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Eastern Rumelia,
South Bulgaria
1st July 1885
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Europe | 27, 27a |  |
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| Eastern Rumelia Sc1 | xxx |
perf, wmk, print
Printed
Scott lists 40 stamps (Gibbons 50) which fall into three broad categories:
1880 |
Sc1-9 |
SG1-5 |
Handstamped overprints of Turkish stamps. |
1881-84 |
Sc10-19 |
SG6-12 |
Stamps of Eastern Rumelia (Roumelia in Gibbons). |
1885 |
Sc20-40 |
SG13-50 |
Overprints of the Eastern Roumelia stamps: two overprint types (lion and framed lion), each with two variants. |
From 1885 onwards the stamps of Bulgaria were used.
| Description | o/p † | Date | Scott# | SG# | Mi# | Y&T# ¶ | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Overprints of Turkish stamps | |||||||
| ½ piaster on 20 paras green | b | 1880 | 1 | 1 | 4 | sucharge | |
| 10pa black and rose | b | 1880 | 3 | ||||
| 20pa violet and green | b | 1880 | 4 | 2 | 3 | ||
| 2pi black and buff | b | 1880 | 6 | 3 | 4-5 | ||
| 5 pi red and black | b | 1880 | 7 | 4 | 6 | ||
| 10pa black and red lilac o/p a | a | 1880 | 8 | 1 | |||
| 10pa black and red lilac both overprints | both | 1880 | 9 | 5 | 2 | ||
| Eastern Rumelia stamps | |||||||
| 5pa black and olive perf 13½ | 1881 | 10 | 6 | 7A | |||
| other values perf 13½ | 1881 | 11-14 | 7-10 | 8A-11A | |||
| 5pa and other values perf 11 | 1884 | 15-19 | 11-12 | 7B-11B | |||
| Overprinted Eastern Rumelia stamps | |||||||
| 5pa black and olive, Type a lion overprint in blue‡ | 1885 | 20 | 13 | ||||
| other values, lion overprint | 1885 | 21-32 | 14-34 | 1-5 | |||
| 5pa black and olive, Type b framed lion overprint in black§ | 1885 | 33 | 43 | ||||
| other values, framed lion overprint | 1885 | 34-40 | 35-50 | 6-11 | |||
† Two overprints were used, (a) "ROUMELIE ORIENTALE" printed vertically and (b) a large "R.O".
‡ There are two varieties of the lion overprint, (a) four toes on each foot, (b) three toes each. The overprints can be blue or black.
§ With the framed lion, in type (a) he first characted of the inscription is circular, in type (b) it is oval.
There are perf variations in both overprint types, for which the reader is referred to the catalogues.
¶ Yvert & Tellier start again at #1 with the 1885 South Bulgaria overprints.
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vertical |
R.O |
Lion |
Framed lion |
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Type a |
Type b |
Type a |
Type b |
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image |
image |
Eastern Rumalia |
Lion |
Framed Lion |
| 1881 Sc10 Sg6 | 1885 Sc20 SG13 | 1885 Sc33 SG43 |
The catalogues warn that forgeries are commonplace.
This is the third consecutive European entity (after Bulgaria and Bosnia & Herzegovina) whose creation resulted from the 1878 Congress of Berlin that followed the Russo-Turkish War. Easterm Roumelia rejected Turkish rule and joined Bulgaria in 1885 as South Bulgaria.
Mackay [1, p.127] observes that the Eastern Rumelia 1881 issue were the first stamps to feature four languages (Turkish, Greek, Bulgar and French) in four scripts (Arabic, Greek, Cyrillic and Roman).