Postal Rates and Overland Mail Surcharges

Eastwards bounded rates from Denmark

Postage Rate Denmark - Iraq (surface mail):

(Date Format dd.mm.yyyy)

 Extract from “Officielle Meddelelser', the official Danish G.P.O. Bulletin for 1924.
(Please scroll down for the English translation)

"Officielle Meddelelser", No. 51, Page 184, 19th November 1924

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7. Der er aabnet Adgang til ad Automobilrouten Haifa - Bagdad at forsende saadanne almindelige og anbefalede Brevpostforsendelser til Mesopotamien og de persiske Byer Kermanschah, Hamadan og Mahommerah, der af Afsenderne er paategnende: "By Overland Mail Haifa - Bagdad" eller lignende. Indtil videre opkræves der ikke nogen Tillægsporto for denne ekstraordinære Befordringstjeneste.

7. It is now possible to send ordinary and registered mail by the motor car route Haifa - Baghdad to Mesopotamia and the Persian towns of Kermanshah, Hamadan and Mahomerah. The mail has to be annoted "By Overland Mal Haifa ­Baghdad" or similar. An additional fee for this extraordinary service will not be charged for the time being.

"Officielle Meddelelser", No. 51, Page 185, 19th November 1924

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Haifa-Bagdad,

Forsendelser til Befordring med denne Rute dirigeres daglig via Tyskland til Optagelse i den af det tyske Postvæsen hver Torsdag udfærdigede Afslutning til Bagdad; Befordringstid München-Bagdad 9 a 10 Dage.

Tog 45 Tirsdag og Tog 922 Onsdag er sidste Tilslutning herfra Landet. (K. 5589)

Haifa - Bagdad

Mail for conveyance by this route is dispatched daily via Germany for inclusion in a bag which the German Post Office sends to Baghdad every Thursday. The time in transit Munich - Baghdad is 9 - 10 days.

Train 45 Tuesday and train 992 Wednesday are the last connections from this country.

Denmark - 1935
Extract from the Danish Post Office Journal gives the route for mail to Iraq as going by train via Germany to Damascus and by bus from Damascus to Baghdad in 1935. This confirms that the French administration of Syria & Lebanon continued to run an overland mail service in competition with the British administered territories of Iraq and Palestine. It also confirms that the central European route by rail via Germany and Turkey for mail to Iraq and the Persian Gulf was still operating. The mail was sent daily from Copenhagen to Germany, where it was forwarded on Tuesdays and Saturdays by train via Istanbul - Aleppo to Damascus and as mentioned before by bus from Damascus to Baghdad, where it was due to arrive on the following Sunday and Thursday respectively. On Wednesdays mail was forwarded by ship from Brindisi to Jaffa (4 days transit) and by car to Jerusalem and Baghdad where it was due to arrive the following Tuesday. This information was extracted from the route lists of April 1935.

Denmark - 1938/39
Extract from the postal traffic information from Denmark to Iraq in the financial year 1938-39. The statistics show that in that period 3,731 ordinary and 182 registered letters were sent from Denmark to Iraq.

Only one cover from Denmark to Iran has been recorded, dated 5th August 1941, arriving in Baghdad on 18th November 1941, with an indecipherable Iranian postmark dated 26th November. As this was war-time the considerable time it took in transit is not surprising and undoubtedly it must have travelled via Turkey and possibly by train direct to Baghdad by the newly completed rail link.