2018-07-20 Fri

Bulgaria is a country whose stamps are not widely collected. This relatively small country is located in the Balkan Peninsula on the Black Sea, bordering Turkey, Romania, Serbia, Macedonia, and Greece. A great deal can be learned about Bulgaria’s history and culture from its stamps.

With Russian help, Bulgaria became an autonomous principality of the Ottoman Empire in 1878. Bulgaria issued its first postage stamps May 1, 1879. The image above shows the first postage stamp of Bulgaria having the value of 5centime depicting black and orange Lion of Bulgaria.

The inscriptions on the stamps are in Cyrillic. The inscription at the top of the oval reads "Bulgarian Postage" at the bottom of the oval reads "Five Centimes". The central design features the lion from the Bulgarian coat-of-arms.

The new Bulgarian postage stamps are very similar in design and size to the Russian Imperial postage stamps of the time.

Image Curtsey: https://www.linns.com