Burma

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Burma is a country in Southeast Asia on the Bay of Bengal bordered by Thailand, China and India.

Its postal history goes back to when the Indian post office established post offices in 1854. Indian stamps were used, with Burmese use of stamps recognizable by cancels beginning in 1856. This was originally an octagonal type killer/obliterator enclosing a "B" and an office number ("5" for Akyab, "156" for Rangoon) within the larger number of offices in the (Indian) Bengal Postal Circle. In 1860, the cancel was changed to a duplex type with a diamond-shaped killer. Then in 1875, the numbering scheme and cancel style was changed, with killers now a block of bars with "R" followed by a dash and number. Beginning in 1886, Burma became a province of India and CDSs were used. See the Stanley Gibbons catalogue of Commonwealth and British Empire Stamps.

Burma became a separate colony in 1937. With the beginning of World War II, Japan occupied Burma along with Burmese independence groups. See: Burma – Japanese occupation issues.
 * In 1937, then-current Indian stamps with George V were overprinted BURMA. High values exist with telegraph and revenue/fiscal cancels. Also as expected, the highest values exist with forged overprints and cancels.
 * In 1938-40, designs with George VI were issued. Again, high values exist with telegraph and revenue/fiscal cancels.
 * In 1940, an overprint for the Penny Black centenary was released.
 * In 1945 at war's end, stamps were overprinted MILY ADMIN.
 * Burma became a republic in 1948 with stamp inscribed bilingually, the English part reading UNION OF BURMA.
 * In 1990, the Union of Burma became the Union of Myanmar.





Japanese occupation issues




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