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  • Commemorative Stamp
  • 12 February 2011

100 Years of Airmail

Allahabad Fort and Map of the Flight

Allahabad Fort and a map of the first airmail flight, one of four stamps for a hundred years of airmail in India.

Date of issue February 12, 2011
Denomination Rs. 5
Quantity printed 400000
Printer India Security Press, Nashik
Perforation 13
Watermark No Watermark
Colours Multicolor
Printing process Wet Offset
Credit Sh. Sankha Samanta
Catalogue codes Michel IN 2557 Stamp Number IN 2494 Yvert et Tellier IN 2319 Stanley Gibbons IN 2798 WADP Numbering System - WNS IN009.2011

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About this stamp

On the Stamp

A map of Pequet’s flight from the exhibition ground at Allahabad across the Yamuna to Naini, above Allahabad Fort on the river.

A Hundred Years of Airmail

India Post issued four ₹5 stamps and a ₹20 miniature sheet on 12 February 2011, the opening day of Indipex 2011, the world philatelic exhibition in New Delhi, for a hundred years of airmail. On 18 February 1911 the French pilot Henri Pequet, in India for an air show at the United Provinces Exhibition in Allahabad, flew about 6,500 letters across the Yamuna to Naini, some ten kilometres away, in a Humber-Sommer biplane: the first official airmail flight. The letters were marked “First Aerial Post, U.P. Exhibition Allahabad 1911”. India Post’s brochure for this issue is not online, so this text draws on Wikipedia and on the stamps themselves.

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