Portuguese India was the only colony to be authorized in 1869 by King D. Luís to print its own stamps in the Goa Printing House. This decision was apparently taken because British India has had postage stamps since 1854, by the geographical proximity, and the relevant commercial activity between the two territories.

Because they were printed locally using rudimentary methods, they are known as “native” stamps and were put into circulation on 1 October 1871.

These stamps deserved from the beginning the interest of collectors and merchants. Its great promotion comes with the publication in 1893 of Harrison & Napier’s book edited by Stanley Gibbons.

This book that now emerges consists essentially of a first part, in which we tried to gather all the knowledge that was scattered in various sources to which other information, that the authors found throughout their research, was added. The events of Goa’s postal history - the internal mail, maritime mail, postal reforms, and postal agreements, the table of rates and the postmarks and cancellations of Goa, Damão and Diu, the mail routes to British India and from there to the East and Europe are presented in chronological order.

The second part is a collection of “native” stamps, presented in chronological order of their issues, gathered in a committed way presenting the different varieties of each issue seeking to become a source of consultation and information for collectors of this fascinating period of Portuguese India.