Stamps are historic documents. And history is a story of conflict.
And it looks like we’re still writing new chapters in that vein, sadly.
But, looking back at the era of the modern postage stamp, which began in 1840, we can see war after war after war.
Leopold of Belgium slicing up African territories at the Berlin Conference in 1884. The so-called Scramble for Africa is just the most obvious example of imperial competition and cooperation.
The temporal coincidence of an industrial revolution, an imperial expansion and the world’s first universal national (and then imperial) postal system were not a coincidence.
And, the British Empire wasn’t assembled peacefully. Industrially dyed red (then khaki) coats for soldiers carrying mass-produced Martini Henry rifles, with winding engines pulling precision engineered guns onto ships powered with South Wales steam coal are every bit as important to the story as the stamps which came after them.
In an age of competing imperial powers, Marianne of France, German imperial eagles, and many more national emblems staked claims and raised flags too.
And stamps - vital cogs in state machinery, and at the cutting edge of communications tech when they were introduced - carried those claims and those emblems.
The famous Sea Horses stamp series before World War I was seen as a symbol of British maritime supremacy.
Not just in the age of total war - conflicts like World War I that mobilised every aspect of a state towards fighting in one form or another - but also in the realm of pre-war politics. Diplomacy, national image, territorial claims…, they can all play out on the tiny stage of a stamp.
Here are 6 - valuable, interesting, collectible - stamps that show us just how martial this hobby can be.
1 - South Africa British occupation of Wolmaransstad
Two colonisers - and waves of colonialism - collided in what is now South Africa as the British Empire replaced the Dutch East India Company through the 19th century.
Those competing interests finally resolved their irreconcilable differences in two Boer Wars in 1880 - 1881 and 1899 - 1902.
And the upshot was British control of South Africa.
On June 15, 1900, that conflict came to the small farming town of Wolmaransstad as a British force, led by a Lieutenant Huddleston, occupied the town.
A Boer commando. The Dutch-heritage settlers fought in irregular, militia-like formations against the super-organised British army.
While there, he oversaw what most occupying forces of this and subsequent periods did: he organised a postal service and made sure it was branded as British.
The occupation was shortlived. Huddleston thought there was a larger force of Boers on the way, and left the town after around a month on July 27.
That renders those stamps and envelopes, simply overprinted Transvaal postal items (with the Dutch postzegel), a real rarity today.
2 - Bushire 1915 British occupation
The Bushire Occupation gives us some of the most famous and sought-after occupation overprints in stamp collecting history.
Again, it’s a short, sharp operation and it’s that that makes the stamps produced so rare and valuable.
Bushire is an English-language rendering of Bushehr, a port on the Persian Gulf, that had been interesting international traders since the late 18th century.
The British East India Company had been operating in the town since 1763 and sometimes had military help to carry out there business there.
Ahmad Shah became ruler of Persia in 1914 and stamps celebrated his crowning, but he wasn't ruling all of his own territory as these overprints show.
The first occupation took place in 1838, the second in 1856, and, in 1915, for a third time, British gunships pulled up and let off troops to take over.
This occupation was a move in the rivalry with Germany, who were making inroads in (what is now) Iran, which had remained neutral during World War I.
These stamps are nakedly imperial. There’s no ambiguity here in the “Bushire Under British Occupation” hand stamps. The original stamps were printed to celebrate the coronation of a new Shah in 1915, the second of two Persian issues overprinted during the occupation.
The stamps have been exhaustively studied and catalogued and are a really classic occupation overprint for any collection.
3 - British occupation of Batum, 1920
We’re seeing a lot of British material here. As you would expect. But, while the British Empire was the big success story of the 19th century it’s important to remember that everyone was up to it. This was an age of imperial competition.
And Batum was in the Russian Empire.
It’s now in Georgia, and called Batumi.
It’s a substantial place too, an important Black Sea port with an oil pipeline that any imperial power might have their eyes on.
It’s still close to the border of Georgia and Turkey today and has been an Ottoman possession in the past.
So, what were the British doing there.
The date gives it away. World War I ended both the Russian and Ottoman empires.
First out of the fray was Russia, as the new (and very weak) Bolshevik government bought peace via the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk with Germany and its allies.
The 11th Red Army would end the Georgian Republic not long after these stamps were issued.
That handed Batum to the Ottoman Empire, rather than the new Georgian Republic. But as the war ended with German collapse so the deals done to end the Soviet-German war unravelled.
British troops arrived in Batum in December 1918 and were to stay there until 1920.
That was long enough for stamps to start to run short, and so we have these overprints, that were added to a stock of British printed stamps.
These are the rarer, and are especially rare used.
Buying occupation and overprint stamps
Overprints of all sorts are an excellent area for collectors to specialise in.
And these periods of history are especially fascinating as borders change and ruling elites are swapped around.
Buyers do need to be particularly careful around overprints though.
A certificate of authentication like this one is a great boon when shopping for any stamp, but particularly overprints.
They are especially attractive to forgers. Overprints are usually done under duress of some sort, and take an existing stamp (which are usually heavily imbued with complex print techniques to protect them from forgery) and add an often unsophisticated stamp.
So, buy from trusted sources and look for good quality authentication.
Buying rare, historic stamps today
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