About the only cool thing I think I know about Islamic stamps'n'coins is that the squiggle in the middle is the "calligraphic monogram" (signature/logo) of Sultan Somebody ... in the images above, that would be Sultan Somebody & Sultan Somebody Else.
Retired Ap. Book Mod, Pres Golden Gate Stamp Club, Hi Tech Consultant 05 Jan 2020 01:05:26pm
re: Mystery Turkey ?
I found a similar stamp (different color and denomination) on hipstamp described as follows: Turkey Ottoman Empire 1898 2pa Newspaper and Advertisement Revenue USED IN SYRIA.
But I wonder if the cancellation is indeed Bulgarian or from another Ottoman Empire country?
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"E. Rutherford: All science is either physics or stamp collecting."
If I may venture a guess: The stamps in the first post were cancelled by the newsprint. It was apparently not uncommon for newspaper (revenue) stamps to be stuck to the paper sheets before printing. And yes, the printed text is in Armenian and Arabic letters.
There seems to me little doubt that the stamp in the last post above has been cancelled in Damascus.
Yes, this is a cancel by Thomas Cook & Son Ltd., the London travel agent who operated cruises of the Nile River, Palestine, and Syria. I think it is Damascus, Syria revenue cancel, as they led tours to Damascus, and had branches throughout the world.
If a revenue stamp was to be affixed to a document, it needed to be cancelled. Who else but the writer could do it? They could as well have written across it, but I suppose the office handstamp was quicker and easier.
Revenue stamps, when removed from their original documents, can loose their context, or their purpose of use. We can only speculate why a Thomas Cook & Son revenue/receit cancel from Damascus, Syria is on a Turkish revenue stamp.
TC & Son hauled passengers and freight on their own steamers and on contracted steamers, owned by other companies. They had offices around the world. Every passenger had a ticket. Every shipment of freight had a bill of lading. Every country charged taxes, which were collected through revenue stamps. Every TC & Son office had a rubber stamp to date when they received a shipment or to cancel the revenue/tax stamps when making a bill of lading.
"Or, were they applying a "received" (rubber) stamp, and just happened to hit the Ottoman stamp?"
Yes, that is probably what happened here, but only speculation.
From eBay, here are examples of TC & Son rubber stamp cancellations from Madras and Rangoon. They had offices around the world.
I use these examples to show the pattern of their rubber stamp device layout. They seem to use "THOS. COOK & SON, LTD." over "insert a city name here."
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