1941 Officials used in the 1970s

1. Introduction

This is a rather curious matter about which I can find literally no information whatsoever. What I intend to do, therefore, is to upload the tiny amount of material I possess, and politely request that any third parties who know more than me (…rarely a difficult bar to clear) please let me know if they have any information or contributions.

As I will set out elsewhere [page still to be written as of August 2020 2021] (page finally written June 2022), Iraq encountered a curious service stamp shortage in the early 1970s. It seems to have begun in 1971, but its most dramatic manifestation was in 1973, when a large number of Faisal II-era stamps were dug up from storage and distributed, the royal portrait having been defaced in one way or another. Some of these already carried an “on state service” overprint, and others were given one. There was also a small issue of defaced Faisal II stamps for use as postage stamps.

Those stamps are well-known. More obscure is the fact that, also probably in 1973, a quantity of service stamps from the 1941 series was reissued. These weren’t given any new overprints or defacements: they had been given their service overprints by the printers in the 1940s, and the pictorial imagery was presumably considered politically neutral.

I would need a larger corpus to make any firm guesses as to the distribution of these stamps. Uses are known at Baghdad, Basra and Mosul -- whether they reached smaller towns I do not currently know.

The only denominations I have seen are the 75 fils and 200 fils. The 1973 reissue of Faisal II stamps included most denominations between 10 fils and 1 dinar (I assume inflation had caused the values below 10 fils to not be worth the trouble). So perhaps there’s more denominations out there to be found.

2. The covers

My treatment of the markings, rates etc is going to be cursory to the point of non-existence. I know nothing about this period, and I assume nothing has even been written in English.

It should be specifically noted that none of these covers appears contrived in the slightest — they’re all from state enterprises to equally boring foreign businesses. This seems to also be the case for the 1973 Faisal II reissues. Happily, collectors seem not to have been warned in advance.

Basra 🠚 Darmstadt, 23 December 1973

The Rafidain Bank maintains an unlikely outpost at Leadenhall Street in the City — at time of writing heavily besieged by construction and road works. This is a late outing for the older style of circular datestamp.

BAGHDAD 🠚 Paris, ??? 1974

The only solo use of the 75 fils I’ve seen — slightly overpaying what I understand to be the basic international rate of 70 fils.

Sent by (after much squinting at the reverse) the Iraqi Tobacco State Company to Inveresk Group, which seems to have been in the business of paper manufacturing. There’s a clearish postmark strike on the reverse which gives the date in Arabic numbers as 1974-6-7. Below is “Baghdad Reg.” as far as I can make out, and the registration label reads Bab Al-Sharqi, a district of Baghdad. The purple seal on the obverse I assume is some government ministry logo but I cannot confirm.

BAGHDAD, 27 October 1974

Not a cover, but, well. Postmarked at Madinat al-Tib, or the Baghdad Medical City.

BAGHDAD 🠚 Montreal, 15 February 1975

Sent by Iraqi Airways and postmarked “Al-Matar Al-Douali”, which is the local name for Baghdad International Airport as I understand it. Recipient is the International Civil Aviation Organisation, appropriately enough. The postmark date is a clear 15-2-75. This presents a difficulty, as Gibbons suggests the official stamps with eagle design (as here) were issued November or December 1975, although it doesn’t offer a specific date. I’d wonder in this case if Gibbons is wrong, seeing as I seem to have two covers here dated earlier in 1975 with the eagle stamps, and Gibbons doesn’t seem to have concrete information as to the date of issue.

Mosul 🠚 Detroit, 21 May 1975?

Unfortunately the postmark (of the obsolete style) is too weak here to determine the year — I can make out what looks like the middle section of a “5”, but if so this gives rise to the same dating problem discussed immediately above. Anyway this was sent by the University of Mosul to Derco Laboratories of Detroit, which seems to have been an aerospace company.

Mosul 🠚 ???, 2 December 1976

Sent by the Rafidain Bank to an unfortunately unknowable destination.

Basra(?) 🠚 Detroit, 25 April 1974

The point of this site is for me display my own collection, and featuring something I don’t own goes entirely against the spirit of that. But these covers are so obscure I think this is valuable as an additional comparandum. Also I did try to win it when it came up for sale a few years back. Having enlisted an extremely patient Arabic-speaking friend to help me stare at the postmarks we conclude this was sent from the Republican Hospital in Basra, and the destination is Difco Laboratories (not to be confused with Derco Laboratories) in Detroit, which manufactured medical equipment. This is the only multiple usage I have seen. Images are of course the seller’s.

6 August 2020