Postage stamps and postal history of Turkey

The Ottoman Empire became the Republic of Turkey in 1923, and in the following years, its postal service became more modernized and efficient and its postage stamps expertly designed and manufactured.

The Ottoman Empire's early or "classic" stamp issues between 1863 and 1888 are popular among philatelists, and its postal cancellations have received extensive study.

Nine countries had negotiated "Capitulations" or treaties with the Ottomans, which granted various extraterritorial rights in exchange for trade opportunities.

Such agreements permitted Russia (1720 and 1783), Austria (1739), France (1812), Great Britain (1832) and Greece (1834), as well as Germany, Italy, Poland, and Romania, to maintain post offices in the Ottoman Empire.

Between some of the stamps there is a control band with the words Nazareti Maliye devleti aliye, or "Ministry of Finance of the Imperial Government".

The Duloz stamps were typographed or relief printed and the design consists of a central oval enclosing a crescent and star with radiating lines, and "have a distinctly oriental character".

Turkish writing in Arabic script is overprinted on the oval in black, stating Postai devleti Osmaniye or "Post of the Ottoman Empire".

[14] In January 1876 the Duloz stamps were overprinted with the values in western numerals (in piastres, not para) and French abbreviations as "a provisional series for franking letters to countries belonging to the Universal Postal Union".

There is a background composed of calligraphic letters, in mirror image, reading Postai devleti Osmaniye, or "Post of the Ottoman Empire", and the Turkish year date 1291, equivalent to 1875.

The center of the stamps bears the Ottoman coat of arms surrounding the tughra of Abdul Hamid II.

In 1898 the Ottoman Empire issued a series of stamps for its armed forces occupying Thessaly during the Greco-Turkish War.

[20] From 1901 through 1911, the Ottoman Empire issued a number of stamps with similar designs including the Tughra of the reigning monarch.

These stamps were designed by Oskan Effendi and were engraved and printed in England by Bradbury, Wilkinson & Co., Ltd., and are in a more international style, with central vignettes surrounded by a frame.

[23] In early 1914, a series of finely engraved stamps, some in two colors, was issued depicting scenes of Constantinople and other images.

[24] The Ottoman Empire signed the secret Ottoman-German Alliance on August 2, 1914, and entered hostilities on the side of the Central Powers in October 1914.

Following the armistice, Mustafa Kemal Atatürk formed a Government in Ankara and the Turkish War of Independence against the Allies ensued.

The postage dues through 1913 had the same designs as the regular stamps, such as the Duloz or Empire issues, but were typically distinguished by being printed in brown or black.

The stamps were printed by Perkins Bacon from plates that are now held in the museum of the Royal Philatelic Society London.

[41] The postal cancellations, applied to Turkey's stamps to prevent re-use, carried the name, in Turkish—written in Arabic script—and sometimes also in the Latin alphabet, of the localities where posted.

[42] The cancellations include "negative seals", typically a circular stamp in which the Arabic lettering appears uninked against a black background.

As Fernand Serrane, one of the great experts in stamp forgeries, warned, "Forged overprints pullulate; all the more reason why one should avoid involvement".