From Letters To Phone Covers: How Postage Stamps Carry UAE's Story, Heritage

(MENAFN- Khaleej Times) Before a message could travel across the world with a tap on a screen, a letter sent from the UAE carried something else: a postage stamp offering a small glimpse of the country it came from.

An image of a historic fort, a national celebration or a major exhibition could introduce the recipient to a place they had never visited or an event they knew little about.

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Today, that connection has found another form. UAE stamp designs appear as stickers on the backs of mobile phones, turning images once associated with envelopes into personal expressions of identity.

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For Ahmed Abdullah Al Shamsi, director of postage stamp products at Emirates Post, a stamp's significance has always extended beyond paying for a letter's journey.

“A stamp tells a story. It speaks about culture and history,” he told Khaleej Times at the Sharjah International Book Fair, where Emirates Post Group is participating.

“It speaks to the whole world.”

A small window into the UAE

For people sending letters before digital communication became part of everyday life, stamps were a familiar way to stay connected. They accompanied personal news, greetings and correspondence, traveling from one household to another and across borders.

Along the way, their designs carried a second message.

Al Shamsi explained that UAE stamps document the country's heritage, cultural traditions, achievements and diplomatic relationships. Someone receiving a letter overseas could learn about a national occasion or discover an event taking place in the Emirates simply by looking at its stamp.

“If you sent something abroad from the UAE, you were also sending a message about the country's identity,” he said.

He pointed to Expo 2020 as an example: a stamp commemorating the event could introduce it to someone elsewhere in the world.

Over time, these issues become a visual record. What was once an announcement of a current event becomes evidence of a moment in the country's history.

An old stamp depicting a landmark can also show a younger viewer how a familiar place looked decades earlier, prompting questions about what has changed.

From postage to a symbol of belonging

UAE stamp stickers on phone covers put those images a new setting while keeping their connection to national identity.

Al Shamsi recalled that a stamp image had appealed to him as a phone accessory before he later discovered the original issue at an exhibition overseas.

The find was a set of Abu Dhabi stamps released in 1970, bearing the image of the late Sheikh Zayed bin Sultan Al Nahyan. He bought it from a dealer in China for $300 after negotiating down from $500.

Despite receiving a much higher offer after bringing it home, he decided to keep it.

The encounter illustrates how a design admired as an everyday accessory can lead someone towards the original object and the history behind it.

For Al Shamsi, even the familiar perforated border of a stamp remains a recognizable design element, appearing in contemporary graphics and displays.

Keeping tradition alive through new designs

Emirates Post has also explored ways to make stamps engaging through scent, texture and printing techniques.

An Emirati coffee stamp issued in 2013 releases the aroma of coffee when you rub its surface. Al Shamsi said the scent remains noticeable today.

Other issues have incorporated an artificial pearl or used three-dimensional effects, bringing elements of the country's culture into the physical design.

These details give collectors another reason to examine a stamp closely. But its subject - the tradition, achievement or occasion it represents remains part of its lasting appeal.

Emirates Post is also involving the public in the design process. Al Shamsi said a competition for an upcoming Eid Al Etihad issue attracted distinctive submissions from people across the UAE.

He believes community contributions can bring a personal understanding of the country into its stamps.

A history people can hold

At the fair, older issues offer visitors a chance to trace that history through the events and images chosen to represent the UAE.

Al Shamsi said Emirates Post had prepared 20 copies of a particular album collection using archived stamp sheets, bringing together issues spanning the early 1970s to 1999.

For collectors, some stamps gain additional significance through scarcity or an unusual detail. He cited a Dh2 issue from 1973 that was withdrawn after a collector identified an incorrect inscription naming a fort.

Yet their importance is also in what they preserve: the occasions the country celebrated, the places it recognized and the messages it chose to share.

Whether traveling on an envelope, preserved in an album or reproduced on a phone cover, the image continues to carry that connection.

“A stamp is an ambassador to the world,” Al Shamsi said.

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