The Language of Stamps

A little known aspect of the postcard "revolution" was the secret language of conveying messages by positioning stamps in select ways; this postcard served as a Rosetta stone for sender and receiver alike. Both position and color had meaning, and examples among those posted here include A Benares Dancing Girl, Govind Singh, Clock Tower Lucknow, A Street Scene Delhi, Muhaffiz Khan Mosque, Ahmedabad, Jaffna Tamil, Ceylon.

To be sure, part of the charm was that the message was implicit, not stated in words, always open to interpretation and deniability, ambiguous to those who did not know, or open to special meanings for those who did.