Orchha - The Ugly Years

Orchha is one of the less popular Indian States - not without reason. It managed to blot its copybook not once, but several times. Still, with all its faults, it does hold considerable interest for the serious collector.

Until 1939 anyway, when it started having its stamps printed 'properly', at the Indian Security Printing Press, which produced the stamps for India. (Even then, it managed to disgrace itself, by issuing 10, 15 and 25 Rupee values (around $1, $1½ and $2½), which were completely redundant and purely intended to gouge the collector. Gibbons prices them at £1,000, £24,000 and £17,000 mint, so you can judge for yourself how successful Orchha's sales campaign was.

Orchha nearly burst on the philatelic scene in the 1890s. A Swiss watchmaker was touring Central India and proposed to the Orchha authorities that they issue a set of stamps. At whose initiative isn't clear, but a set of essays was produced



which can also be found CTO with a large O in a circle of bars



They're not rare: a set in either condition shouldn't set you back more than $10.

Nothing more was heard from Orchha until 1913. That year, Orchha issued two values, a ½ and 1 Anna





lithograhed locally in designs which bore an interesting resemblance to the rejected essays. These two aren't particularly common unused, used are rather scarce, and this





is the only cover I know of bearing either of the two stamps.

Obviously, these two first attempts were unsatisfactory, so the printer tried again, with rather clearer backgrounds to the designs, and in addition to the ½ and 1 Anna values, Orchha also produced ¼, 2 and 4 Annas stamps.

These designs were continued with until 1935. Over the years, a number of shades appeared, and there were some very rare printings on laid paper.

The ¼ anna grey-blue is the commonest of the set



The ¼ Anna also appeared in bright ultramarine and deep blue



The ½ Anna green is another common stamp



it appeared in a dull green and apple green



The 1 Anna appeared in carmine, scarlet



and Indian red



The 2 Anna came in red-brown



light brown and chestnut



Finally, the 4 Anna came in yellow, yellow-orange



and ochre





All Orchha stamps are more difficult in used condition, and these are no exception. CTOs exist - see the ¼ Anna sheet above - but it isn't easy to distinguish them from genuinely used, unless they're in sheets like this. Of course, neat corner cancels have to be suspect until proven innocent. Covers are definitely scarce





probably because the Orchha post was no cheaper than the Imperial Indian post, and sometimes more expensive, and seems to have been rather slow and possibly unreliable. Its saving grace was that it served a number of villages in the State, which didn't have Imperial post offices of their own.

By 1935, the Orchha State administration was in a complete mess; the British Indian authorities moved in a few years later to tidy it up. However, in that year Orchha made the unfortunate decision which made its name stink in philatelic circles for years.

It contracted with the Lakshmi Art Printing Works of Bombay to produce a long set - of 22 values - showing the Maharaja in Western-style dress. The set ran from ¼ Anna to 25 Rupees, even though the need for a value as high as 1 Rupee was highly arguable. The Lakshmi Art Printing Works had been responsible, under another name, for the shambles of the 1931 pictorial set of the neighbouring State of Charkhari, but this didn't discourage Orchha.

It would be tiresome and redundant to show the entire set, but here are the lowest (¼ Anna) and highest (25 Rupees) values



For unexplained reasons, the 1 Rupee was issued in both this format, and with a different style of portrait:



Like the ill-fated Charkhari set, this one also was dumped on the market at below face value. (By way of comparison, the contemporary Indian 25 Rupees stamps is catalogued mint at £275; Gibbons rates the Orchha 25 Rupees at £16.)

So far, a not uncommon story, and all too familiar to modern collectors: unnecessary high values, dumped on the market and so on. But there's rather more to this set. To begin with, ten different perforation gauges were used for it, although they aren't to be found on all values. Most, if not all, values also exist imperf and in imperf between pairs



CTOs exist, but unlike the Charkhari set, they are much less common.

Finally, in desperation, the Orchha authorities decided to stamp a State seal on the backs of stamps that were sold properly, at face value, across the post office counter:



This is the back of a block of the 10 Rupee value:



meaning that some blithering idiot paid 40 Rupees for this - bearing in mind that the average pay for a State postman at the time was about a rupee a day.

Of course, the set was a complete disgrace. For many years, Gibbons simply refused to list it at all. Finally, in 1939, the State turned to the Indian Security Printers, who produced a nice enough set (if you like that sort of thing)



to replace the disgraced set. And yet ... it did see legitimate use





- even the imperfs, as you can see. So while the set may be thoroughly disreputable, it still has a place in any collection of legitimate issues.

This was the last of the delightfully ugly issues of Orchha. The State has suffered a bad press on its account, but it didn't deserve it. If you're looking for a side collection with a bit of meat on it, you could do much worse than look at Orchha.

Very interesting! Thanks so much for posting this (and you weren't kidding about the "ugly" bit LOL).

This is a lovely exhibit Tony. Thanks for sharing.

Jenny, a century or so ago, a rather sniffy collector of India dismissed the Indian States holus-bolus as 'the Uglies'. Well, I think the laugh's on him, anyway. The Uglies are riding just as high as (most of) the rest of India.

Very good thread!

Tony your are a very good poster!

Tony
Thanks for a very interesting post. I delay breakfast to see and read. I'm so hungry now. Daniel

Thanks to all those who've enjoyed this little thread. It's a great pleasure to demystify the Indian States, if only a little ...

And now just a postscript to what I wrote about the ill-fated 1935 set.

There's a great deal of printer's waste in circulation, like these:



8 Anna value, missing the portrait



2 Anna value in wrong colours and imperf, and 12 Anna value, missing the portrait

It's of little value. If you think you'd like to tackle this set, don't over-pay for this sort of thing!