India : Covers

From Bombay (now Mumbai) to Hadera, Israel. in 1976. I like this one for the cool airmail etiquette as well as for the address, the lines of which seem to be in the wrong order.
Stamps: Scott 720 (part of the Locomotives series) and 733 (Family Planning).


The law firm of Shah & Sanghavi, which was founded in 1966, is still in operation in Mumbai. Their offices are no longer on M. G. Road.

International Taxe marks are based on a Swiss “gold centime” which the country of dispatch calculates. On arrival in the UK the marked deficit of (10 centimes) is converted to sterling , in this case it is worked out at 1d. due by the GPO. London Foreign Branch (F.B.)

Neither India nor GB used centimes but UPU regulations used it as an international universal currency.

incidentally the “stamp” is not the perforated adhesive one SG224 which has varieties , it is an imprint on a postal stationery envelope

Alex - what can I say - how could I have not seen that this was an imprint on a postal stationery envelope - very embarrassed here. As for the reference to Taxe - it threw me since as you say, neither GB or India used a metric currency, so very many thanks for the explanation re the Swiss gold centime system - I'm learning, but it's a steep curve. Yes, there are a couple of very expensive flaw errors on the real stamp - must now look out for the actual stamp.

very attractive cover banknoteguy and all the better for being a corner block.

Looking through some covers and I came across this 1941 cover from Samalkot, India to Thurso, Quebec. The reason for sharing it is because of posts about the use of 'per' on a lovely Great Britain cover posted by sudbury12000 . This cover was sent Per S.S. Exporter. A quick search did not produce any hits on who Rev. E.J. Church was nor Mrs. A.A. Angus in Thurso.

S.S. Exporter has a bit more information: 

Hercules (AK-41), ex- SS Exporter, was launched 18 July 1939 by the Fore River Shipbuilding Co., Quincy, Massachusetts, for American Export Lines Inc. Acquired by the Navy 15 July 1941, she continued to be operated by civilian crews until 30 November 1942, when she commissioned at San Francisco, California.

A more detailed history of this ship and activity during the WWII Pacific Theatre is here: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_Hercules_(AK-41)

The letter was delivered to Mrs. Angus in early July of 1941 so one could assume that SS Exporter was acquired by the US Navy right after this trip from India. 

Convention State of Chamba postal stationary double forwarded eventually to Lahore.

India cover to Delhi, perhaps sent within the city.  It is a bit of a mystery to me why there is so much writing all over it.  Perhaps someone's grocery list..  The "Mail Agent" cancel on the back I find interesting even if I don't know what it signifies.

Not quite sure where to put this. India? Indo-China? Canada? UN? Vietnam?
…

The international Control Commission (1954 to 1973) was a UN mission overseeing the Geneva Accords which ended the 1st Indo-China war. The ICC monitored the ceasefire and the partition of Vietnam. The mission was led by India and included troops from Canada and Poland – representing the non-aligned, non-communist and communist blocs at the UN. As an editor in Wikipedia put it, in time “the ICC became largely irrelevant in the face of an increasingly-active conflict”. It survived as a way for the parties to communicate and, after the Paris Accords, it was replaced by the ICCS – the International Commission for Control and Supervision.

This airmail cover was mailed from Saigon to Kingston, ON Canada on January 31, 1963. It was sent by Major A. H. Potts, a member of the Princess Patricia’s Canadian Light Infantry who was assigned to the ICC. It was sent to his father Major General (ret.) A. E. Potts – who, in 1942-3, commanded the 6th Canadian Division in Europe during WW2. Earlier, as a Brigadier, he was the officer commanding ‘Operation Gauntlet’ – a successful commando raid in Norway in 1941. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Gauntlet

Stamps:

India – International Control Commission in Indo-China, Vietnam
Issued: April 1, 1957
2np Light Brown
Sc. 6
13np Bright Carmine
Sc. 8
50np Orange
Sc. 9

The stamps are for use in Vietnam only. All three stamps have an overprint, in black, that reads in Hindi “International Commission / Viet Nam”

Cancel: India Field Post Office

Outer Ring: F.P.O. No 742
Inner: 31-1-63

PS - stamphinger … is this airmail border on your list?

Thanks rod222 ... as always, I appreciate your showing your album page. Like all of the pages I have seen it's simple, well designed and well executed. No doubt it makes it easy to find things. 

My challenge is that I don't collect India. So, while there are a number of Indian stamps I have (or want), such as the UN overprints, I'm left with just putting them in a stockbook. That's true for a great many others countries since I'm not a WW collector ... I just have WW interests (smile).

What I do instead, is I make pages for my primary collection - the Postal History of Occupations. It doesn't matter what country it is, I organize my collection chronologically (with a few exceptions). I suppose that makes it a thematic collection. Stamps, covers, postal history ... it's all in the same set of albums. If it's not connected to an occupation then it goes into a country album (I do have more than a few - smile) or a stockbook (or stock pages). 

I define 'occupation' pretty broadly. For me, it's about sovereignty -- there are military and civil occupations and occupations of the mind. 

So, even though this cover, and the Indian stamps, are artifacts of a UN peacekeeping mission, I would still consider it an occupation of sorts. An external agency is involved in determining or 'tweaking' sovernigity. During and after civil wars and insurrections are, similarly, occupations as far as my collection is concerned.

I've found TSF incredibly useful not just because of the amazing and generous expertise of its members but because it helps me curate my collection. How? Very often when I do a post on something I haven't yet subsumed into my collection, I copy and edit the text of my post and turn it into an album page. Here's an example that I just did based on the post we're discussing - also the title page of the album where I put it.