First Book on Pakistan Philately

I do not have an accurate figure for the numbers of philatelists or stamp collectors in Pakistan, when I started writing on this topic in various newspapers in Pakistan, but from the number of people who came to get the First Day Covers that was issued by the Pakistan Post Office whenever a new commemorative postage stamp was issued, I can safely say that the number was at least around hundred or slightly higher in the city of Dhaka during the mid 1960’s. If I could make a guess for the whole of Pakistan it could be between four to five thousands and similar number may be around the world.

About an year before the 25th Anniversary of the Independence of Pakistan I asked myself “how can I contribute in this important milestone of our country, that may be remembered or at least become a source that can be referenced for any information related to our country.” I was a journalist first and philatelist second with limited resources, hence the idea of compiling my philatelic columns, adding some more chapters and the catalog of the stamps to make it a book seems possible. I discussed it with my father and my friend, both supported it. I spent a few weeks or may be a month and my first book was ready for publication. To coincide with the 25th Anniversary of the Independence I chose “25 Years of Philately in Pakistan” and designed my own cover page and convinced the Managing Editor, of Jang the leading newspaper of the national language–Urdu, that was being published from Karachi, to write the Introduction.

Now the problem was to find a publisher for my book, and when no publisher, and there were only a few at that time, showed any interest, I approached the only printer that I knew for help. He told me that he is willing to print the book, if I do the proof-reading, buying the paper for the book, and agree to pay the printing charges when I sell half more than half of the 1000 copies that will be printed as the first-print order. I agreed to the verbal contract and went to my uncle for asking for some loan for my book-printing project. He said he will not give me any loan, but would help me by giving me the money in installment, when I will need to buy the paper. So I started working on my proof reading.

To give the readers some idea about the process of type-setting and printing/proof reading of the manuscript before printing, I will use the information from Wikipedia.com that describe the process of type-setting as “small individual metal letters known as type would be set up by a compositor into the desired lines of text. Several lines of text would be arranged at once and were placed in a wooden frame known as a galley. Once the correct number of pages were composed, the galleys would be laid face up in a frame.” Then ink was applied to the “galley” or pages and the impression would be manually transferred on a paper by moving a roller. This was the paper that I have to read for any errors and use special “printer’s” notation for correction. This process had to repeated as the type-setter had no knowledge of grammar and correction usually produced a few more errors. Any way to make the story short, every “galley” would have four page of my book and as each sheet would be printed on both sides, so one sheet would be needed to print eight pages. The printer did not have enough types to compose the whole 100+ pages, so I had to supply paper to print at least two or four sheets. So, I bought eight reams of large size of “printing-press-paper” and thus in about three months my book was ready for binding and this printer was not equipped to provide this service. I had to take the whole lot of a few thousand pages of “printed book with the cover” to a book-binder. My uncle was kind enough to give me the required money as and when I needed it.

My uncle never told me when he gave me the money or even afterwards, that he had no steady income and was curtailing the needs of his own family by helping me with my book printing project. He was a great man, and provided all possible help in my later life, and I could never repay for all his monetary help. May God bless his soul in Heaven.

My book 25 Years of Philately in Pakistan was a complete flop, I could hardly even recover the cost of printing, and had to sell more than 700 copies to the paper-recycle vendor at few rupees per kilo. After a few years of migrating to USA in 1997, one day I was just searching for some information in Wikipedia I was surprised to find my book listed in the section: Books in the listing “Postage stamps and postal history of Pakistan” as Ahmed, S.R., (1972) 25 years of Philately in Pakistan.

I published the revised edition with a colored images of the postage stamps and now this revised edition is available on Amazon.com and some other book sellers’ website, while the old or the 1st edition is now available as a “collector’s item” from: Book-seller-UK