Afghanistan-Ferdinand Meyer

	"Afghanistan" by Ferdinand Meyer I am grateful to Jaromir Petrik for letting me have scans of this fascinating and rare early book on the stamps of Afghanistan. It is possibly the earliest specialised study written on the subject havig being published in Vienna in 1879. The text is in German and I apologise that it is somewhat pale. Meyer_Intro.pdf Part_1.pdf Part_2.pdf Having been written so close to the events it is perhaps inevitable that it contains a number of errors - the 1291 Issue for example has shahi and sanar values (although Meyer calls them 1 schahi and 2 schahi), and the 1293 'Post Office' series has stamps for Herat and Lalpura both of which are now thought to be doubtful (. . . although Herat must surely have opened prior to the recognised date of 1908?). No sheet sizes are given and many stamps are followed by a "?" to presumably indicate that he thought they should exist but wasn't entirely sure - although interestingly the 1 schahi and 2 schahi of 1291 are not qualified with a "?" ! I can sympathise with Meyer for these errors. With my own books I found getting reliable information most difficult for the most recent period - 2002-2012. Despite these slips this is a most interesing and pioneering work, pre-dating Masson & Jones by almost thirty years, and although my German is more than a little rusty it was well worth persevering with.