Asia Minor Steam Ship Company Stamp of 1868 is the most pursued philatelic rarity of Turkey.

Captain Bell's Asia Minor Screw Steamship Company was a British enterprise that operated from Smyrna, Turkey. The Company conveyed letters between various seaports in the Levant at which the ships touched, thus providing a British counterpart to the Russian navigation and Commerce Company and the official Imperial Ottoman Admiralty Steamship Postal Service.

The Asia Minor Company seems to have had a special interest in Cyprus, and like the other two it provided its own adhesive stamps from 1868 onwards. These labels were cancelled with hand stamps. The stamp shown above is an excellent example of these types of stamps.

The stamp is a 2 pistres black on green stamp cancelled by part 'Joly' handstamp in blue. The stamp was sold for USD 2,429 in the year 2013 in corinphila auction.

Image Courtesy: https://corinphila.ch

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