Due to the eight years I lived in Botswana and the rekindling of my interest in stamp collecting and philately while I lived there, I have a strong interest in the postal history of the country. Botswana has a conservative stamp issuing policy only releasing only a few issues a year on topic that are related to the country. As a result of this policy, it is fairly easy to develop a complete collection of the stamps of the country and to continue to collect stamps, one must venture into errors, freaks and oddities, where items can be very expensive. The alternative, which I pursue, is to explore postal history, where it is possible to collect items at reasonable cost. The historical research, looking at the places and way that the mail moved, continues to keep me connected to the country and its people.
While many people collect stamped postal history, I have concentrated on items that have travelled legitimately through the mail with out stamps, such as meter mail, permit mail, and official free mail. This research has also led me to explore auxiliary markings and labels that relate to special services such as registration and express mail as well as reasons for non-delivery or alternative means of delivering an item.
General information about “Business Services” offered by BotswanaPost can be found in this pamphlet they published in the early to mid-2000’s. Information about Bulk Mail services can be found in this pamphlet from the same timeframe. Information about other services can be found by clicking on the links to the right.