Similar to pre-Penny Black times, mail in Asia was delivered by runners
and charged by weight and distance traveled. This system is known as the
Dawk (or Dak). In 1850, Sir Bartle Frere of the East India Company created
a postal system that has a uniform rate for all distances.
This postal system created a need for a method to prepay postage. As a result,
the Scinde Dawk was created. It bears the Merchant's Mark of the British East
India Company, a designed embossed on sealing wax.
Many fakes of the Scinde Dawk exist but most are easily detectable (they
are not embossed).
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