Initially, I began to collect the stamps and covers of Bangladesh back in the mid 1970s. It was a period when dealers offered both the overprinted stamps of Pakistan and the new Bangladesh stamps equally. Everyone was trying to make sense of the offerings as there was no philatelic information readily available to anyone outside Bangladesh and no one was publishing reliable information in the philatelic press.
About a year later, I found that every overprinted stamp I had purchased, plus the Boy Scout and Moukti Fouz covers, were either fakes or forgeries, largely fakes. The few stamps and souvenir sheets of Bangladesh that I had were put in a stock book and not looked at again until the 1990s. At that time, I had began to see offerings for Bangladesh stamps on the Internet, including imperforate stamps, errors, FDCs, etc.. This sparked my interest again and I found my meager collection of Bangladesh stamps and fake covers and made a few purchases. Eventually, I came to view my collection of fakes and forgeries as a "reference collection".
My biggest frustration is finding scarce Bangladesh stamps placed on envelopes and generally sent registered mail to the same person or a friend or relative. These "philatelic covers" hold little value and interest in the West and I wish the practice would stop as the stamps in question are much more valuable as mint stamps.
Since I am a chronic list maker, I had lists of stamps and covers I owned, lists of items offered to me, and lists of items seen on the Internet. The majority of the material was not listed in any catalog and it was the only way I could keep track of what existed. It is rather ironic that I would write this catalog as I have never been to Bangladesh, do not speak Bengali, have never seen another collector's Bangladesh collection, nor have I ever personally met another collector of Bangladesh, other than the Salams.
Through the Internet I made contact with Mohammad Hasnat and Muzammel Haq, both living in the State of New York at the time. With their help I began to add interesting items to my collection and learned a great more information about the material.
The big breakthrough came when I made contact with Mosharaf Husain in Dhaka. He was tireless in finding items for me and sharing information. Most of the foundation of my collection is due to his efforts.
When I began to illustrate some of the material on my web site, collectors in Bangladesh began to contact me and thanked me for posting the material. Some of them became good friends over the years. Faisal Rahman, Al-Arefin Khan, Ataul Quadir and Mannon Mashur Zarif have been very important in the assemblying of the informaion presented here in the catalog. They were constatnly answering my questions and finding specific items for me I had heard about and wanted.
All of the Bangladeshis told me there were many collectors of Bangladesh stamps in Germany and were surprised I did not know them. Eventually, I made contact with Werner Gras who was very generous in sharing information. Since my German is almost non-existant, and the same for his English, we had a hard time communicating but that did not stop the exchange of information. I might add that I have all of the printed scans he sent to me in a notebook for reference.
The name M. A. Salam kept cropping up in emails and even appeared on a cover I owned. By coincidence, I purchased something on the Internet and the person selling it was Shaheen Salam, the son of M.A. Salam. It turned out he lives in Illinois and when his father came to visit, arranged a meeting at my home. Since then, I have met with Mr. Salam two more times while he was visiting. I was also visited Shaheen and his family in their home.
Mr. Salam was always able to answer all of the questions I had and even related his personal involvement in some of the situations I had questioned. Over the years he offered me many scarce and unusual items.
Due to his overall contribution to the Philatelic History of Bangladesh, I am dedicating this catalog to him - al-Haj M. A. Salam.
I hope this catalog will be useful for anyone interested in the stamps and FDCs of Bangladesh and I welcome your comments, advice, criticisms and additions to the listings.
R. Howard Courtney
Chicago, IL
March 2009
This page maintained by: R. Howard Courtney -
(rhcourtney333@yahoo.com)