The East India Company And Crappy Old Collections

Did I stumble onto a wine appreciation forum?

"It has the Montmorency cherry and dark chocolate notes, along with that flinty fruitiness so typical of the '97, opening into raspberries, grassiness, a hint of tan saddle leather (not brown), and just enough barnyard to please the palate...mangosteens on the finish. 98 out of 100"


I poke fun, but of course the rodster is right, I'd say. (Using the die terminology of Gibbons...specialists might delve deeper.)

There are frame dies, too, and I vote Die I, based on the weak "R" and "A" dots, but am willing to be overruled.

Backroads, you'll find the listings for India used in the Straits Settlements at the very beginning of the Malaysia listing in Gibbons Part 1 (page 345 in the 2011 edition).

Here is Robson Lowe's treatment of the 4 Annas:





If you (or anyone else, for that matter) wants the original scans, just email me, and I'll be happy to send them. RL has several more pages of detail, but these seem to cover the main diagnostic points.

On the strength of RL, I'd go for a Frame Die II, because there is more colour in the middles of the letters. For the time being, I'll stay agnostic on the Head Die.

You're in rattling form this morning Cjd.

"Chignon du cou" French = nape of the neck Mmmm

Much more sophisticated than the English phrase
"The bun penny"

Smashing stuff Tony!
Can we get an agreement on the pmk of the 4 anna?
235 or 238 perhaps?

Gibbons' take on the two frames:

For what it's worth 2 something 8 and doing it cold, I would have guessed 258.

I am inclined to agree with Collin Die 1
then again, the dots above A are strong
but the frame line is weak at 1 o'clock.

It's a curly one, I'll perch on the fence for this one.

A crappy old collection (sic) is generating some
interest :)
That's India for you.

I was squinting away at the number in the cancellation on the 4 Anna, and I though the first two digits were '25'. I was at a loss for the last digit. Then looking down the list of Northern Circle numbers, I found '253' for Simla. As Simla would have been the busiest of the post offices in the 23.s and 25.s, I'd suggest the number probably is from there. (Simla, now Shimla, is a hill station in the lower Himalayas. The British administration was based in Calcutta in the 1850s, and used to pack up and decamp to Simla through the hottest months of the year.)

You're not bad at this India stuff,
are you Tony

Simla (Shimla) QV postmark 1894