First Issues - 1877 to 1880

page 10.7

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Tobago

1st August 1879 SG1 Sc1

West Indian: became part of Trinidad and Tobago in 1889.

Eastern Rumelia and South Bulgaria

[1880] 1881 SG Sc10

This region rejected Turkish rule and joined Bulgaria in 1885 as South Bulgaria. The first issues (quite expensive) are Turkish overprints. Later that year South Bulgaria issued stamps, all ER (more expensive) overprints: between the overprints there were a two sets of real ER stamps, one of which is shown, the first real ER stamp.
Mackay [1, p.127] observes that the Eastern Rumelia real stamps were the first with four languages (Turkish, Greek, Bulgar and French) in four scripts (Arabic, Greek, Cyrillic and Roman).

Cyprus

A short set from Cyprus, the first being a GB bantam overprint (see small stamps). There's a workmanlike miniature sheet showing early overprints on the back of the first page. The first real stamp followed soon after in 1881 and the Cyprus Republic achieved independence in 1960.

1st April 1880 SG7 Sc1	First real stamp 1881 SG31 Sc11	Commemorative 1928 SG123 Sc114 50 years as a British colony	Charity 1974 SG Sc-RA1 postal tax Refugee Fund	Independence 1960 SG188 Sc183

The Sc-RA1 overprint seems to have been issued a few months after the RA2 real stamp.

Occupation Issues and Offices Abroad

These are dealt with collectively in a separate display. There were none of note in this period.

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