Need Help With Aerogrammes

Need your help please. I have these three aerogrammes from Britain, India and Angola. Not my usual thing, but I acquired them a couple of years ago, thought they were pretty neat, so have hung on to them.
Now I'm setting up album pages for them, but can't track down issue dates for any of them. Not listed in Scotts, or my 1983 Gibbons (for the British and Indian). Perhaps listed in Minkus?

Can anyone supply me with the issue dates for these, please. Just the aerogrammes, not necessary for the accompanying stamps. I know 1950s, as per the postmarks, but would like more specific dates.







Much obliged.

*** Moved by Staff to a more appropriate forum. ***
*** Moved by Staff to a more appropriate forum. ***
*** Moved by Staff to a more appropriate forum. ***

I can't help with the dates, but the catalog you need is the Higgins & Gage catalog of world postal stationery.

thanks battlestamps. Apparently there are copies at the Toronto Reference Library around the corner from where I work. I'll try to make it over there tomorrow on my lunch hour.

GB. There are several varieties, you will need more inof to share, but circa 1954
India -- 1950
Angola = 1957

These are just ballpart year numbers. There are many different types, due to small differences in printing data on the aerogrammes. A catalog is truely the only way to figure these things out.

jamesw: Unfortunately there are no major stamp/postal stationery combination catalogs. Scotts' list US, Canada (Webbs)has theirs, but the rest of the world seems to separate the catalogs dealing with stamps from those dealing with Postal Stationery. Michel makes up to date Europe (West & East), but they do not come cheap. There are other specialty catalogs that are issued by a few major stamp groups that cover other countries. Higgins & Gage have the most complete listing, but that only gets you up to the 1970's (at the latest, usually the 1960's). Huggins & Baker makes a great UK (Britain) catalog, and a few other groups put out Africa, Asia, etc. catalogs. All told it is not a cheap run trying to get them all, but if you are truly interested, it can be done. There are specialty groups that you can join dealing with postal stationery, that not only sell/distribute lists, but have sales departments that offer you a wide range of material, considerably cheaper than ebay. Postal stationery collecting is a fun hobby and seems rather limitless in it's scope. Enjoy the chase.

thanks for the info PoStat4evR. At this point anything helps.
Went to the above mentioned library at lunch. They have the Higgin & Gage, but they are in storage and you have to place an order to have them brought up. Would have take half an hour or more. I needed to eat!
Maybe some other time.

This is India 1954 1½A Ashok Stambha gray green on yellowish paper inland letter card (Higgins and Gage FG17) (18.7cm×24.7cm) with narrow outer flap, printed by India Security Press, Nashik Road.

It is different from India 1950 1½A Ashok Stambha gray green inland letter card (H&G FG6), the first Indian ILC issued on October 2,1950, having same imprint and size that of H&G FG17 but with wider 6mm double flaps with small inscriptions in Hindi and arrows indicating the folding lines.

Edward G Fladung erroneously included these ILCs alongwith H&G FG7 under Airmail section in H&G listing, as these were strictly not aerogrammes.

These ILCs were issued for sending to/from remote regions in India at reduced postage than letters, to be dispatched by inland airmail at the nearest air terminal, following the All-Up Airmail Service introduced on June 30,1949 by Indian Posts and Telegraphs Department, under which all 1st Class mail including ILCs had to be transported by air wherever possible.

ILCs were added to the list of articles which were not subjected to air surcharge which was first removed for the letters and postal cards under Section 154A(2) following the Postal Notice No.75 dt. April 1,1949.

The 1½A inland letter card postage was in effect from October 2,1950 to March 31,1957.

Details can be found in,
1. India Post thru Ages A Saga of Communications.
H Nur Ahmad.
Postal History Society, India, Aluru 1996
Chapter III: Structural Growth of India Post; p.88
Chapter IV: Functional Growth of India Post; pp.98-9

2. India Post A Journey thru Ages.
Arvindkumar Singh.
National Book Trust, India, New Dilli 2009
Chapter XVI: Airmail Service; pp.175-7

The Devnagari inscriptions in Hindi at the upper left corner of the ILC here read #2309;#2344;#2381;#2340;#2352;#2381;#2342;#2375;#2358;#2368;#2351; #2346;#2340;#2381;#2352; (Antardeshiya Patra) i.e. Inland Letter and #2311;#2360; #2346;#2340;#2381;#2352; #2325;#2375; #2309;#2344;#2381;#2342;#2352; #2325;#2369;#2331; #2344; #2352;#2326;#2367;#2351;#2375; (Is Patra ke Andar Kuchh Na Rakhiye) i.e. Do not put any enclosure inside this letter.

