What moved me to write this book was my 40-year fascination with the British Post Office at Bangkok, the desire to put into print my knowledge before it is too late for me to do so and to make it available to the hobby. This is the first book dealing exclusively with this subject.

I wanted to bring together all that is known on the subject and organize all the bits of knowledge scattered throughout the literature over the past 140 years. To this, I have added my own discoveries, filling in some of the gaps and drawn some conclusions. Hopefully, this will stimulate interest in this area of philately.

I started collecting the Bangkok B’s in 1979 when I found two in a stockbook of British Empire stamps I bought at auction. I immediately liked the stamps because Stanley Gibbons, in 1979, indicated that there were only 23 different stamps and 4 varieties, their limited period of use (37 months), and because collectors and dealers tended to avoid them because of the many fakes.

Despite having studied the B-overprints since 1979, I feel that I have just turned the first few pages of a larger book. Hopefully, this book will motivate collectors to publish their findings and thus add to the knowledge on these interesting issues. 

There remain areas of study that I hope to explore, such as:

• Using spectral analysis to type the ink used to print the Bs.
• Applying computer techniques for the analysis of genuine and fake “Bs”.
• Documenting all covers sent during the time of Post Office at the British Consulate.
• Documenting all the firm and consular chops used on genuine stamps and covers.
• Anything related that I find interesting.