Barwani Sg 35Ab - The Most Misidentified Stamp Of Barwani

I was moved to start this little thread by a current Spink auction catalogue, where this stamp is wrongly identified.

First off, I'm sorry for users of Scott, but apparently Scott doesn't distinguish this stamp. Gibbons does: it's the 2 Anna Devi Singh type rose-carmine in Gibbons' 'wide' setting. The difference between SG 35A and 35aB is worthwhile: SG 35A is priced at £4.25 mint and SG 35aB at £600 mint.

The differences between the 'narrow' and 'wide' settings are subtle in these Devi Singh type stamps, but they are very important. The 2 Anna, SG 35aB, came from one printing only - Printing 6 - which was probably made in 1945/1946.

Printing 6 produced characteristically tall-looking stamps, with long top and bottom margins and short left and right margins. Here is a genuine SG 35aB:



and here it is again, alongside a 2 Anna from Printing 5, with which it's most often confused:



So why is it so expensive? The print run was very small: only 400 stamps. As you can see, the shade was pretty close to that of the previous printing; many collectors probably decided it wasn't worth bothering about. Then, it appeared in the rather chaotic period between the end of WWII and Indian Independence in 1947.

Finally, there was absolutely minimal need for a 2 Anna value. It would have paid the double weight rate for letters, if the citizens of Barwani had been in the habit of sending overweight letters. (But they don't seem to have been.) The one use found for the 2 Anna value, and quite a common use it was too, was in pairs to make up the 4 Anna registered letter rate:



So it seems pretty likely that the majority of the 400 copies were used, and then lost to collecting, on registered letters.

If you believe you've hit the little jackpot and found an SG 35aB, do post it up here first. It may save you some embarrassment later.

For the 2-anna Devi Singh, Scott lists deep red violet in perf 11 or 12 or 12x11, and a red lilac, perf 11 or 12, with a note that in the nine printings, several plate settings spaced the cliches from 2 to 9mm apart; hence the stamps come in different overall sizes. Values are for the commonest varieties.

Not as helpful as it could be, but hey, they tried?

Thank you tonymacg. One more for my 'search' notebook.

Terry

The first line, with the colors and perfs, was my summary of the listing, but everything after "with a note" is close to verbatim from the catalogue.

If nothing else, I can appreciate that they are telling me, "You better go look somewhere else if you really want to know." Usually, they leave out the weasel words, leaving one to assume they're making the final statement on the matter.

To be fair, Gibbons only goes halfway to dealing with the 1932-48 period. The companion 4 Anna stamp to the 2 Anna (SG 35aB)



only had a printing of 800 stamps, but it wasn't in a sufficiently distinctive shade to merit separate listing. It saw fairly extensive use, for registered letters, and so is very nearly as elusive as the 2 Anna.

Incidentally, while we're talking print runs, the commonest stamp of this era



the Devi Singh ¼ Anna from Printing 2 had a printing of 12,800 stamps. A lot for Barwani, but not too many for most other stamp-issuing entities.

So when they talk about Barwani issuing in booklets, they aren't kidding. Nice panes.

Yes: all the 1932-48 issues appeared in booklets, and most of the pre-1932s as well.

There are some that are so rare, noone's ever seen a booklet pane, let alone a complete booklet. These 1923 ¼ Anna rose on laid paper perf 7



for example. This is probably the largest multiple in captivity. It looks as if it might have been torn from a booklet, but we'll probably never know.