In 1859 the Compagnie Universelle du Canal Maritime de Suez set up its own postal system to convey administrative mail between its work sites and its offices in Alexandria, Port Said, Ismailia and Suez. Later, in 1860, it formed an agreement with the Posta Europea for the conveyance of its mail to the nearest Posta Europea office: Damietta, Suez or Zagazig.
This arrangement ran until 1865, when the Posta Europea was taken over by the Egyptian Government, after which the company resumed operation of its own postal system. Carriage of the mail was free for personal and business mail of company employees and other residents of the Canal area. In November 1867, to cover the cost of this service, it was decided to introduce a charge for the carriage of private mail, to take effect from July 1, 1868.
As a result the company headquarters in Paris placed an order for postage stamps in denominations of 1, 5, 20 and 40 centimes with the Paris firm of Chйzaud Ainй et Tavernier. These were printed by lithography, with the printing surface of the 20 centimes stone built up by means of 120 individual lithographic transfers taken from an original single-image stone. The other three printing stones of 120 impressions were made up of 30 transfers taken from an intermediate stone of four images.
The stamps were sent Egypt in June 1868, but did not arrive in Ismailia until early July, perhaps the 8th or 9th, just over a week too late for the introduction of the postage fees. The company had ordered its own datestamps, but these were also late so the stamps were cancelled either by pen or by several types of obliterators held at Port Said by the French Post Office. At Port Said these include the “grand chiffre” lozenge of dots with the number “5129″ and the double-ringed “PORT-SAID” datestamp; at Ismailia by a rectangle of 48 dots in blue; and at Suez by a 25mm circle of large lozenges also in blue.
Members of the public objected, however, to this “extra tax” going to the company, and the Egyptian postal authorities were concerned about the infringement of the state postal monopoly and their own loss of revenue. They quickly tried to close down the service, which resulted in Giacomo Muzzi, the Postmaster General, agreeing to take control on August 16, 1868.
Most of the company’s post office facilities and postal equipment were transferred to the Egyptian Government, which immediately opened Egyptian civil post offices on the sites of the former company offices. As a result the Canal Company stamps were in use for a short period of less than 40 days, making genuinely used examples extremely rare with only a few known covers.
Normally manuscript (pen cancels), but, since these were only local stamps, the covers needed other stamps on them to go any further. These were usually either French or Egyptian and were usually cancelled either with the French numeral type (a vertical diamond of dots with numerals in the centre “5105″ for Suez” or “5129″ for Port Said) or an Egyptian cds as illustrated (Robson Lowe Encyclopedia Vol.2 (1949). Sometimes part of the cancel fell upon the Suez Canal stamp but this was accidental as postal employees would usually take pains to avoid giving any official status to what were really only private company labels.
The stamps are scarce to rare, but forgeries, of which at least 12 complete sets are known, are quite common. Furthermore, genuine stamps with forged or bogus cancellations are known to exist.
The stamps were lithographed in sheets of 12 x 10 by M. Chezaud in Paris. The paper was watermarked once (LA+-F – the + being a rather fancy Maltese cross), but, because the paper sheet was large enough to contain several sheets of stamps, most stamps show no sign of the watermark.
The stamps (which were all imperforate) came in four denominations 1c., 5c., 20c. and 40c. The basic stamp was the 20c. which was printed from a single stone. The other values were made from blocks of four of the this stone.
The stamps have all been plated by their constant plate flaws. There are therefore 120 different types of the 20c. stamp, but only four of each of the other values. The characteristics of each of the 120 types of the 20c. are described in “The Stamps of the Suez Canal” by Jean Boulad (Cairo, 1948).
Read more. Suez Canal Company Forgeries