Title
2000 Oman Muscat Al Bustan Palace Hotel Inter Continental Beach Mountains Postcard
Front
Colour photographic view of the Al Bustan Palace Hotel near Muscat in the Sultanate of Oman, seen from an elevated vantage point across the bay in warm late afternoon light.
The hotel occupies the centre of the image, a large white palatial building in modern Islamic style, its stepped and terraced blocks rising to seven storeys with continuous ranks of arched balconies and recessed loggias. At its centre rises the great dome over the atrium, sheathed in dark metal and crowned with a finial. Lower crenellated wings and courtyard ranges extend to either side, giving the whole the appearance of a fortified palace. Flagpoles stand before the main entrance and further low white outbuildings lie at the right.
The hotel is set within extensive grounds planted with dense groves of date palms, flowering shrubs and mown green lawns, running down to a broad crescent of pale sand.
The sea occupies the left and lower foreground, its calm blue-grey water reaching in a long curve to the beach, with a small sailing dinghy on the water at the left and bathers on the sand. At the lower right a rocky headland juts into the bay, with several small open fishing boats drawn up on the shingle beside it.
Behind and above the hotel rise the dramatic bare rock walls of the Al Hajar mountains, a jagged mass of grey and ochre limestone ridges, buttresses and pinnacles catching the low sun and falling into deep shadow, with further ranges receding in blue haze toward the right beneath a clear pale blue sky.
Back
Divided-back colour postcard, printed text in black.
Printed at the upper left:
“AL BUSTAN PALACE HOTEL
AN INTER CONTINENTAL HOTEL”
Printed at the lower left:
“P.O. BOX 1998, MUTTRAH, POSTAL CODE 114, SULTANATE OF OMAN, TELEPHONE: 799666
FAX: 799600, TELEX: 5477 BUSHTL ON, CABLE: BUSTANHTL”
Postage: two Sultanate of Oman definitives, affixed at the upper right, both from the khanjar dagger series showing the ornate Omani curved dagger with its silver-mounted hilt and decorated sheath.
The first, 100 baisa, is printed on a violet ground, inscribed سلطنة عمان / SULTANATE OF OMAN at the upper left, بيسة / BAISA and the value 100 at the lower left, and الخنجر السعيدي / AL KHANJAR ASSAIDI at the foot.
The second, 50 baisa, is printed on a red ground with the same inscriptions and the value 50.
Both are tied by circular datestamps reading in part “21.5.00” with an accompanying wavy-line machine cancellation.
Handwritten in blue ballpoint, running vertically up the centre of the card:
“Greetings from Oman.
Many thanks
Gerald”
Handwritten in blue ballpoint at the foot: “20. Mai 2000”
Handwritten in blue ballpoint in the address panel at right:
“Kay u. Bob Nind
45 Ragamuffin Tce
Willeton WA
6155
Australia”
Character and Text Summary
سلطنة عمان — Salṭanat ‘Umān — the Sultanate of Oman.
بيسة — baisa — the subsidiary currency unit of Oman, one thousandth of a rial, the two stamps being of 100 and 50 baisa.
الخنجر السعيدي — al-khanjar al-Sa’īdī — the Sa’idi khanjar, the ceremonial curved dagger of the ruling Al Sa’id dynasty and the national emblem of Oman.
The sender’s dating “20. Mai 2000” is German for 20 May 2000.
Estimated Era
Written 20 May 2000 and postmarked 21 May 2000 in Oman. The Al Bustan Palace Hotel was built for the 1985 Gulf Co-operation Council summit and opened later that year, operating under Inter-Continental management as printed on the reverse, so the card cannot predate 1985; the six-digit Muscat telephone number and the inclusion of a telex address point to a printing in the later 1980s or 1990s. The khanjar definitives belong to the long-running Omani series in use through the 1980s and 1990s. The German dating in the sender’s hand indicates a European visitor writing home to correspondents in Western Australia.
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