Hodge Podge Of Stamps I Need Help Identifying

1. Haydarabad 1917 Sarkari ovpt. on 1915 ½A Sarkar I Asafiyyah
green official stamp (SG O40).

2. Haydarabad 1915 ½A Sarkar I Asafiyyah emerald green (SG 35d), most
likely with perf.11.
If it is with perf.12½ then it will be SG 35c or if with perf.13½ then SG 35b.

Technically the Haydarabad stamps are postal-fiscals which were issued to be used for the dual purpose of postage as well as revenue acting as receipt stamp.

Hopelessly, Gibbons or other catalogs do not list the 1915 issues as postal-fiscals.

The ½A denomination was issued primarily to pay the basic letter postage ½A for weight upto 11.66gm (1 tola), the rate in effect from 1880 to May 5,1930 which was also applicable to official mail from January 3,1909 when official stamps were reintroduced after being discontinued in 1887.

Vignette: The central circle shows the Tugra with the Farsi inscription Sarkar I Asafiyyah which means Government of Asaf, denoting the Govt. of Asaf Jah VI, the official title of Mahbub Ali Khan Siddiqi (1866–1911), the ruler of Haydarabad (1869–1911).

The central circle also shows the Arab numeral 1331 which denotes the year 1331H (Hijri) i.e. 1913 which is the year when the plates of this issue were engraved.

The Tugra is encircled with 4 curvasive panels bearing the denomination in 4 languages viz., Marathi, Telugu, Urdu and English (clockwise from top left) which alongwith Farsi make this stamp thus a quinlingual stamp.

The lower panel opposite to that of POST & RECEIPT reads Tappa wo Rasid i.e. Post and Receipt.

The watermark also reads Sarkar I Asafiyyah.

High resolution scans might help to identify the cancelations.

Left to right, top to bottom
stamps 16-17-19-20-23 are Turkey 1916-1919

I have seen stamps 16 and 17 listed in other peoples albums as "shades"
I rather have them as "colour changelings" as they are used.
Not seen these shades in mint.

3 egypt 1958 postage due official
7 egypt
8 SAAR
9 russia north west army (OKCA)
10 Yugoslavia
11 Yugoslavia
12 Yugoslavia
13 Iran parcel post
14 Yugoslavia
15 Yugoslavia
18 Denmark 1916 35 ore yellow black
21 egypt
22 Bulgaria

In the top row, the 4th, 5th and 6th stamps from the left are all Austrian. The two Hermes heads are newspaper stamps. The Franz Josef 5kr one is probably from the 1867-1874 series.

Thanks for all the great information. Would it be fair to say that these are all common stamps and can be hinged into a album?

Pretty much all stamps can be hinged into an album.

Yep. Hinge away.
Now is your time to develop your hinging technique.
Just a dab of moisture (not wet) on the hinge gum, when applying to the stamp, or page.

Practice on 1 stamp first.
After an hour (the gum has to dry, never pull off a wet or damp hinge) ) you should be able to peel the stamp off the stamp, and the stamp off the page without it grabbing.
You can use the common German Prinz hinge $4.50 per 1000
Their gum appears to be OK.

If ever the stamp grabs, you are not there yet. Practice.

PS: Your Denmark stamp has a "PERFIN"

I am dead against using hinges.

We cannot help about some old MH stamps but at least we ourselves can avoid using hinges.

I would suggest (opposing Rod) to simply put the stamps in a good quality stockbook like Leuchtturm, arranged countrywise and chronologically.

And get rid of hinge.

Hello Joy,

You wrote:




I think this is a grey area. If these Hyderabad stamps were available for both postal and revenue purposes then I so no problem in SG including them in their main listing without comment.

If they were primarily revenue stamps then I would expect SG to describe them as postal fiscals as you say.

Over the years most British stamps were available for either postal or revenue use and, of course, for many years the words "postage & revenue" appeared on many of these.

Only because the stamp duty on receipts etc. was ended shortly before decimalisation in 1971 did the frequent use of postage stamps for fiscal purposes come to an end in the UK.

SG do sometimes identify stamps explicitly as "postal fiscals" where they were primarily for revenue use but they were also authorised for postal use.

In that case SG lists the mint stamps and the stamps used postally as postal fiscals usually with an "F" prefix in the catalogue number.

By the way, I agree with you about the use of hinges.

Even if a stamp is worth nothing in financial terms I will not not hinge it. I use Prinz or Hagner pages instead for my collection and stockbooks for stamps that are duplicates or are for sorting.

However, we are all free to collect as we wish!

Any stamp which was issued, intended to be used to pay both postage and revenue should be called postal-fiscal stamp.

Bhor SG 1&2 were issued primarily to pay postage but those were extensively used fiscally from the very beginning, much more than postally.

What should we call them? Postal or fiscal or postal-fiscal or fiscal-postal?

Many Tiruvitamkur conch shell stamps were used more fiscally than postally.

The Orchha 1939/42 Virsinh Pratapsinh Bundela (1899–1956) R value stamps (SG 42–47) were only used fiscally as there was practically no provision to pay such high postage. It is quite impossible to find genuinely postally used examples which actually correctly paid the postage, irrespective of what Gibbons suggests the values in used column or for covers. Has anyone seen a genuine commercial cover with these stamps, correctly franked?

These R values were issued, intended only for fiscal purpose but in continuation of the design adopted for lower denominations, the stamps were marked both Postage and Revenue.

Gibbons thus then must list at least the R values as Postal-Fiscals.

When it comes to Indian Feudatory States there is great ambiguity in Gibbons' listings. It rules in IFS just because there is no competition from other catalogs.