Travancore India

Hi tonymacq this one is for you
I bought this as an estate which consisted of many pages of an old album unbound.
Is it genuine?
Regards
Horamakhet

Perfectly genuine, but minimal value I'm afraid.

It's found on three different types of watermarked paper, which can be further subdivided. On either of the first two types, this is quite a common stamp. On the third watermark, introduced in 1924, it would be a £4.50 item, but I think the type of postmark is too early.

Hi Tonymacq , can you plz tell me what this stamping on this proof means.. it shows "NCE DEPARTMENT" it is a part stamping, any idea what its full form is.

I don't know for certain what the full version of this stamp is. However, the most obvious would be 'FINANCE DEPARTMENT'.

That's a nice pair of proofs, by the way. Die and plate proofs from Travancore don't seem to be very common - much less common than from Cochin, say. Plate proofs, particularly of the Second Raja set



aren't too hard to find. From Indore, they're almost common:



Gibbons prices a pair of the 2 Annas at £28, and an imperf pair (probably plate proofs) at £27!

Thanks tonymacq
Nice to know that I finally got one that is genuine.
Horamakhet

Thanks Tonymacg..
thanks for sharing plate proof of Cochin, seeing it for first time.. (infact I am born, bought up and still lives at Cochin).
Can you plz have a look on the stamp posted below , it is with me for past 5-6 years, given to me by a senior collector.. but I would like to know the genuineness of the stamp..
Miraj Juniot state.. not there is SG catalogue, seems to be revenue?

Yes, this is a revenue stamp. Miraj Junior never issued postage stamps, as far as I know. There is a catalogue of the revenue stamps of the Indian States, by Koeppel and Manners. It's out of print, and I don't have a copy, unfortunately. If you do manage to find a copy, remember that the prices quoted are what the stamps should be worth, not what they actually sell for.

There are very few forgeries of the Indian States revenues. The only common one seems to be the Bhor with inverted head, which keeps on appearing on ebay.

Have you also considered the stamps of Duttia?



(This is SG 3)

Yes Tony I have Duttia too.. but 2-3 stamps (one forgery too) a post card and a cover.

A nice card - Is your cover a postal stationery cover, or stamped? Used Duttia covers are definitely scarce.

Incidentally, I was sure I had something like that Travancore proof pair coming from ebay. It's just turned up:

Nice proof tony, thanks for sharing your travancore stamp, I believe, in the coronation issue one more stamp have a small elephant at the corner, now I am looking for the same stamp used on cover, do you have one?
attaching the image of the Duttia cover..

Our_elephant, I'm afraid I think this cover isn't genuine, for several reasons.

First, the stamp doesn't look genuine. All these DATIA stamps were printed from a single die, which had a nick in the top left frame, and with the bottom left frame lines not joining, like in this 4 Anna strip:



Next, that type of cancellation wasn't ever used at Duttia. The small seal cancellation, as on the last stamp in my strip was being used at the time of the DATIA stamps.

Next, the cover: the earliest CDS on it is from Delhi on the 7 January. There should have been an Indian Post Office Duttia CDS on the cover as well, if the cover had been passed to the British Indian Post Office for delivery, or at least a cancellation of an exchange office closer to Duttia than Delhi.

So my conclusion is that this is a forged stamp added to a genuine unstamped cover, that was originally sent from Delhi, not Duttia.

I'm very sorry to bring this bad news. I hope you didn't spend much on the cover.

Incidentally, here is one of my two Duttia covers



with SG 33, so much later, and badly damaged.

Thanks Tony for the Info. and sharing these stamps and covers with us. I paid amount equal to around 60USD for this cover 5-6 years ago ..
Actually I purchased this cover as it have Ganesha on it..
The only Stamps which I keep for my collection is of Elephant/Ganesha..
Elephants are my fav animals..

I'm sorry to have to disappoint you on the cover. There are far too many clever faked covers of the Indian States in the market. Some of them are so clever, you need to have a very deep knowledge of the State to be able to detect them.

I suppose you have examples of the Dhar



and Sirmoor



elephants - but if you don't, I'll be happy to give you examples (of the cheapest ones!) Just send me a board email with your address.

Thanks tony! I have the Sirmoor elephants except the 2Anna and 3 Anna stamps. have a sirmoor postcard too..
A post card of Dhar also. I think I am not allowed to mail you unless I have 50 posts.
I have few covers of cochin and travancore (believe not expensive ones), I can send you the scans if ur interested, you can give me in return anything related to elephants..

Forgot to mention the above Sirmoor postcard is printed by Waterlow and Sons

Our-elephant, I have spare copies of the Sirmoor 2 and 3 Annas, which you'd be welcome to. There's no need to send anything in return - I don't need the stamps. You can email me at tony at asiatechnicaltranslation dot com dot au to let me know where to send the stamps to.

That's a nice postcard, by the way. Used copies of the postcard are quite scarce, and all covers from Sirmoor, with your elephant stamps or the Raja's head, are extremely rare. The Sirmoor postmen were instructed to collect the used stamps from every letter they delivered and return them to the post office, for sale to collectors. This means that very, very few covers have survived intact, and most of those that have survived, were being sent outside Sirmoor.