Fujeira, the only Trucial State not touching the Persian Gulf, was considered part of Oman. In 1952, the British Government accepted Fujeira as an autonomous State and signed the same treaties with Britain as the other Trucial States – including the Exclusive Agreement allowing Britain to conduct all their foreign relations.
This is the story of the Postal System in Fujeira till integration into the United Arab Emirates in 1972. On 1st April 1973, all Fujeira stamps lost their validity and replaced by the UAE stamps.
Before the Post Office opened in Fujeira
Before the first Post Office was opened in Fujeira, the locals used a courier Saeed Mohammed Tanaji to take letters to Kuwait and Saudi Arabia and collect mail on his way back to Fujeira. Secondly, there was also a grocery named Abdul Rasak Grocery. They would accept mails from locals and take it to Dubai to be sent out. He would also collect any mails for locals from the Dubai Post Office. This information was obtained from locals and unfortunately, there are no letters known from this period to confirm this.
To announce the issue of their first stamps, covers were sent out in August 1964 franked with the value-only overprinted stamps of the ‘British Postal Agencies in Eastern Arabia’ and cancelled with the large hexagonal Fujeira Postmark. It is said that this was quite improper since these stamps were never supplied to Fujiera nor was there ever a British Postal Agency there. It is worth noting that at this time, the Fujeira ‘Postal Service’ consisted of nothing more than a rented PO Box in the Dubai Post Office!
The Trucial States Issue
In 1960, the Trucial States agreed to produce a stamp issue that would be used by all Sheikdoms. Unfortunately, when the designs were ready for printing, the smaller states were not happy that their country was represented by a smaller palm tree than the bigger states. As a result, the issue was produced and only used in Dubai. The other States continue using the ‘British Postal Agencies in Eastern Arabia’ stamps.
The set was issued on 7th January 1961. It comprised of 7 values with this design and 4 higher values depicting the ‘Dhow’. The lower values were issued by Harrison by Photogravure and the dhows were recess printed by De La Rue.
The Baroody Essays
In 1963, each of the Trucial States were planning to issue stamps of their own. The Ruler of Fujeira signed agreements with the Baroody Stamp Co of Beirut (Lebanon) by which the company will open a small post office and pay the Ruler a moderate sum for the concession of printing and marketing their stamps. This was announced in the report issued every month by the Political Agent for England – Refer to Fig 1.2.
Essays were made for Fujeira (and also Ajman and Umm Al Qiwain) by the Baroody Stamp Company. These essays were designed by M.M. Arthur and produced by NCR Litho at the same time as the first issue of Dubai (similar design).
For Fujeira, four designs were used, The Leopard, The Grouse; Falcon on a branch and Flacon on the ground. Various colour combinations exist for each stamp – including red and white; blue and white; blue and red; brown and yellow; red and pink; blue and pink. Please refer to Figure 1.3 for the four designs and some of the colour combinations.
Stamps are known Perforated 12 x 11½ or Imperf; and on both gummed or ungummed unwatermarked paper. These stamps were printed containing stamps for the 3 Sheikdoms (Fujeira, Ajman and Umm Al Qiwain) all in 1 sheet.
Mr Stephan, the representative of the Baroody Stamp Company, was not easily contactable. Eventually he was found guilty of breaches of contract and in addition had transferred his rights under this agreement to Mr Finbar Kenny of J & H Stolow Inc of New York, without consulting the Ruler. As a result, these stamps were never issued and the original agreement was cancelled.
The Ruler was not happy with this arrangement and the new American company was contacted directly to organize a new contract. This contract was quite advantageous to the Government including article 3 – The Agency will employ a Postmaster and other personnel needed for a basic minimum Postal Service…; Article 13 – the agencies guarantees the Government minimum net revenue of 300,000 Rupees in the first year, 400,000 Rupees during the Second year 500,000 during year 4 and 600,000 for the fifth…. Article 15 stipulated the contract’s period is five years.
FUJEIRA Overprint
In the meantime, Mr Finbar Kenny from New York, USA, wanted to produce stamps immediately to recover the costs of buying the contract off Baroody Company. So, he produced these overprints on existing Wilding stamps of the ‘British Postal Agencies in Eastern Arabia’ that he had available. Unfortunately, the British Postal Administration rejected the design and they were not accepted for use.
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Fujairah overprints were rejected, as made without permission of the British Postal Agencies in Eastern Arabia. After being rejected, they still came on to the market for philatelic consumption but not valid for use.
The First Set
The first official set was issued on 22 September 1964 consisting of 12 values. Each value had the portrait of Sheikh Mohamed bin Hamad al Sharji, the then ruler of Fujeira on the left. It was printed by ‘Heraclio Fournier’ of Vitoria in Spain. Stamps were produced by Photogravure in 3 sizes. Close to 500,000 each of the lower values were produced, but only 10,000 of the top values.
From this first issue, a tradition started where virtually EVERY stamp was produced both perforated and imperforated. The imperf edition was always in limited supply and could ONLY be purchased if a number of perf sets were also bought. The documentation says that the imperfs were used for presentation purposes (whatever that means!!). As a result, these imperf versions are much more difficult to obtain. It is believed that only 2,000 imperf sets were produced for this issue.
Another tradition was created by providing Cancelled-to-order perforated stamps at a fraction of the face value directly to dealers. These cancelled-to-order stamps are still available in large quantities and of not much philatelic value. On the other hand, used stamps on covers are greatly sought after and not easy to come by! Unused stamps are also quite difficult to obtain – especially the imperf stamps.
On 14th November 6 additional values were produced in the same format.
On 16 August 1965, another set of 9 stamps was produced using virtually the same designs except that Fujeira and the value are transposed and additionally inscribed ‘AIR MAIL’s. These were also produced by Fournier.
In October 1965, a new set of 9 was produced, similar in design but with Fujeira and denomination transposed and additionally inscribed ‘ON STATE’S SERVICE’.
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A ‘tongue in cheek’ commentary by NOMAD in the 13th August 1965 issue of Stamp Collecting. Obviously stamps from Fujeira achieved quite notoriety from the start! Imagine the sentiments when up to 10 sets were being produced per month (about 100 stamps) during 1971 and 72! And if that is not enough, each of these stamps were available ‘in limited supplies’ in imperforate format!
This Article was published on Fujairah Observer Magazine Issue Septemper.
To read the full magazine please click on the link.
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