12 November 1937 (reverse)
“Maqil due” handstamp (obv.)
Red pencil “78 / C” indicating the deficiency (obv.)
Recd.(?) Bristol, 19 November 1938 obv.)
circled “T” handstamp applied in England, indicating tax payable (obv.)
“8/- l. s. d.” handstamp indicating the conversion of the deficiency into sterling (obv.)
The postage due stamps would have then been applied.
A failed attempt at delivering the letter presumably then ensued.
“Again 1st dely. Wednesday” twice (obv.)
The letter was, then, apparently refused by the intended recipient.
The postage due stamps cancelled with a purple “CHARGE NOT COLLECTED / FRESH LABEL NEEDED” postmark (obv.)
Purple “UNDELIVERED FOR REASON STATED / RETURN TO SENDER” (obv.) to which has been added a pencil “PTO” — going over to the reverse we find a purple “REBUT / PARTI” and in pencil “Refused..” and other words I cannot read.
Purple “RETOUR.” (obv.)
Having arrived back in Iraq, with no return address, the cover then ended up in the Baghdad dead letter office on 9 December 1937 (rev.)
*I take all this from p. 24 of Iraq Postal History….
Baghdad 🠚 Prague, c. November 1937
Charming official postcard — not a format so commonly seen. Here, Professor W. P. Kennedy of the Royal College of Medicine, Baghdad, requests some publications. The German University of Prague ceased to exist in 1945, as can be imagined.
Postmarks: I think Baghdad but the name is almost entirely illegible, and the date entirely so.
Franking: 8 fils for an international surface mail postcard.
Baghdad 🠚 Saint-Étienne, 16 October 1938
A second trip to the guns and cycles of Saint-Étienne (see 26.XI.1927). The location of “Janoubi” is unclear to me (“Baghdad South”, literally), but wherever it was, they had a fondness for purple ink at the post office: compare the postmark and the registration label. Oversize purple rubber-stamp postmarks would go on to haunt many covers of the late 1960s and early 1970s, but at this early date it’s all in good fun.
Postmarks: All on the reverse unless noted. The Italian transit postmarks, bearing both the origin and destination, are rather picturesque.
Janoubi Baghdad, 16 October 1938 (two on obverse, one on reverse)
“Amb[ulante] Rome-Livorno”, 18 October 1938
“Amb[ulante] Livorno-Turin”, 18 October 1938
“Amb[ulante] Turin-Modane”, 19 October 1968 (sic)
Saint-Étienne, 20 October 1938
Franking: 54 fils. Subtract 15 for the registration fee to get 39. The rate for a letter between 11 and 20 grams was 40 fils, so this is a small underpayment.