STAMPS OF BURMA (1937-1988)

BRITISH OCCUPIED PERIOD ISSUED STAMPS (1937-45)

There was no postal system and no records of using stamps in Burma during the rule of Burmese Kings.  Burmese used local messengers and volunteer carriers to send letters.
Burma had been an autonomous country for hundreds of years before being defeated in three wars with the British. When Burma was incorporated into the British Empire, it was not as an independent new colony, but as a division of the  province of India. Under British occupancy, British authorities set up an official postal system in Burma. 
By 1827 Akyab Post Office was established, and by 1837 there were four sub-offices: Kyauk Phyu, Ramree, Sandway and Moulmein. Records showed that British Army General A. Godwin sent Mr. C. M. Crisp as a post officer for the military after the British occupied the Lower Burma in 1852. Postal services were developed from the military needs of the Burmese War with the British. Mr. Crisp was appointed as Rangoon Postmaster on September, 1852 and tried to develop the stuffs and postal works. 
Burma became a self-governing unit of the British Commonwealth and received a constitution on April 1, 1937. Therefore, the first stamps of Burma appeared on April 1, 1937. These were stamps of India used between 1926 to 1936, with the overprint of the word "BURMA" in black. The face values were in the Indian Monetary System of Pies (Ps), Annas (As) and Rupees (Rs).

The First Provisional Stamp Designs 

"Provisional" is a term descriptive of a stamp of a temporary nature and deemed to be a short-issue stamp employed pending the omission of definitive issue. The first provisional stamps of Burma were sold on April 1, 1937, which was the day of political and administratively separation of Burma from India. 

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