India Service Stamp

Can anyone help me with a SG # for this stamp.
I'm not sure if it is a smudgy overprint or if the blue colour is part of a cancellation.



Steve

The blue overprint looks like a privately produced overprint reading REFUGEE RELIEF.

My old Stanley Gibbons - 1983 - lists it as O191, issued 1974 (with a question mark). These were redrawn in 1976 showing the denomination without the letter.
I assume SG hasn't changed their numbering system in the last 30 years? But I've been wrong before.

Thanks for the help guys.
My old catalogue is a 1973,
so probably just missed it.

Steve

In my 2002 Gibbons, this could be either SG O191 still, if with the Asokan capital watermark sideways, or SG O202 with watermark large star and INDIA GOVT in the sheet.

The overprint is probably one of the myriad locally applied provisional REFUGEE RELIEF types. They were applied to ordinary and Service stamps. I believe Rod222 has taken an interest in these.

Possibly a lifetime study.......

Thanks for the extra info.
Rod, the stamp on the bottom row in your pic, looks alot like the one I posted. Actually the 5th stamp on the second row might have an even more similar overprint.

Steve :)

I agree,
one of Tony's colleagues is cataloguing
the issues and from whence they came.
Just too deep for me, enough to know they exist
and collect the copies.
(In other words, he's the philatelist, I am the collector :)

Genesis:
the stamps were authorised and handstruck prior to an
official overprint being produced, to fascilitate early relief funds for refugees escaping to India from Bangladesh the former East Pakistan.

acknowlegement rhcourtney333@yahoodotcom
the source of my past enquiries some years ago.

I'm not sure if this one was specific to Bhor



or supplied by a higher level office, but it makes a valued if late entry for Bhor (the source of my avatar) all the same.

I hope Tony's Colleague isn't unknowingly reinventing the wheel. I'm pretty confident there was an exhaustive not to mention exhausting cataloguing of these done in the 1990s by someone in the India Study Circle For Philately and published in innumerable consecutive issues of India Post.

Nice proving cancel Tony.

The colleague Rod refers to is the same member of the ISC. He's still at it.

Though as I say, Rod, I don't know if the overprint was peculiar to Bhor, or if it was sent down from higher up the chain. In the case of Bhor, I'd expect Pune/Poona. However, when I saw it, I knew I simply had to have it, as a tailpiece to my Bhor collection.

So I assume that this is the same type of thing. Is the stamp on the far right simply depicting the refugee relief or actually helping to support it?

The last stamp is the definitive that was introduced to replace the provisional overprints. According to Gibbons, 'From 15 November 1971 until 31 March 1973, the Indian government levied a 5p. sircharge on all mail, except postcards and newspapers, for the relief of refugees from the former East Pakistan.'

In the 2002 Gibbons, the definitive was listed as issued on the 1 December 1971. It was SG 651, with a catalogue value of 30l mint and 10p used.

This Yellowish Green 5P Service stamps are from either Nasik or Banglore issued 15th Nov 1971. now the question is seeing water mark.
Actually 5P (Paise) and small Lion Capital Bharat and Shasakiya in devnagari Yeloow green was introduced on March 20, 1967. Over Printed Refugee relief in devnagari and English 15 nov 1971 and 1st Dec 1971 watermarks are sideways O210,O211,O212 and O213