Travancore O S S Overprint

OK I admit I know nothing about Travancore, except this 1 stamp and that Rod collects them ( I assume Rod, you have this one??) I just thought it looked nice, it might spark some talk and I might learn something. Are these common and does anyone know a near value?

As Rod is probably still sleeping the sleep of the just, I'll leap in and say something.

This is a 1¼ Chuckram stamp for official use; the On S S meaning 'On State Service'. There were two settings of this first type of Service overprint: narrow and wide. Yours is the wide setting, of 1926-30.

Gibbons lists this stamp with the 'O', the right and the left 'S' inverted, the left or the right S omitted and so on, as well as perforation errors. Unfortunately, your stamp somehow managed to come through unscathed, making it an SG O32, valued at 30p.

However, there is a sideways watermark listed, at £13 used. (The watermark is a stylised conch shell in a vertical design. The sideways watermark will show the conch horizontal.)

tony does it have to be watermarked one way or the other? and thanks for jumping in!

Yes, it should be watermarked. Sometimes with these older Travancore the watermark is a little hard to see.

Having checked Gibbons, I see that there's an outside chance that your stamp might be on a watermarked paper on which the positions of the conch shells don't match the stamps, and some stamps are without watermark. I've never heard of these attracting a premium, though.

wish I had a good picture of the watermark my Scott is awful. There is something there but I cannot tell orientation. There are pieces on left and right edges!

Ably answered by my learned friend,
however you can see within his reply
that Tony has not spent much time around the
stunningly beautiful emmissions that are Travancore.
Widely accepted as the most beautiful Indian stamps in the world.

Trying to locate and descriminate watermarks
is a punishment akin to picking rope for oakum.
I have almost given up in disgust, I am waiting
to purchase one of those doodads, that isolate
watermarks by coloured slides to see if that is any good.

The outlandishly expensive wmk detector from
stanly gibbons was recomended to me to avoid.

The pmk on your example looks dodgy.

If you can see things on the right and left, there's a fair chance you have the upright watermark, and all according to Hoyle.

My esteemed colleague from Western Australia is quite right about Travancore watermarks, even if he does wax a trifle hyperbolic about the attractions of Travancore stamp design. Travancore stamp design, to use the word loosely, puts me in mind of some lines from Boswell's Life of Dr Johnson:

"Next day I dined with Johnson at Mr. Thrale's. He attacked Gray, calling him "a dull fellow." BOSWELL. "I understand he was reserved, and might appear dull in company; but surely he was not dull in poetry." JOHNSON. "Sir, he was dull in company, dull in his closet, dull every where. He was dull in a new way, and that made many people think him GREAT. He was a mechanical poet." "

Now here is true stamp design, from (need I say it, Rodney?) Barwani



SG 7, the 1922 ¼ Anna on thick glazed paper, perf 7

As all of my WORLD stamps and cinderellas are things that just fall into my lap in the acquisition of other things, I can't tell anyone much about the stamp, other that it simply has resided in my "what the heck is it" book only because I don't know the catalog number. I did know that it was Travancore, and the watermarks are something I can see parts of but I don't know what I am looking for. My Scott catalog has a very illegible example of the watermark.

Here are Gibbons' notes on the Travancore watermarks:



Yours should be the third type. Note that Gibbons recognises, but doesn't distinguish, two subtypes of the third type.

I never tire of saying it: for British Commonwealth stamps, Gibbons is the gold standard. If you have many British Commonwealth stamps to identify, I'd try to find a moderately recent copy of Gibbons' Commonwealth & British Empire Stamps 1840-1970 catalogue.

Thanks Tony - that did it! the letter "C". All I can see are those glaive shaped objects on the left and right, they are visible and they are VERTICAL and very plain to see. So does that finally give us an ID?

In SG terms, O32 (30p used this year). The 1926-30 wider version of the first type ON S S overprints, if that will help you locate it in Scott.

Thanks millions Tony - Jeff

Yes I see, that would be the DULL blue colour?

Thanks for posting the Travancore wmks,
I like to see collectors interested, and being
schooled in one of philately's more finer stamp emitters.
To see the sacred Conch is a true delight.

Interesting to note, a valuable lesson on <why not> to
break up multiple stamps when soaking.

I hope you enjoyed having your Travancore closet collection
out, to answer this post.

No, just a matter of brushing away the dust and cobwebs from that part my catalogue, Rodney I really don't know why I don't just tear those pages out of the book. It would make getting down to Wadhwan so much easier

Are you two quite finished???