First Stamps
The first stamps appeared in 1871. They were round in shape, imperforate, and printed in black, with a crude lion's head ("Sher" meaning "lion" in Dari, a local variant of Persian), surrounded by Arabic script specifying one of three denominations. Early collectors incorrectly referred to these as "tiger" heads, as "Sher" means "tiger" in Hindi; but this language is not spoken in Afghanistan. Cancellation was accomplished by cutting or tearing off a piece of the stamp. Initially somewhat large, subsequent issues kept the same basic design but were smaller each year, with the last appearing in 1878. Starting in 1876, the stamps were printed in different colors, each color corresponding to one of the main post offices on the Peshawar-Kabul-Khulm route. Each design in a sheet was individually engraved, so the stamps vary considerably in appearance. Many of the Sher Ali issues are readily available, while some sell for hundreds of US$.
The defeat of Sher Ali by the British brought Abdur Rahman Khan to the throne in 1880, and the following year brought new stamps, still round, but with inscriptions in the middle instead of the lion head. The era of round designs ended in 1891 with rectangular issues for the "Kingdom of Afghanistan". The three designs were entirely Arabic script, and printed in a slate blue color. The 1892 issue featured a mosque gate and crossed cannons, and was printed in black on colored paper; at least 10 colors of paper were used, and there are many shades as well, even though all the colors had the same value. Issues in 1894 and 1898 varied in details of the design.
Issues in 1907 depict a whole mosque, and in 1909 the mosque is inside an eight-pointed star pattern.
Read more about this topic: Postage Stamps And Postal History Of Afghanistan
Famous quotes containing the word stamps:
“Even in harmonious families there is this double life: the group life, which is the one we can observe in our neighbour’s household, and, underneath, another—secret and passionate and intense—which is the real life that stamps the faces and gives character to the voices of our friends. Always in his mind each member of these social units is escaping, running away, trying to break the net which circumstances and his own affections have woven about him.”
—Willa Cather (1873–1947)
“In Stamps the segregation was so complete that most Black children didn’t really, absolutely know what whites looked like.”
—Maya Angelou (b. 1928)