Untitled Document

Rubaiyat

1967, 30 April

Printer: Budapest, Hungary
Designer: Victor Whiteley, Kultura
Sheet Size: Large sheet each containing 4 miniature sheets, with each containing six stamps and labels
Perf.: 12


Most collectors have never seen a complete sheet of the Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam stamps. What is generally encountered is a set of CTO'd singles, or one panel of the sheet with a row of three labels above the stamps and three below. The labels are all in one language. The reason for such is that the original size of the sheet is too large for any album and would be easily damaged over time. One seldom finds a complete sheet as they were generally broken down into the four different panels. As a result of such, most collectors do not realize the panels differ, due to the languages on the labels.

A complete sheet consists of four panels of six stamps and three labels above and below each panel of stamps. Each of the four sets of six corresponding labels are in different languages. The four languages are Arabic, English, French and German. It is ironic that the Rubaiyat was written in Farsi (Persian) but no Farsi labels were created. The two sets of two panels were separated by a large central margin and a margin around the outside of the full sheet.


 

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