Mehmet Ismet Başaran

He is an authority on the tughra (or toughra) stamps of 1863–65 of the Ottoman Empire and has won several gold medals for his collection of those issues.

He moved to the United Kingdom at 16 years of age for educational reasons and graduated in chemical engineering, making his home in the U.K.[2] He later worked as a consultant specialising in the design and project management of floating production systems for the oil and gas industries.

[3] Başaran has specialised in collecting the tughra stamps of the Ottoman Empire (1863–65) since the 1970s,[3] a task made more difficult by the absence of any contemporary official records about the issue.

They acquired their name because the central part of the design shows the tughra of the reigning sultan at the time, Abdulaziz,[5] and reads "Abdul Aziz Khan, son of Mohammed the Victorious".

A red band of text was added by the Ministry of Finance at the base of each stamp in order to authorise them for postal use.

20 Para stamp of the first issue of the Ottoman Empire 1863–65 (2nd printing) (not from the Başaran collection) [ 1 ]
Tughra of Abdülaziz
Block of four tête-bêche tughra stamps with central control band in red (not from the Başaran collection)