You shall probably remember these for all time, when I suggest
these stamps were designed by "Lawrence of Arabia"
...or so the story goes.
" Lawrence left an unusual legacy when he designed a set of stamps for
the Grand Sharif of Mecca. After launching the Arab Revolt in June 1916
Sharif Hussein wanted an independent Arab postal service to help provide
him legitimacy. In Egypt Lawrence spent many hours wandering the
corridors of the Cairo Museum searching for suitable arabesque designs,
before drafting and printing the stamps in defiance of the Turkish
authorities in Constantinople."
The Grand Sherif of Mecca, declared Hejaz independent
Turkish rule, and in February 1916, the stamps designed
by T.E. Lawrence were put into use by the new country.
Lawrence once circulated a story that he had used a
strawberry-flavoured glue which created a problem in
that the Arabs used to buy the stamps just to lick them.
The man had a somewhat quirky sense of humour!
The mail that Lawrence sent to his friends with the
stamps were sold at auction (pre 2001) in London. The
star item of the collection is an envelope, addressed
to Lawrence's friend, Captain Ormsby-Gore of the Cairo
Arab Bureau franked with the first issue of Hejaz.
The identity of the sender is shown by the signature
of T. E. Lawrence on the bottom of envelope. The cover's
auction sale brought more than $200,000. It acknowledged
that the mystique of Lawrence of Arabia helped boost prices.
Author: Mr. Blair Stannard. Canada
....and to the contrary,
Posted 01/24/2017 2:48 pm
