Untitled Document

EDUCATIONAL PROGRESS

1964, 25 November

Printer: Unknown
Designer: Unknown
Sheet Size: 10 x 10
Perf: 14 and SS

 

This set, along with the Tokyo Olympics set, were not part of the Baroody contract, but were issued near the end of it. This set of stamps was not designed, nor printed by anyone who was previously involved in the contract. Mr Stephan would always state that he was not involved with these issues, but nothing else, no matter how many times he was asked.

In a letter, written in late 1997, he stated during the period in question, he was involved in getting out the final issues of the country under the contract and trying to sell his contracts for printing and selling the stamps of Ajman, Fujaira and Umm al-Qiwain. He mentioned the Educational Progress set as part of those he was dealing with at the time. That was the only instance where he mentioned this issue.

The set consists of eight stamps and a small souvenir sheet. The first four issues were for regular postage and the latter four were for airmail. Shaikh Rashid, along with two Gulf Shaikhs, Shaikh Ahmad of Qatar, Shaikh Abdullah of Kuwait, and President Nasser of Egypt are portrayed on the stamps.

REGULAR POSTAGE
5NP - purple, Shaikh Rashid and ShaikhAhmad of Qatar
10NP - rose, Shaikh Rashid and Shaikh Ahmad of Qatar
15NP - greenish blue, Shaikh Rashid and Shaikh Ahmad of Qatar
20NP - olive-green, Shaikh Rashid and Shaikh Abdullah of Kuwait

AIRMAIL
30np - vermilion, Shaikh Rashid and Shaikh Abdullah of Kuwait
40np - yellow-brown, Shaikh Rashid and Shaikh Abdullah of Kuwait
50np - ultramarine, Shaikh Rashid and President Nasser of Egypt
1R - light emerald, Shaikh Rashid and President Nasser of Egypt

SOUVENIR SHEET
1R - emerald, Shaikh Rashid and President Nasser of Egypt

It was many years after I began collecting Dubai stamps and covers that I found out about the existence of first day covers for this issue. Mr. Stephan offered me the cover illustrated below, along with the two covers below it. He did not have any in stock with the souvenir sheet on them. The covers for this issue must exist in relatively small numbers and it is doubtful that the Dubai Philatelic Agency would promote these stamps over the ones they had printed and still had in quantity. The quantity would have been tightly controlled and they would have had to purchase whatever they wanted.

After the expiration of the contract at the end of 1964, Dubai did not issue and stamps for a period of one year. During that period this issue, along with the second definitives are about the only stamps one finds on mail.

What is perplexing is that this set and the Tokyo Olympics set should have logically been released at the very end of the Baroody contract. In fact, there were two issues released between the two sets and three sets released after the Educational Progress issue.

By this time, Mr. Stephan had reprinted many of the earlier popular sets of stamps illegally and had large quantities in stock. The prevailing wisdom of the time was that it was virtually impossible to purchase many of the Dubai stamps in the Dubai post office as they did not have them. With large stocks of illegally reprinted stamps in Beirut, their priority was to dispose of as many as possible before the contract expired. To do so, they began to overprint what stamps they had and what was in the post office, with new subjects.

The Tokyo Olympics set was released in October and the Educational Progress set in November. The most likely scenario is that after having been told that they had lost the contract to produce, promote and sell the stamps for the country, they tried to take advantage of what time they had before the expiration date. In that time they released two overprinted sets before the Tokyo Olympic set, the 22 November Kennedy stamp and four older sets that they had overprinted for different events.

The Kennedy stamp, was never issued in that color previously and the 22 NOVEMBER is part of the design and was not an overprint. Mr. Stephan would correct me when I would refer to it as an overprint. Just the same, it did not involve having to create a new image for the issue. The same design, but in different colors had been used for the original Kennedy issue and then rereleased with the May 29 overprint.

The UNO 19th Anniversary Overprint, the 22 NOVEMBER Kennedy stamp, and the Space Achievements overprinted set were all sold in their entirety to Mr. Mosden and his uncle. While Mr. Mosden never mentioned purchasing all of the overprinted Freedom From Hunger souvenir sheets, but did the other three sets, it must be assumed he did not purchase all of them. However, he did state that they were surcharged with lower values so he could purchase them at a lower face value than was originally printed on the stamp.

This stamp is found Canceled To Order with a postmark of 5 June, with no year date. The same cancelation is found on the Opening of Dubai Automatic Telephone Exchange stamps issued on 14 January 1966. Since most stamps are only partially struck when canceled, the entire cancelation is not seen on stamps off of paper. Many people mistake them for genuine postally used stamps.

ITEMS CREATED


 

30 November - Outer Space Achievements 1964

22 November - Kennedy - "22 NOVEMBER"

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