Other pre-1958 stamps
This will be a slightly disorganised business. Not least because I don’t actually possess a single one of the stamps I’m talking about here. The purpose of this page is very much just to collect my notes on these subjects in one place.
1. The railway stamps
These have been exhaustively researched and described by Professor Rainer Fuchs, and I have nothing whatsoever to add to his erudite commentary. His detailed exhibition of these stamps can be seen here, and his own website on the same topic is here.
These stamps aren’t commonly encountered in trade, and one is left with the impression that the railway postal service was more of a gimmick than a vital part of the postal infrastructure.
2. The WWII-era provisional handstamps, aka the “Habbaniya Provisionals”
These crude handstamps are conventionally —though, inaccurately— known as the “Habbaniya Provisionals”. During the brief Anglo-Iraqi war of 1941, the British air force base at Habbaniya was besieged by Iraqi and German forces. The traditional explanation of these stamps is that they were prepared by the British, during the siege, to meet the postal needs of the garrison after supplies of regular postage stamps had been exhausted. Rainer Fuchs wrote about these stamps in the Spring 2016 issue of the Middle East Philatelic Bulletin (available here), and was, quite rightly, sceptical of this explanation.
It seems (to skip to the end of the story) that handstamps of this three-line design, with the denomination handwritten, were employed in a few places in the early 1940s. There seems to have been a certain shortage of postage stamps in Iraq in those years, caused by the war, as I discussed over here. I can’t be more specific about dating, on the basis of the information known to me — the two dated covers I’ve seen (below) are both early 1942. The idea of handstamps being authorised here and there, where real stamps were unavailable, seems plausible — and certainly a better explanation than these being a British product.
I’ve seen these stamps with the following place-names on the top line:
Habbaniya (fig. 1)
Junoubi Baghdad (fig. 2)
Adhamiya (fig. 3)
Kifri(?) (fig. 4)
Basra (fig. 5)
Ghazi Karim (below) describes, but doesn’t show, a Mosul cover.
The similarity of the design between locations suggests that the authorisation to use handstamps was made centrally by the postal authority.
The Habbaniya and Basra stamps are in violet, the others in black. A large dealer’s lot in an October 2023 Spink auction had three covers with Basra stamps — none has the fils value on the third line filled in, though they all have a cursive endorsement of some sort next to the stamp (a “3”, for the printed matter rate?)
I’ve seen a total of five covers — the three Spink ones just mentioned, and two images provided by a Ghazi Karim in the January 2018 issue of the Levant journal. Supposedly he had found them in an obscure Arabic publication. None of the stamps is postmarked. The two Karim covers have postmarks on their reverses, of the same location as the stamps — a cover with a Junoubi Baghdad stamp is postmarked Junoubi Baghdad 15 January 1942, and a Habbaniya cover postmarked Habbaniya 11 January 1942. So, cautiously, it would seem like that was the practice. Spink unfortunately didn’t show the reverse of their covers.
These covers all seem to have been sent to internal destinations.
These stamps are rarely seen in trade, so evidently their use wasn’t widespread.
The same Spink dealer’s lot also has these two covers, with a large single-line “postage paid” handstamp, with no place-name. The different ink colours and sizes of the stamp suggest that these are from different locations. I have no more information.
3. Meter stamps
These are rarely seen, and seem to have been a short-lived experiment. I haven’t seen these discussed anywhere. I’ve seen one cut piece (pictured here) and four covers, in the same Spink dealer lot I mentioned in section 2 above. None of the covers is dated but two have wartime markings, so I’d put these around the same date as the provisional handstamps (and, perhaps, they were intended to meet the same purpose).
All of these I’ve seen read “U 1” in the bottom corners.
The four covers all seem to have been to internal destinations.
4. The Kurdistan stamps
These were emitted by local magnate Mahmud Barzanji during his 1922-24 rebellion against the British. Deeply unattractive objects which, no doubt, were intended principally as a propaganda gesture. I don’t know if they did any genuine postal service. Rainer Fuchs once again says all that needs to be said, in the autumn 2015 edition of the Middle East Philatelic Bulletin, available here.