The Study of Stamp Functions in Qajar and the 1st Pahlavi

The reign of Naser al-Din Shah brought upon political and social reformations in Iran. The changes that happened in the structure of the postal system was one of such reformations. The use of stamps in Iran brought upon fundamental improvements in the postal system and became a crucial factor in speeding up the administrative procedures of the post office.At first, stamps represented postal fare and had an economic rule. But at the end of Naser al-Din Shah’s reign, other functions were associated with stamps: political and social functions, as well as cultural functions.
This paper aims to answer the question of what the functions of stamps were in the postal systems of Qajar and Pahlavi eras, and also to investigate the developments made in the formal and conceptual framework of stamps in the mentioned eras.The findings show us that during the developments that occurred in Iran’s postal system, stamps played various roles and also were produced in various shapes and forms; and despite the problems and obstacles that faced the postal system, the trend of printing and publishing stamps kept on growing.