How Much Did This Br. Indian Cover Sell For?

Can anyone guess the price of this cover with corroborating reasons?

Obverse side:



The back has only one postmark.
Here is the close-up.




Anyone acquinted with Indian postal history can guess the answer easily.
No prize for correct guess and the explanation. Only 5 minutes of online fame may be.

The date coinsides with a royal British visit in that camp (very rare "field post office imperial durbar" duplex cancel ? 1000 Euros ?

I'm guessing this is associated with the Durbar of 1877 where the East India Co transferred control of India to the British Crown and celebrated Victoria as Empress of India.

That started on Jan 1, 1877 - this date of the 7th was during the celebration no doubt and this was mailed from one of the military camps to Bangalore.

The addressee might be Ellen Maloney Gifford, wife of John Gifford.

I'll simply guess that since Queen Victoria didn't attend the 1877 Durbar, and it didn't have the level of fanfare that later Durbars did, that maybe there aren't a lot of remaining postmarks from it. If that's really true, then I could see demand for such a thing as being high, possibly making such a cover worth into the thousands. Of course, I'm probably wrong.

I cheated and did an image search and found the cover posted on another forum.
Don

I didn't cheat, and I would not know the relevance or the price.
I had no image in my database,

I just had the reference to King Edward 7th visit (Then...the Prince of Wales) on January 11th 1876 .......
His itinerary............

"It is reported"..............


"enjoyed Elephant hunting" Shame on you, Sir.

This one is rare also for the same reason I mentioned above.

Nice tied markings (the 2 strokes on the stamps)

The penultimate image, bottom row.

@perf12



This is absolutely incorrect.
There was no so-called Br. royal visit during the Imperial Darbar 1877 in Dilli.
It was entirely a show of personal importance by Robert Bulwer-Lytton, Viceroy & GG of Br. India, supported by the bootlicking spineless rulers of Indian feudatory states, at the expense of hapless people of India.

@txstamp



The Imperial Darbar of 1877 in Dilli was held from January 1 to 5.
So, January 7,1877 when this cover was mailed, was after the celebration ended.
Secondly, East India Company was stripped off from the power to rule India with effect from November 1,1858.

@51studebaker



But did that help to get the price?
counter-b

@rod222


This is from,
Slogans and Special Postmarks of India 1875#8210;1947.
Ashokkumar Ramkumar Bayanwala.
RAEnterprises, New Dilli 1982
Chapter II: Special Postmarks
6a: Provided on the Royal Visits; p.67
This book does not have any info on Imperial Darbar FPO postmark.
I will post later the list of references which have the relevant information.

I have a .pdf file The Imperial Assemblage of 1877 and the Coronation Darbars of 1903 and 1911 All Held at Dilli which is 259pp. long and a large 573.54MB file.

Rod, if you are serious in this field, must have to have it. I can send it to anyone interested, if he/she is a member of India Study Circle.

Joy,
that discipline, is vastly beyond me.
My original interest was only Travancore, which I have always wanted to visit.
Tony Mac encouraged me to expand my interests in India, and the more I read, it dawned on me just how vast an enterprise that would be.

I still have a fondness for my India collection, but at best is just rudimentary.
I still soak up India posts on this forum, but remain mostly as an onlooker.

"Tiruvitamkur Stamps and Postal History" is still a vastly unexplored subject.

Apart from the great Lionel Edward Dawson, John FA Trowbridge and Narayanan Shankaran Mus, there is hardly any in-depth study on Tiruvitamkur.

I have several pdf files of different articles on Tiruvitamkur, mostly by Dawson.

Rod, I can to you send one of the files Tiruvitamkur: Papers and Overprints by LE Dawson; Ref. The Philatelic Journal of India (Vol.L No.1 1/1946), which I use frequently, if you don't have it and if I get "Thanks".

NB. I recently browsed thru SCF only to find that you have been duped with false and incorrect information on several topics on India by our Ugly Patriarch tonymacg.