$15,000 For Stamps - That Aren't Pretty ?

I think parttime's point is that value on better items is not determined until something sells at public record. I have a cover with a large plate flaw 3 cent green that I had certified. No value is given in that process and there were no recorded sales. I had people tell me that it was worth anywhere from a few hundred bucks to 10,000.00 dollars. Another one was found and sold at auction about 10 years after I had mine authenticated. Scott's now lists a value of $800.00 as that is what the other one sold for. I still have mine, so there are two known copies on cover. I of course wish the other one had sold for more. Rarity does not always drive the price through the roof. If there are only a few people looking for plate flaws on cover, the value will be whatever the market will bear. So, if it has a listed value that high it must have sold for that.

Yes, exactly. Of course educated guesses can be made, such as multipliers if on cover, or adders if a certain cancellation type. However, the only semi-accurate way that I know of pre-determining an item's value is to research comparable sales. Even then, a comparable sale has to be of an item that is very, very close to what you have. If no sales exist, then a price is just an estimate.

Still, Barwani, Jammu and Kashmir do look like intersting areas to collect ... just a wee-bit past my price point.

Of course, the Jammu & Kashmir Circulars are a pricey lot. I'm lucky I picked up most of mine many years ago, when they were a lot cheaper. Still, if you want an example, and you don't mind a reprint



(The stamp at left is an original ½ Anna oil colour on laid paper, and almost the cheapest of the Circulars (£48 in Gibbons), while the stamp at right is a reprint, and worth only a couple of dollars.)

you can still have a representation of the stamps.

And if you like something definitely not 'pretty', and not too pricey, well, there's older Afghanistan:



But to revert to the original point, there's quite often an inverse relationship between catalogue value/cost and prettiness. Just in Barwani, this is SG 1 (since the 2014 Part 1 catalogue)



Gibbons price it arbitrarily at £3000, but no copy has sold publicly for 10 years or so. And then there's the 1928 ¼ Anna



which Gibbons prices at £2.25.

Not a general rule, but it's wonderful how often it works.

Well, then my example, which Grandma probably picked up in a sampler lot, must be worth the big bucks ...

Sorry, Partime: not bad enough. This is the 1923 ½ on thin paper. Gibbons rates it at £1.50 each. You have a nice example of cliché 1 (with the wavy top right side).

Can you tell me about these

k

Shmow1987, those stamps are from the China regular issue of 1913 or 1923. The pictures are too small for me to tell which printing. Regardless of printing, the ones you show are pretty common and will catalog for less than $1.

k

Ty

OK, I'm always up for a challenge. Here are items that could qualify as bad enough. I believe that the first example is from Duttia (from the obvious inscription), but I have no idea of catalog number, value, etc. The other items are completely unknown to me. I do like the imprinted perforation, though. Any comments from the Peanut Gallery?

Note: Please excuse me in advance if any are shown in the wrong orientation. Grandma put them in the album ... not me.

Yes, well you do have some pretty ugly ones there, alright, Partime.

I can't give you Scott numbers for them, because no serious collector of the Uglies uses Scott. However, I'll try to identify them for you sufficiently to allow you to find them.

First is, as you surmised, Duttia. It's the ½ Anna on dull green variant issued in 1906, from the set issued 1899-1906. (Gibbons values it at £3.75.)

Second is Nawanagar, SG 1 and must be Scott #1, as well. Gibbons would sell you one for £1.

Third is an Official from Nandgaon. I'm not sure if the curly lines were intended to resemble perforations, or just separate the stamps. You have the 1894 ½ Anna sage-green, 'stamps printed closer together'; Gibbons prices it at £8.50.

Lastly, another Nawanagar. This is the 1 Docra, issued in 1893. If you want to know more, you'll have to check the paper. According to Gibbons it exists on 'thick paper' (£9), 'thick laid paper' (£1000), 'thin wove paper' (£2) and 'thin, soft wove paper' (unpriced). Naturally, just about all my copies are on thin wove; I might have one on thick wove.

Talking of simulated perforations, and very ugly stamps, do you know the story of the second issue of Sirmoor?

The first issue



was not a hit with the collectors of 1878. Now I wonder why ... By 1892, interest had revived a bit, so the Sirmoor authorities decided to reprint it. However, they'd run out of specimens themselves, so they cut an illustration out of a catalogue, and sent it to the printer in Calcutta. This was the result:

Thanks Tony. Actually, I also have a copy of the green second issue of Sirmoor, and thanks so much for the history.

So, my last examples in my battle for ugly supremacy. (Not really, but I had to tie it into the topic somehow.) As I alluded to earlier, I think Grandma just got a "starter" collection of the Convention and Feudatory States. My catalog covers some of them, but I thought that these were interesting.

Patiala (later Puttialla?) examples. The first example has a pretty high second "L" while the second stamp has a seriously left offset Service in comparison with the rest of the overprint.



For Bhopal, I have these two items. How did they possibly get every letter to lean in a different direction? I also love the perforations on the green example:



So, she also has a few examples saved under the area Faridkot, Jhind, Alwur, Charkhari, Cochin and Hyderabad. Most are very plain, but if you want I can scan them. Have a good day/night.

P.S. My copy is Thin Wove Paper

Partime, your second Puttiala was overprinted in two operations, which is how you get the displaced SERVICE.

The perforations on early Bhopal are indeed something to behold. AFAIK, they used harrow devices, that perforated an entire sheet in one go. Here is the perforated version of the first of your Bhopal:



If you're into masochism, you could plate your example.

But the good citizens of Bhopal did manage to detach and use them. Lurking under that killer cancellation, there is another from the same issue as your second Bhopal:



And as for the crazy lettering, it's pretty clear the designer was more comfortable writing Persian/Urdu than English ...

Bad luck on the Nawanagar 1 Docra. But then, I'm waiting for my first laid paper copy, too - if that's any consolation.