Afghanistan Stamps - Is This Story True?

Hey,

This is my grandfathers album. He travelled quite a lot, and wrote various notes in the book. This is the most interesting one I found.

For those who can't read it, it says:

"Stamps Issued April 21, 1961 to march 15 1964 sold to philatelic trade by an agency under a contract to the Afghanistan Government. Were on sale in Kabul for only 1 or 2 hours, in very limited quantity, and were of such low value as to have absolutely no postal value, such as these. Usual minimum rate, international mail is 25 Pouls! Thus, these are hardly to be considered as postage stamps. Of course, proper postage stamps were issues through this period by the Afghanistan government"

So not quite cinderellas? They are technically stamps, just completely useless at the time. Does anyone else know this story, or have any idea what these may have been used for? Tiny postcards?

Hi.
Michel catalogue lists a set of 7 values (1,2,3,4,5,100 and 150 pouls)
# 738/44

So with the international postage being 25 Poules minimum, its interesting to see so many small ones, and not many variations in the larger denominations.

I wonder maybe the smaller were for very small distances. Thanks!

Because the Agency stamps were made for the stamp trade (hence the inclusion of denominations that had no legitimate postal use), there was actually a shortage of stamps for genuine postal use. The legitimate Afghan issues from this period were those produced locally to meet this need.

Frankly speaking, I do not understand the underlying logic in the posts - if ONE stamp does not pay an international letter rate - it is not a postally valid item

Do you mean to say that nobody writes and sends letters or postcards within the country, or that ALL letters are in the first weight gradation (up to 20 gr here in Belarus) and there's no need to uprate with small face values?

The stamps would have been postally valid if genuinely available. They are not listed in catalogues because they were not genuinely available for purchase. In these circumstances, the unnecessary denominations represent a compounding factor.

But they are listed in Michel catalogue,and in Scott too (I think)

Michel probably lists the shirts in my wardrobe.

And Scott probably lists the skirts in my own wardrobe


(from "Delcampe")

These are genuine postal issues, technically, but as indicated, the lower denominations were too low to meet any valid postal rate in Afghanistan. They are occasionally found commercially used as "makeup" stamps with others to meet some larger rate. They are valuable postally used, super common mint or CTO.

These lower denominations were made primarily for the packet trade: they were sold to stamp dealers at face value, very very low of course, in large quantity. Have you ever seen the "1/4 cent", "1/2 cent", "1 cent" commemoratives that were issued in Caribbean countries like Grenada in the 1970s? Same idea: these were printed for sale directly to packet makers or large approval companies, and while every denomination in the set was available in post offices including the really low ones, the higher values in the set were the ones primarily used for postage.

This is not a modern practice; it's happened as long as there has been a stamp trade. The lowest denomination Seebecks issued in the 1890s in Latin American countries didn't meet any postal rates either. San Marino issued stamps in their long pictoral sets with denominations too low to meet any real rate for decades. Many other countries have done this as well. (Most countries with higher demand for their postage stamps go the other direction, and issue high-denomination stamps in quantities far exceeding any realistic postage demands. That is typically even more profitable, though more abusive of collectors.)

Scott didn't list these Afghani stamps until the 1990s, I believe, though the Seebecks and San Marino and Grenada got better treatment. Listing is the correct decision, as noted these did see (limited) genuine postal use.

The set was original issued as regular stamps ,which I have . The airmail stamps are not listed in the Scott Int'l album ,so maybe they were issued later or held back from the public at that time.