Here the inland letter card was used as an aerogramme, uprated by affixing India 1955 6P SG 355/Sc 255, India 1955 4A SG 360/Sc 260 and India 1955 6A SG 361/Sc 261 to make it 12A which was the air letter postage from India to Canada from March 24,1953 to March 31,1957.

Incidentally, India–Canada Air Letter Service began in September 1946.

However, I could not find the exact location of the Experimental PO A-278? in July 1956 but it was at a place where certainly there was no supply of aerogrammes for international mail, specifically the 1954 12A H&G FG16.

An Experimental Post Office was a temporary post office with all postal facilities like a normal permanent post office, opened primarily to make an assessment to determine the financial feasibility to establish and run a permanent post office at that place.

The Experimental POs were often shifted to new locations or closed down or in some instances, made permanent.

All Experimental POs were allotted an alphanumerical number begining with the Circle initial followed by the number of the PO. The use of alphanumeric characters to denote the locations of Experimental POs was first mentioned in Post Office Circular No. 40 dt. July 16,1883 issued by Frederick Rogers Hogg, Director General of Post Offices in India (1870-71, 1873-75 and 1879-87 with intermittent breaks) but, no subsequent circulars ever described the numbers corroborating the locations of Experimental POs.

The Stock Depots kept the records of the numbers allotted to the Experimental POs, which unfortunately have yet not been published.

I must also add that the very term Aerogramme for Air Letter Sheets was first formalized in the XIII Congrès de l'Union Postale Universelle 1952 Bruxelles in May 1952, which took effect from July 1,1953.
So any such air letter sheets issued before that date, should not be described as Aerogramme.

That seems harsh.

We often arrive at a suitable descriptor long after the advent.

Every fossil, for example, bears a name that was applied to that species long after ... okay, that's silly.

Are we to chide someone who refers to a "Private Mailing Card" as a "postcard"?

And, clearly, there were no "UnDivided Backs" before there were "Divided Backs" ... the former could only coined in hindsight.

I'm sure others can cite other examples.

I think that people can be forgiven if they apply the term "aerogramme" retroactively ...

... but feel free to thrash them harshly for spelling it "aerogram".

Cheers,

/s/ ikeyPikey

Edited to add: see https://goscf.com/t/39535 re "The Great War" vs "WW1"

Joy Daschaudhuri is one of the great experts of Indian philately and it's a pleasure to see her sharing her knowledge here.

I am in trouble again.
Jenny, I am HE.
Please see my profile.
My name Joy is of Indian origin, not English.
It is the nearest phonetical transliteration of the word #2460;#2479;#2492; (masculine noun) which is a derivative of the Sanskritam word #2332;#2351;#2307; (Jayah) meaning 'victory'.

Now where is tonymacg? I need to settle score with him.

Ooops sorry Joy I (wrongly) assumed that a female would possess such a myriad of philatelic knowledge

Well-righted, Jenny.

Well, four months late, but once again, thanks to Joy in India for some very thorough research on the Indian piece shown above.
Especially interesting, I think is the Experimental Post Office cancel. Excellent background. FYI, the EPO number seems to be N-2118, if that helps track down it's location 60 years later.



This will make for an interesting album page!

Following up with this one, the letter was addressed from Mhow P.O., M.B.
I think M.B. stands for Madhya Bharat. According to Wikipedia, "In 1956, the states of Madhya Bharat, Vindhya Pradesh, and Bhopal were merged into Madhya Pradesh, and the Marathi-speaking southern region Vidarbha, which included Nagpur, was ceded to Bombay state."
Madhya Pradesh is the present state where Mhow is located. I'm sure Joy can correct me if this information is off.
But this may help locate Experimental P.O. N-2118