Portal:Philately/Stamp of the month archive/4



Scinde Dawk stamps, issued in 1852, were the first adhesive postage stamps in Asia, the forerunners of the adhesive stamps to be used throughout India, Burma, the Straits Settlements and other areas controlled by the British East India Company (EIC). These three round stamps all bore the Merchants' Mark of the EIC inside a design embossed in different colors. The first Scinde Dawk stamps were on wafers of red sealing wax impressed on paper.

The Scinde Dawk was a very old postal system of runners that served the Indus Valley region of Sindh, an area of present-day Pakistan. After the East India Company's conquest of Sindh, they had military and commercial needs that demanded more efficient communications. Sir Bartle Frere’s reforms, modeled on the English example set by Rowland Hill, introduced a cheap and uniform rate for postage. Adhesive stamps were required.