Identify 3 Stamps

As you've probably discovered by now, Travancore stamps don't look much good from either direction.

Notice how calm and reserved I remain,
whilst under critical attack?

I am a rock, I am an island,
no insults can penetrate the Travancore shield of excellence.

Come, come, Rodney. We all know you've just climbed inside your Conch shell, slammed the door, and are making loud babbling noises to block out the Truth ...

Your puerile comments cannot
breach my 3/8th heat shield
Your incantations fall to the ground like dust.

Now this more like it

Obviously, any stamp issuer going for the colour Puce
is pulling our collective legs in Philately.
Puce is French for flea..which admirably
describes your labels

Now, now Rodney, on behalf of the good burghers of Bamra, I must protest. I fear the sandy blight has got you already. Gibbons says this is 'reddish purple'.

More information on your "3/8th heat shield" please Rod. Are these varieties of overprint, colour variations, both? They look really interesting and impressive.

I'll leave Rod to try to defend his SG 22 etc collation.

Travancore committed many more affronts to social norms and good taste:



(SG 51) and



(SG O29)

amongst others.

Pete,
Travancore is my first love of collecting,
but it remains in the "one day" basket.

"One day" I am going to get around to it.
Really, I waiting to find an experienced collector,
the shades and the watermarks are furiously awkward.

What impedes most India collecting is the language
hurdle, just to study one stamp can take a day or two
reading the pmk and cover.

Readers must note,
for Tony's disgust of Travancore stamps,
he has a mighty fine collection
to refer to as a reference.

Obviously a closet Travancore collector who has been smitten by the
Malabar coast issues and is creeping southward in his appreciation.
Quite understandable.
The mighty Conch rules....

To be serious for a brief moment, Gibbons lists three shades of the 3/8 chuckram surcharge, and as you can see, there are a lot more.

Gibbons lists three basic watermarks for Travancore, though there are more subtypes of these. Gibbons lists the surcharges as only occurring on one watermark, but it might still be worthwhile checking to see if an odd sheet from an earlier printing on a different watermarked paper had crept in. Stranger things have happened in Travancore.

I only scoop up any loose Travancore I come across to keep them away from Rodney. We don't want to feed his obsession ... do we?

And rather than further derail this thread, I do have a little Travancore oddity that others might like to chew over, but I'll save it for a new thread.

Good advice Tony,
the golden years of philately.

Travancore has always been the destination
of the refined traveller, escaping the labels and the heat
of the princely states in the North,
attracted by Travancore's romantic beaches and
spicy breezes,

Vasco da Gama dropped in there in 1498