Page 132 - The Postal Agencies in Eastern Arabia

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Type 12 Type 12A (forgery)

Another new canceller (Type 12) is recorded from February 1942;
and, in March, the Post Office was handed over by Cable and Wireless to
a representative of the Indian Postal Dept. The Post Office then moved
to the first floor of a building in the Suuq al Sarafin (Money Changers
Market), being approached by an outside stone stairway. The building
was one of two of similar design situated immediately opposite each other
which had at one time been used alternately according to which was
shaded from the sun, as a Court of Justice. Both were known as
“KISHK” (from the Turkish for a “small place”: hence, also “KIOSK”
in English).
Barclay Raunkiaer, the Danish explorer who had visited Kuwait in
1912, wrote of them “In the innermost corner of the great market place,
by the Bazaar quarter, are two two-storied buildings from the glazed
windows of whose second floors there is a view; and here, sometimes in
one and sometimes in the other, Mubarak gives audience.”
That which housed the Post Office still stands, the outside stairway
leading to a photographic studio; the other, which later became the
office of Abdulla Nafisi, the Saudi Arabian Trade Agent, was demolished
some years ago to make way for a car park.
The pre-war overprinted stamps have been seen used as late as
December 1942; but throughout 1942 to 1944 the stamps generally in
use in Kuwait were unoverprinted Indian K.G.VI 1939 and 1941—43
issues, and they were almost invariably cancelled with Type 12; the
Type 11 canceller does not appear to have been used at all from April
1942 to March 1944.

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