Help With East India Stamp Please

This is on a cover Calcutta to "East India Railway" - tied with date "61" - I assume 1861 - yes? Any idea of the value of the cover?





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Canada stamp, I don't have my cat available right now, but considering this was the workhorse of its day postmarked will h a common postmark at a large-volume P.O., I would think the retail value is limited. If it was mine, I would still find it very valuable as a beautiful sample of Indian postal history, I would find space for it to lighten up my India stamp collection. That's my 2c, thanks for sharing.

The franked Br. India 1856 ½A Vic. die I pale blue typograph (SG 38) is canceled by Cooper/Renouf type 9/Martin type 9I (circle diameter: 2cm) duplex cancelation of Kolkata GPO (est. April 1,1774) which was in use from 1860 to 1864 when it was replaced by Martin type 9II duplex cancel.

Reference:
1. Early Indian Cancellations.
Jal Manekji Cooper.
Thacker and Company Limited, Mumbai 1950
Chapter XI: Cancellation type 9; p.43-4

2. Numbers in Early Indian Cancellations 1855-1884.
Denys Richard Martin.
Robson Lowe Limited, London, England 1970
Chapter II: Bengal; p.66

The basic inland letter postage was ½A for weight upto 2.92gm (¼ tola), the rate in effect from October 1,1854 to March 31,1869.

Stanley Gibbons Stamp Catalog 2013 4th Ed. gives valuation of SG 38 on cover as £3.50×3 but realistically $10 is a fair price.

Wow. Thanks folks.

The script is difficult, but I would suggest the " ????? - Juppulpore Line"
for the East India Railway (EIR)

The author has written "Jubbulpore"

It is Maihar-Jabalpur Line of East Indian Railway Company (the sender erroneously wrote East India Railway), which was part of the Ilahabad-Jabalpur line which was begun to be constructed in 1858 and was opened for traffic on June 1,1867.

Maihar (24.2694°N 80.7567°E) now is in Satna district of Madhya Pradesh and a Br. Indian PO in Maihar inside the territory of the feudatory state of Maihar, was opened in 1856 under Ilahabad Division of North Western Provinces Circle (est. October 1839), functiong under Ilahabad HPO which was the Disbursing Office of Maihar PO.

Without seeing the delivery mark on the reverse side of the cover, it is difficult to ascertain where the cover was delivered.
It could be any of Maihar, Murwara (important junction in the Maihar-Jabalpur line) and Jabalpur or any other place along the line.

Very nice work indeed, Joy.
That looked indecipherable.
Amazing topical knowledge.

Jabalpur.........all aboard please !

If anyone interested, here the affixed stamp Br. India 1856 ½A SG 38 is printed from die subtype IB.

The master die for the entire 1856-64 East India series was prepared without the denomination.

Punches were taken from the master die and the denominations were engraved singly on punched dies which were used to make the plates.

The printer of East India series Thomas de la Rue and Company asked the Board of Inland Revenue on October 13,1857 to grant permission to prepare dies for the entire East India series from a reengraved master die as by then due to the hight quantity of printing, the plates, mostly of ½A and 1A values, were worn out.

In this phase, the head was taken from the original master die but all the letterings were newly engraved on the punches, separately, which resulted East India ½A die I with letterings of East India ½A die II, which has been classified as die IB which thus is the intermediate die between die IA and die II, having hybrid characters of both these 2 dies.

Die IB has head of die IA but letterings of die II. Both the die IA and die IB show the characteristic feature of closed mouth of Vic. head which is the foremost identification criterion of EI ½A die I.

The two subtypes differ only in the pattern of letterings.

Both die IA and die IB extended to the 1865 elephant's head watermark printing.

The relative scarcity of these 2 dies for 1856 unwatermarked series is 60-65% die IA and rest is die IB and for 1865 watermarked series, only 2-5% is die IA and 95-98% is die IB.

As usual, hopelessly Gibbons does not catalog die IA and IB subtypes of East India ½A stamps.

Identification of East India ½A Die IA



1. The serified parts of the alphabets are pointed.
2. The letterings are thinner than that of die IB.
3. The outermost oval frameline is thinner than that of die IB.

Identification of East India ½A Die IB



1. The serified parts of the letterings are flat, not pointed (same as die II).
2. The letterings are thicker than that of die IA.
3. The outermost oval frameline is thicker than that of die IA.

Thank you for your contributions Joy.
Don

That was fun.
I dug out my 4 examples of East India ½a
I had one of each.

Die1A / Die 1B

Toggling the images, the most striking diff. was the "I" of India and "G" of postage.
I would have likes to see the difference in the shape of Her Majesty's lips, but pmk covered.

The serif on the "F" of half, is decidedly notable, blunt and sharp.