General View of Damascus with the Umayyad Mosque Minaret (1937)

CA55

Country: Syria

Issue: Airmail – Umayyad Mosque and Airplane – 10 Piastres

Date of Issue: 1937

Postmark: Circular cancel – Damas – 7.12.37

Postcard: Black-and-white photographic view titled “Damas. Vue générale”. It shows a panoramic perspective of Damascus with the Umayyad Mosque prominently in the foreground. The mosque’s long colonnaded courtyard wall occupies the lower part of the image, leading to its tall minaret rising above the cityscape. Behind it, numerous flat-roofed buildings extend toward the horizon, framed by distant hills. The caption is in French, and the publisher is not identified.

Justification of Maximum Concordance:

The stamp depicts the Umayyad Mosque along with an airplane, symbolizing air mail service, while the postcard illustrates the same mosque in detail as the dominant architectural feature. The cancellation from Damascus, dated within the stamp’s valid postal period, ensures strong thematic, geographic, and temporal concordance. This combination meets the criteria for a valid maximum card.