Show Your British Empire Covers & Postal History Here

..so it's a guess then.

I don't recall seeing such stationery
(with the curved "INDIA" )

Perhaps I am getting befuddled, but I recall faint memories
of the postage rate being reduced!? around 1900-1905
The original 3 pies or "quarter anna" was a special rate
I thought for those serving elesewhere.
Hence I was assuming it was one of those discount cards
being uprated for regional use.
It's all a bit hazy (sigh) It would be nice to discover
an Indian Postal Rate weblink.

Rod, as I recall, the postcard rate was 3 Pies from introduction until around the 1920s. It then went up to 6 Pies, and bounced around between 6 Pies and 9 Pies during the 1940s.

I'd be interested in a summary of Imperial Indian postage rates, too!

We need a closer scan on the Pre stamped? card value,
I cannot see it.

So the card is dated Jan 1923
So we have three alternatives.

1. The stamp is an uprate to 6 pies as you suggest.
2. The card does not have a pre paid value
so the rate is 3 pies acknowledged by the stamp.
3. The card is demonetised stationery with a three pies rate.

The reason I state the last I have seen postcards with the
similar 3 pies green stamp, placed over the area
of the pre stamp, and cancelled, I cannot think of any other reason to do this.

Went on an expedition to the Shoebox of Lost Things, and almost immediately (thank goodness: I tend to get distracted in there), hit upon this:



So the postcard rate must have gone up even earlier than I thought - at least by 1922

Aha. Solved, well done you, all is missing is the uprate date,
so we can hunt for that later.

"The shoebox of lost things"...I have about 20 of those,
why do I keep old auction catalogues? I think I have a problem.




Do we have a date?

Drawing a line between Gibbons and Robson Lowe, and my elderly Higgins & Gage, I'd say the year of the increase was 1921.

These surcharges on Jind, from 1922, stemmed from the same round of postage rate changes:



(Jind SG 79)

OK we'll take it as 1921,
but that's a devalue of the one anna,
suppose it is just a "stock on hand" thing for the overprint.
I know in 1898 they ran out of the commonly used 3 pies
that's why they introduced the type 39 1/4 anna
surcharge overprint on the half anna.

Well, as a general rule, it would always be preferable to apply a devaluing surcharge, wouldn't it? Surcharges are easier to fake, by their nature, than whole stamps. You don't want to make it easier for the contemporary forgers, wanting to cheat the post office.

Goodness, always learning. I had never contemplated that.
One of the many drawbacks of being an (relatively) honest person :)

I think everyone has the Shoebox of Lost Items, dominated by those ubiquitous Indian postcards which you could buy 100 for $1 or so last century.

A quick search through a pile of those postcards (those that have been sorted into some semblance of chronological order) produced the following:



17 APR 21 Quarter Anna



17 JUN 22 Half Anna

Interestingly, all my Convention State postcards have been uprated like the example posted by tonymacg. I guess it was too difficult to surcharge them given the overprinting already in place.

That seems to nail the increase in rates pretty closely, then.

I'm pretty sure I haven't ever seen a Convention States card with the ½ surcharge either, even from the two big States, Gwalior and Patiala. It was probably easier to use up their supplies of semi-redundant 3 Pies stamps than surcharge the cards - which on the evidence of the British Indian cards was a pretty messy business.

Who could not just love philately?
and endless time of wonderment, learning and discovery.
to think, I nearly took up knitting.

Plateflaw, I'll glady swap your shoebox of lost items with mine :)