Rates
Much as I wish I could avoid this fussy, unrewarding topic, it probably behoves me to make some general comments about rates somewhere on the site. I had previously had a couple of introductory digressions on a couple of the “covers” page, but I’ve decided to consolidate it all here, both for ease of reference and to tidy up those other pages.
Rates to c. 1945
My sources for rates from the Ottoman period up to, approximately, the end of WWII, are:
Postal History of the Ottoman Empire, Rates and Routes, by Turhan Turgut
The Postal History of Iraq, by Edward Proud
Iraq Postal History, by Douglas Armitage and Robert Johnson
I don’t propose to say anything else here — I’ve questioned this or that specific detail contained in Proud or Turgut, but these are all comprehensive, authoritative works.
rates 1945-1958
Here things immediately become more difficult. The Armitage/Johnson book makes a few incursions into the later 1940s but, apart from that, this period is (so far as I can see) without coverage in the literature. I possess a certain amount of information, and I’m going to set this out and then, more or less, stop there — one could go mad trying to reverse-engineer the correct airmail fees from the incoherent profusion of frankings found on covers. But more on that below.
Note that, for simplicity, and in view of them being the only material one regularly encounters, I’m only covering letter rates here.
Items marked with a * are taken from the Armitage/Johnson book. Items with a † are from the Iraqi online legislation website. Items with a ‡ I’ve seen in back issues of the Iraq Times.
Surface rates
Internal letters
1 May 1942* — 12f first 20g, 6f per additional 20g.
1 January 1949† — 14f first 20g, 8f per additional 20g.
15 October 1953† — 10f first 20g, 6f per additional 20g.
External letters
24 July 1940* — 20f first 20g, 10f per additional 20g.
1 November 1949* — 28f first 20g, 16f per additional 20g.
As far as I am aware there were no subsequent increases until (at least) the 1958 coup.
Registration
24 July 1940* — 20f.
1 January 1949† — 25f.
1 November 1949* — 40f.
15 October 1953† — 20f (for internal, unclear if also for external).
External destinations to which internal surface rates were applied
Time immemorial — Kuwait
1 March 1949 — Turkey‡
c. March 1951? (unclear) — Jordan‡
1 July 1954 — Egypt, Jordan (if this wasn’t already the case — see above), Syria, Lebanon‡
17 March 1955 — Libya, Saudi Arabia, Yemen‡
Airmail rates
Internal
1 May 1946 — 5f per 10g* (Armitage/Johnson says per 20g but their worked examples only seem to work with 10g increments, I think)
15 September 1946 — internal airmail service cancelled.* I don’t know when it restarted.
External
A vexing topic. The old system of different airlines charging different airmail fares continued after the war, at least for a time, and the cover material displays a perturbingly wide range of frankings. I’m going to entirely refrain from conjecturing and simply set out the airmail notices I have seen. These were all found in the Iraq Times. Obviously the dates are what they are, and we miss anything before 1948 and after 1951. Much more complete information should be contained in the Iraqi Government Gazette for anyone intrepid enough to visit the British Library and locate it. There are references as well to notices at the post offices themselves, which would make sense.
(and, yes, I’m sufficiently technologically illiterate that this is simply a screenshot of a Word document)
If the external surface rate stayed at 28f throughout this period, as I believe it did, then the airmail fee for any particular cover, where unknown, should simply be the total franking minus the surface rate. Though that isn’t an especially conclusive or satisfying way to approach the question.
Addendum to above: a postal notice of 29 March 1955 stated that the current airmail rates for postcards and letters would be “reduced by 24%” from 1 April 1955. The same notice states that the weight steps will be 5g.
rates from 1958
I haven’t yet given this topic the attention it probably requires, so I’m just going to sketch out a few very basic thoughts (of doubtful accuracy) rather than attempt something more comprehensive.
Internal letters
I have an internal cover dated 4 November 1958 franked at 8f — if so, a reduction from 10f shortly after the coup. The 26 November Arab Lawyers’ Conference commemorative overprint has a value of 10f however. Though this could have been a situation where the stamp was devised at a time when the internal rate was 10f, and it changed to 8f during production.
By the mid-1960s, 15f?
The rates change in 1971 seems to have brought it up to 25f.
External letters
By the earlier 1960s the typical airmail letter to western destinations seems to come out around 42-44f, so I’d guess a square 20f for postage and then airmail steps at around 11f-12f (the variations being the result of the old “different airlines set their own rates” system?). Covers are also seen at the low 30s so I think postage must be 20 to leave “space” for the airmail fee. External registration at this point was maybe 60f(?)
1965 (perhaps squarely on 1 January) seems to have been the year when surface and airmail rates were finally consolidated. The combined rate (at least to western destinations) seems to have been 50f (next weight step 40f?), with registration at 45f. By 1970 the registration fee seems to have risen to 50f.
The next change seems to have been in 1971, when basic-weight postage and registration both rose to 70f. The next weight step for postage I think was 55f.
In 1976? (very unclear) postage increased again to 75f — registration still at 70? 75 otherwise. Postage up again to 80f in 1978.
By this point the frankings start to spread out again and I lose the thread somewhat. So I’ll park things here for the moment.
As well as the other Arab Middle East countries (for which material is extremely rare), Algeria, Iran and Pakistan seem to have ended up in the “lower rates zone” by the early 1960s (and probably much earlier).