Bradbury Definitives - ECHO'S PHILA HOUSE

Virtually nothing has been written on the definitive stamps of Bangladesh and they were/are ignored by most collectors in the country. As a result, much information about them is most likely lost. For some reason the Postal Department did not promote them, print envelopes for them for FDCs, nor more importantly, provide any information on perforation, paper and gum varieties. Such informaion is at the heart of serious collecting throughout the world. Fortunately, a few collectors seriously collected them but what information they had has never been shared with other collectors. Mr. Ataol Quadir is an exception to the rule and assembled a great deal of information on the varieties. He has kindly shared this informaion with me and It is anticipated that this informaion will be presented in this catalog over the coming months.

Note that there is a small red “x” on the left of the 3p value in the upper left corner and there are three different colors for the 25p tiger stamp, titled “a, b and c.” The center color, “b” was the color chosen for the stamp. With the exception of the two different tiger colors, all of the stamps shown were issued in those colors.

A scarce color essay of the 2p design, that was eventually issued in black.

Cancelled at the “Dacca Sardar” post office on 30 April, 1973.

The Tk.1, Tk.2, Tk.5, and Tk.10 were reprinted with the Taka being changed to Bengali, rather than Enlish, which was the first printing. The Bradbury printed stamps are all larger in size than the Asher stamps that were printed several years later. The same designs were used for both the Bradbury and the later Asher printed stamps.
Color Control Marks: No
Plate Number: No
Imperforate: Yes Not officially issued, but twenty sheets were sent to the Dacca P.O. and sold.
No. of stamps in each sheet: 100
Quantity of stamps printed: Unknown
Designer: P.K.Mondal, K.G. Mustafa, Golam Sarwar and Emdad Hossain
Printer: Bradbury, Wilkinson & Co, Ltd., UK
FDC: Unofficial
Pmks.: Chittagong, Dacca Sadar H.O., Dacca Sadar Night P.O., Engineering University/Dacca, Peelkhana, Philatelic Bureau/Dacca
Insert: None

Additional: The Tk.1, Tk.2, Tk.5 and Tk.10 values were later redrawn with the “Ta” expressed in Bangla, rather than English. See beginning of 1974 for the Tk.1 (74-1d) and Tk.2 (74-2d) and the beginning of 1975 for the Tk.5 (75-1d) and Tk.10 (75-2d) redrawn stamps.

An imperforate maroun essay of the 50p Hilsa fish exists and an orangish-red essay of the Sixty Dome Mosque.

A privately prepared cachet exists for this issue as well. There are three different colored cachets; gold, silver, and black, with an outline map of Bangladesh with the rivers indicated and “Dacca”. There are two Bangla words at the top above the map. Below it, in English, is “First Day Cover/Second Definitive Series/Postage Stamps/(30-4-1973)”. cachet in three different colors were made by Mr. M.A. Salam, the famous Dhaka collector/dealer. Commercial covers exist on this date from Chittigong with “(BANGLADESH) FIRST DAY OF ISSUE (Bangla word in parenthesis)/SECOND DEFINITIVE SERIES” stamped in red ink on the front of the envelopes, even when there are no stamps on the front, only on the back. It was not stamped on the back. The red stamp used to imprint envelopes appears to have been created by the P.O.. The set is not found on one cover and the cancellation is a general Post Office cancellation. Numerous misperforation varieties can be found in most of the Definitive sets of Bangladesh.

Bradbury First Day Covers

This First Day Cover is cancelled “Philatelic Bureau, Dacca G.P.O.”

This First Day Cover has a postmark reading “Engineering University, Dacca” on 30 April, 1973.

These “Bradbury” Definitives First Day Covers were cancelled at the “Dacca Sadar Night P.O.” on April 30, 1973.

Cancelled at the “Dacca Sardar” post office on 30 April, 1973.

In the early 2000s copies of this cover began to appear on the philatelic market in Bangladesh. The cover appears as if it were made recently and is very clean and is on a very white envelope. This location had never been recorded over the years and it is undoubtedly a fake. The post office origin of this cover is PUTHIA BAZAR , under the District of DACCA. The first indication that this is a fake is that the cancellations are in English. For close to 20 years English was not used and had been replaced by Bangla. This cover was made by Muzammel Haq who had purchased some English cancellers when they had been changed to Bangla.