GB Overprints Society:

Levant ("LEVANT" overprint, with British currency)

The area administered by the Ottoman (Turkish) Empire was known politically and philatelically as "The Levant" (after the French word meaning "rising", ie the "East where the sun rises, as seen from the western Mediterranean"). An international restrictive treaty forbade the Turkish administration from operating international mail, so post offices were opened throughout the empire by a wide range of countries - Britain, France, Germany, Italy, Austria, Russia, even Poland and Romania. This treaty was known as the "Capitulations" (ie where the Ottoman empire capitulated its rights to operate international mail). With the outbreak of World War I Turkey declared this treaty void on 30 September 1914, an act referred to as the "Abrogation of the Capitulations" (further details on the Turkish currency listing).

The "British Levant" postal area is normally used only to refer to the offices which, after an "unoverprinted" period, used overprinted stamps as well as (occasionally) unoverprinted ones: Beirut (Lebanon) 1873-1914, Istanbul (Turkey) 1857-1914,1919-1923, "Stamboul" sub-postoffice 1884-1896, 1908-1914, Salonica (Thessaloniki, Greece) 1900-1914, Smyrna (Izmir, Turkey) 1872-1914, 1919-1922. British post offices in other parts of the Turkish Empire (eg Cairo, Alexandria) did not use overprinted stamps and tend to be listed in catalogues as "GB used abroad" rather than as part of "British Levant".

All stamps overprinted "LEVANT" without new value.

These stamps were intended to be affixed directly to postal matter by the post office officials, and were not normally sold to the public, so they did not need to have a currency overprint but instead were merely overprinted "Levant". The ½d and 1d values were used primarily for printed matter (but were commonly sold for use on post cards), and the higher values were for parcels; the latter explains the high proportion of used examples which have very ugly and heavy cancellations (many "fine used" are either cancelled to order or forged postmarks).

Purely for convenience, these stamps are listed separately from those overprinted in Turkish currency: there was no difference in the places of use.

Note: this numbering system was drawn up by the Society for the website, and may not be used without permission.

King Edward VII

De La Rue printings, ordinary paper

15 August 1905

levant sterling Ed7 200

1 ½d green (& see No. 14)

2 1d red

3 1½d purple & green, & see No. 11 below

4 2d green & red, & see No. 12 below

5 2½d blue

6 3d purple on yellow

7 4d green & brown

8 5d purple & blue

9 6d purple

10 1/- green & red, & see No. 13 below

Change to chalky paper

6 March 1908

Levant sterling Ed7 chalky 200
(1½d & 1s temporary pictures)

11 1½d purple & green, & see No. 3 above

12 2d green & red (date of issue not recorded), & see No. 4 above

13 1/- green & red, & see No. 10 above

Harrison printing

The Harrison printing has more background engraving behind "AGE" and "& REV" (see below) but can be difficult to distinguish from the De La Rue printing above.

Feb 1912

Levant sterling Ed7 Harrison 200