THE ABASSI POSTCARDS OF ADEN 

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Cards of the former British colony of Aden are not much collected, except perhaps by ex-servicemen (such as yours truly!) who spent time there. But for all collectors there is one set that catches the eye, that produced by the photographer Abassi in 1947. His topographical cards tend to be more animated than most of the Aden cards produced during the so-called ‘Golden Age’ of postcards; so many of the latter are of panoramic views with hardly a soul in sight, whilst the majority of early ethnic cards are so obviously posed, many of them taken in a studio setting. Also quite a few of the early Aden ethnic cards are of Egyptians and not Adenis! Other plusses in favour of collecting Abassi cards is that they come in the category of ‘real photographic’ and also were issued in a large set.

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There are exactly 120 cards in the full set. There were many different printings over a period of about 10 years from probably sometime in early 1947. The earliest card I have is dated clearly 7 July 1947. For much of this period Abassi would appear to have had a virtual monopoly in the Aden postcard trade - perhaps not altogether surprising given the above average quality of most of the photographs, both as regards finish and content. Although a few Abassi cards were still being sold in 1956, and the occasional one is found with a post-Suez crisis postmark, Abassi’s ‘reign’ can be said to be for the nine years 1947-55, with 1950-53 being the years of maximum sales.

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Another of the aspects that makes this an attractive set for the collector is that it was a numbered set as well as being a large one. But this is only partially true since about half the cards were issued initially only in unnumbered form. These were the earliest printings, from 1947 to 1949, and the highest numbered card seen in unnumbered form is card 58. This leads one to the conclusion that the set initially only consisted of about 58 cards and that early in 1950 the decision was taken to more than double the size of the set. Did Abassi have a sufficient stock of negatives to do this without having to take a lot more photographs? The evidence is not conclusive and the answer is that he probably used some spares and also took some new scenes. 

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An expert on car and lorry makes might be able to date some of the higher-numbered cards as being not earlier than 1949. There are a few uninteresting scenes among the higher numbers, and a few where there is too much contrast between sunlight and shade (e.g. card 104), which give the impression that they might have missed selection first time round. But there are also some very interesting scenes (e.g. card 84 which depicts the launching of a dhow) which would have surely been included in the original set had they been available in 1947. Incidentally, because it is an interesting scene, card 84 is usually one of the higher-priced cards, although it is also one of the commonest. By and large the scarcest cards are those that are the least interesting or technically below average. Luckily for the collector this is usually not reflected in their price! For the original initial printing it would be reasonable to assume that an equal number of cards was ordered from each negative. With some cards proving to be much more popular than others it is likely that subsequent printings would have allowed for this, and also have excluded cards that were not selling.

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120 cards is a large number for any shop to display at any one time; however  cards of Sheikh Othman, for example, would not have only been available there, as the sales potential in that town would have been almost zero. All those coming ashore at Aden for a few hours would have homed in on the duty free shops around the Crescent at Tawahi; the majority would not have ventured elsewhere. At best they would have gone to the Post Office in the aptly named Post Office Bay. Some would have had the time and inclination to get a taxi to the bazaar in Crater, via the Main Pass, but there was not the Victorian desire to see the water tanks there, which had been more or less an obligatory sight to be seen at the turn of the century. Maalla had yet to be developed as a residential and shopping area for Servicemen and other Europeans. It is estimated that in this period, 1947-1956, perhaps 85-90% of postcards being sold were bought in Tawahi. It is difficult to imagine more than 50-70 different cards being displayed at a time in any of the many outlets.

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There is a bit of a puzzle as regards the different printings. The printing can be ascertained by looking at the letter of the alphabet inside the rectangle on the reverse of the card where the stamp is meant to be stuck. The following letters were used: A,B,C,D,K,L,M,N,O,P & Q. A few cards, whether by accident or design have no letter. Unnumbered cards only have one of the letters A,B,C or D. The only cards to appear only in unnumbered form are C and D. There are two versions of unnumbered D cards. One is very much the odd one out as the words on the back “Photographed by Mr A. Abassi” are printed across the card as opposed to up the left-hand side of the card as they are on all the other printings. Also the words “Printed in Great Britain” appear beneath the rectangle for the stamp instead of inside it; this rectangle is also bigger than on the other printings. A few cards of the set were also issued by Valentine’s; cards seen tend to be of the same three or four views which leads one to the conclusion that only a very limited number of cards were printed by Valentine’s. They were probably the last Abassi cards to be available in Aden after the reopening of the Suez Canal.

