Stamps From Manama

I came across these stamps during my general cleaning. Would you consider this to be a rare find , or just the ordinary walk in the park. Is the capital and the largest city in Bahrain.

Hi Tefloncinco,

These are from a different Manama. This one is a village in the Emirate of Ajman in the United Arab Emirates (UAE).

Here's a previous discussion about them:

https://goscf.com/t/10203

Manama is a small oasis some miles outside the borders of the then State of Ajman (now of course the whole area is part of the UAE).

I believe it now has a few shops and houses, but in the mid 1960s it was home to a few farmers trying to grub out a living round the water AND a military establishment which was a kind of gun range where soldiers from the surrounding states could go and learn to shoot without wiping out too many civilians taking casual walks past. But it did justify having a Post Office for a short time. They used Ajman stamps overprinted Manama.



Shortly afterwards the government of Ajman was approached by agencies who told them about gullible idiots called Stamp Collectors who would pay good money for stamps. Shortly afterwards the Manama post office apparently closed down, but the main office in Ajman City continued to process covers 'from Manama' as well as from Ajman.

Added to this, the Post Master of Ajman was a complete crook, who without telling his government sold 'exclusive' contracts to print Manama stamps to (at least) TWO different agents, and pocketed sweeteners from both of them.

The result is that for several years Ajman and Manama put out not simply a mass of useless stamps but TWO masses of useless stamps!

But at least these stamps, though useless, were generally well produced. However just before the establishment of the UAE yet another agency seems to have got in on the act (quite possibly without any government permission) and produced what is probably the worst set of stamps ever produced! They were in blocks of 25 different (5 football, 5 Olympics, 5 space, 5 birds and 5 animals); one similar set each for Ajman and Manama; all with the same 1 dirham denomination and claiming to be definitives. Your stamps 1,3,4 and 7 are from the Manama set, 2 and 8 from the Ajman set. Nos 5 and 6 are from two Ajman sets of Military Uniforms, probably produced by the same agency - 56 different 1 dirham stamps on yellow background and 56 different 1 dirham stamps on green background.

So you have 8 stamps from 4 sets with a total of 162 stamps. Only 154 to go for you to have complete sets! Good luck

I have not had the time to really research all of the different regions of stamps that I have ,I started and then put it down for years , my forefathers of the stock pile of stamps they never really sold stamps and coins are the least of my headaches 500 hundred paintings is the real deal for me with shipping and insurance. Stamps and coins remain as generation collections for me. The information is very helpful and useful.

Oo, a Manama cover. Those dunes covers are elusive.

Smauggie, you are clearly a person of taste and distinction.

What makes the above cover even more elusive is the date - 13/6/66. There is a story in Britain that the author Jeffrey Archer does so many book signings that the rare copies of his novels are the ones that are NOT signed! Well, in the item above we have a cover which is NOT a First Day (5/6/66) and not registered, thereby opening up the remote chance that it might be non philatelic.

The FDCs of issue 1 are like this, and not too difficult to come by:


Note that Airmail envelopes and a hand cancellor have been produced for the new Manama Post Office, but that they do not yet have a Registered cachet; the registration number is written on by hand. This is the best evidence I have that these covers were actually processed in Manama: if they had been processed in the name of Manama, but done in Ajman, they could have used the Ajman cachet - which we will see is what happened later.

By October they had their own Registered stamp:



This is sent to Stolow, a stamp agent of dubious reputation: in fact he was to become one of the two agents who went on to battle for the right to publish Manama's wallpaper issues.

By 1970 (at the very latest, and I suspect much earlier), the Manama office had closed but the Ajman office was still churning out stamps and covers in Manama's name:



Note that the Ajman registered stamp and Ajman envelopes are used but the Manama handstamp has been transferred. I am confident that throughout the 'Agency' period all and only the stamps of Manama that went through the mail used this cancel. The other covers, sold unaddressed by the Agencies were 'cancelled' with handstamps they themselves produced:



These cancels account for 99% of all the Manama cancellations you will see - all of course cto. I have done a small study of these cancels and tentatively attributed them to the two agencies, but the sound of gunshots from bored readers trying to put themselves out of their misery is becoming disturbing. So I'll finish.

At a late period in 1972, probably when the agencies were finally given the bums' rush and the post office (Ajman of course, not Manama) had to do a bit more of their own philatelic work, they created a new Manama registered stamp (copying the Ajman design, not the old Manama one) and it appears for a while, in combination with a new Manama handstamp, before Ajman finally ceased to exist as a stamp issuing entity.

Excellent information and covers Bamra1, thank you for sharing. A Manama cover or two is definitely on my bucket list.

Burma1 yes very nice ,you deserve this, I have fdc's but not from that region or maybe I do I will check but surely stamps, you have some good material and you are not scared that what I like in collectors no retreat, no surrender. I do have the space stamps. dunes.

Same here.

1972
Paintings by Toshusai Sheraku (active 1794-1795)
Japanese painter and colour wood engraver.

Michel ID

0717A Block 137 1972 03r nakajima kanzo souvenir sheet 01



0717B Block 138 1972 02r air ichikawa souvenir sheet 01

Ajman / Manama
Region in the foothills of the Oman Mountains, between Sharjah and Fujeira.
Exclave.

Michel # 177-182 : Mammals.
Air.
6 x 1 Riyal.

Some of the yellow and gold-border stamps which were quite plentifully issued...

Absolutely not. This is the first serious discussion of this area I've seen in over 50 years of collecting. Valuable & fascinating info, many thanks.

Yes. Manamaniacs on high alert. Go, boys and girls.

Ringo, if you need Catalogue numbers, just holler.

Mi#327 1970



Mi# 447 1971

Mi#465 1971



Mi#570 1971