The Stamps Of Turkey / Turkiye: On Steiner Pages.

Cheers Jim,

It is rather curious, I have the 1901 2 piastre on 50 heller, when held to the lamp, the bars sock you right on the nose, they look black, every other stamp looks void, even when there are indeed bars.

Offices in the Turkish Empire ~ Austria.

Focus on Sc#26 1891 2 piastre on 20k green surcharged. Granite paper.

All perf 10. (Perf 9½ = $200)
Note: (not substantiated) this guaging may fall under the Stanley Gibbons commentary, made specially for highly placed Philatelists, and were never issued at the Post Office?
Substantiation / Corrections, welcomed.

2 damaged by soaking / light, 1 is becoming a "changeling" (turning to blue)

2 types of "PIASTER" Overpint
Type l Distance between "2" and "P" =1mm, "piaster" =9mm
Type ll Distance between "2" and "p" =.75mm "piaster" = 9.5mm

Rod,

I sent you an e-mail with regard to the books, but it had a big attachment. If you don't receive it within a few hours, please let me know.

Roger that, Postmaster.
Thank you.

Offices in the Turkish Empire ~ Austria.

1888
Steiner Page 11.

Austrian Levant.
D.B. Armstrong 1915

Testing.
(I use computers, but do not understand them)
Trialing OCR through ABBYY reader.

Half my text appears cut in half
We shall see how it appears here.

Chapter II.
It was in the year 1748 that the Austrian Post Office in Constantinople was removed from the Embassy to a separate building and established on a regular basis with a uniform tariff for all correspondence conveyed over its courier lines, including even official dispatches, which had hitherto travelled under frank. (Letters were impressed with a large circular mark containing the Austrian Arms, and with thename of the town in two lines of sans-serif capitals CONSTANTINOPEL.)

The service was at the same time extended to Smyrna and became bi-mensual, (me =: bi-monthly) the journey between Vienna and Constantinople occupying 20 days, and 10 days on to Smyrna. The overland courier service was suspended during the war of 1785-91, the Austrian mail travelling by the Neapolitan (me=native of Naples) sea post. Additional offices were subsequently established and the service extended throughout European and Asiatic Turkey, Egypt, Crete and the Danubian provinces.

On the establishment of the Austrian Lloyd Steam Navigation Company in 1836, this company was granted the right of levying taxes on the cost of correspondence confided to it, by arrangement with the Austrian Government, and thus enjoyed, for a time, a virtual monopoly of the postal service with the Levant. The privilege was curtailed in 1851, and seven years later was abolished entirely, although to
this day the Austrian Lloyd Company holds the right to transmit correspondence of any nature between any port of the littoral (coast) of the Ottoman Empire served by its boats, and to maintain a Post Office in its agencies at provinces without regular Post Offices in return for an annual subsidy of Gl. 60,000. (me=?)

To this circumstance is due the fact that Austria possesses the greatest number of postal agencies in Turkey ; the representatives of the Austrian Lloyd acting in many places as postmasters. The Austrian service is generally considered to be the most efficient of the foreign postal systems in the Orient, and for this reason many of the other foreign Post Offices send large quantities of their foreign mail through
its agency, the proportion : being at one time—Russia, 60 per cent., Great Britain, 40 per cent., and France, 35 per cent.

The foreign mails distributed through the Austrian Post Office emanate chiefly from
Austria-Hungary, Switzerland, Bulgaria, Montenegro, Italy, Bosnia, Roumania, and to some extent from Malta and Servia.
The administrative headquarters of the Austrian Levant postal service are located at Camondo Han 2me etage, Calata, Constantinople, and the head Post Office in the Rue Mahmoudie, Galata,| with sub-offices in Pera and Stamboul, Salonica and Smyrna ; consular bureaux at Jaffa and Jeru-1 salem, and agencies in 28 other Turkish towns. Previously the ramifications of the Austrian service' were even
more extensive than they are to-day, as' will be seen from the subjoined list of Austrian foreign Post

Offices, with dates of establishment and suppression, which is based on one published in the Monthly Journal and obtained from official sources by Mr. W. N. Wyeth, of New York :—
(me= part list, not finished, format compromised)

AUSTRIAN FOREIGN POST OFFICES.

country. name. established. closed.
ROUMANIA
Baken 1858 1869
Berlat 1858 1869
Ibraila 9/1/1845 1869
Botuschani before 1838 1869
Bucharest before 1822 1869
Crojova 1732 1857
Czernawoda 1862 15/1/1879
Fokschan 1858 1869
Galatz before 1838 1869
Giurgewo 2/2/1855 1869
Jassy 1785 1869
Kustendje 1862 15/1/1879
Piatra _? ?
Plojesti 1858 1869
Koman 1858 1869
Sulina 1852 15/1/1879
Tultscha 1845 15/1/1879
BULGARIA
Burgas 1854 1880
Philippolis 1859 31/3/1889
Rustchuck 9/1/1853 31/8/1884
Sofia 1851 1880
Varna 9/1/1845 31/8/1884
Widdin 1868 1880
SERVIA
Belgrade 1/8/1841 30/1/1869
MONTENEGRO
Antivari 1854 1878
Dulcigno 1879 ?
GREECE
Corfu ? ?
Volo 1854 1881
CYPRUS
Larnaca 1845 1879
EGYPT
Alexandria 1845 30/9/1888
Port Said 1869 ?

Postmaster,
Knocked my socks off ! I had an immediate response from the German Levant society.
Full marks to them.

For the record:
I was interested to read about postal agencies existing at Sarajevo and Monastir, (Bosnia Hezegovina) and Alexinac in Servia, and Ancona in Italy.

Thanks Postmaster, I cannot tell you how long I searched for the author........having mispelled to "GLASSWALD"

Glad to hear it! The Germans take their stamp collecting very seriously, so it doesn't surprise me they were responsive.

If you need me to translate, just let me know.

Post Offices in the Turkish Empire ~ Roumania.

Part image from the aforementioned article by Glasewald. (Examples of cancelling hammers)



Examples from my Romanian collection.
Postmarks (In black or violet) and Postal Tax overprints.

To get this thread back on topic - and for all you postmark fans out there...

Wow! What choice piece of Selvedge.
A beauty.
Not seen before.

Postmark : RODOSTO (Tekirdag)

Tekirdag is a city in Turkey.
It is a part of the region historically known as Eastern Thrace.
Tekirdag is the capital of Tekirdag Province.
The city population as of 2016 is 176,848.
Tekirdag was called Bisanthe or Bysanthe and also Rhaedestus in classical antiquity.
The latter name was used till the Byzantine era, transformed to Rodosçuk after it fell to the Ottomans in the 14th
century (in western languages usually rendered as Rodosto).
After the 18th century it was called Tekfurdagi, based on the Turkish word tekfur, meaning "Byzantine lord". In
time, the name mutated into the Turkish Tekirdag, and this became the official name under the Turkish Republic.

That's a lovely item, Michael!

Bradbury Wilkinson created some great stamps for Turkey, Crete and Greece.

you can just make out the Ottoman script name of the town on mdroth's pair at the top of the postmark :

Nice work DJC,
you have X-Ray vision.

Any members care to offer an opinion on these please?
I am a little surprised at both the interest, and the price.
Perhaps I mis-identified these?
Thank you.