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One might expect that cards would have been printed in alphabetical order of print letters, but this is definitely not the case. From K onwards the issue was in alphabetical order. Prior to that the order was the reverse. D cards with the abnormal layout were the first, to be topped up over a year later by cards with a standard D layout.  When the set was more than doubled in size to 120 cards the new cards were numbered Bs but the original set remained unnumbered. When B was followed by A the early half of the set was again printed still in unnumbered form. At some stage the negatives of all the first half of the set were also numbered and a few A cards can be found in either numbered or unnumbered form. This indicates that for the A printing there were at least two orders. From K onwards all 120 cards were numbered, but somewhat strangely the positioning, layout and size of the number was altered at some stage. On A, B and K  cards the abbreviation ‘No.’ appears before the number, whilst from M onwards there is just the number. 

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The popularity of the cards, and an indication that some print orders were small, is shown by the fact that there appears to be very little overlap of printings if cards are put in date order, when that is possible. It cannot be a coincidence that my 13 cards dated between December 1951 and April 1953 are all from the K printing; to be followed by five Ls between May and August. L, by the way, was the least good printing which is presumably why it was soon replaced by M. Another interesting point is that a succession of nine A cards between January and August 1951 is followed by a five month gap to the date of my earliest K card. Which might suggest that for a month or so virtually no Abassi cards were to be had. I have also a gap in dates of nearly a year from February 1949 between my last C and my first B. However my sample of dated cards (nearly 60) is quite small and the period of shortage was almost certainly much less, but none the less it is clear that in mid-1949 few Abassi cards were available. Perhaps the supply lesson had been learnt as B, A, K and M cards all came from much larger print runs. N and M were available concurrently for about two years, there possibly being another shortage prior to the arrival of the P printing just before the Suez crisis. These gaps would suggest that due to their popularity there was no remaindering of Abassi cards.

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Looking at the messages on used cards the purchasers fall generally speaking into two categories: servicemen or other expatriates based in Aden and passengers on liners passing through, many emigrants on their way to Australia. At postcard fairs one occasionally comes across a group of perhaps six or more cards; almost invariably they are all of the same printing, which brings one to the other reason for buying postcards of a place like Aden, as mementos of the visit. Since seven or eight of my 14 cards of the C printing were acquired together this has made this printing appear to be less scarce than is the case. To a certain extent the same can be said for the first D printing. 

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Looking at Aden cards published during the Golden Age and then between the wars one occasionally comes across cards that have been altered significantly between one edition and another. Occasionally this is due to retouching of the negative and sometimes to using more or less than the area reproduced from the original negative. I have found no evidence of the former and only one fairly significant example of the latter – on card 44 of the signal mast at Steamer Point. In later printings there is a small black car that does not appear in any of the earlier cards. The signal mast is the same size – all that has happened is that a lower part of the negative has been included and as a result less sky is in the picture. 

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Very few collectors will want to extend their searches to accumulate cards of each printing; so my scarcity list takes no account of whether a card is A or P, or whatever. Generally speaking, in spite of the lower half (1-58) having only a two-year start on the upper half (59-120), it is twice as likely that any card found will be unnumbered or numbered between 1 and 58. Bearing in mind that the buyers were mainly in Tawahi it is perhaps not surprising that cards of the Crescent shopping area and Post Office Bay, which include all except one of cards 47-55, are all pretty common. Although few people made the effort to visit the tanks the cards of them (2, 3, 107 and 115) were popular, although card 2 less so than the other three. 

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The Main Pass was another distinctive landmark and cards 1 and 43 of the pass are common, the latter rated as being one of the five commonest cards of the set. Card 65 in the second half is also fairly common. Several cards were of mosques, which had a certain curiosity value for many travellers, although some of these cards lacked interest. In this category only cards 35 and 5 sold well, with the former being the most common. Camels are featured on many cards and were another novelty; the best of these sold very well and included cards 13, 23, 25, 26, 29, 38, 101 and 114. Three cards of Crater, 6, 7 and 8, and one looking down on the harbour of Maalla, 10, are all common – the last perhaps because it shows lots of dhows anchored in the harbour. The launching of a dhow, card 84, has already been mentioned, and card 18 is another common one showing dhows. Some of the ethnic cards, none of them posed, were also popular. In this category cards 27, 28, 45, 68, 77 and 82 are all fairly common. A few cards show activity at or are of the salt works situated North of Khormaksar; of these card 14, the one with windmills, and card 15, bagging salt, are the easiest to find. Numerically the most difficult groups of cards to find are those numbered between 71 and 80 and between 91 and 100. The table below is my estimate of relative scarcity.