India Qv Stamps - Check For Watermarks?

QV = Queen Victoria
Going through an old album. No India catalog at hand.
Should I check these for watermarks? Upside down / sideways?

Most of the postage stamps you have pictured should have a star for a watermark, and Stanley Gibbons does list inverted watermarks as possibilities for that 1882 series. I cannot say anything about the revenue stamps that are pictured. (The star watermark is a typical five-pointed star, as in the Dallas Cowboys logo.)

The cancel on the bottom right stamp looks sort of dodgy, but it looks like it is starting to spell out Zanzibar. India stamps were used in Zanzibar through 1895.

Collin

The 3 stamps that border the bottom right corner all have Zanzibar cancels.

Thanks Cjd and khj. I will get myself to the library and look at the 2010 Scott they have when the snow clears off a bit here (next week).

I have read on here spock mentioning that some stamps and/or cancels from India were known for forgeries. Is that what you were drawing attention to on the 'dodgy' Zanzibar cancel(s)? Are they possible forgeries? I couldn't tell unless it had a non-Indian name in teh cancel like London or something.

I can see why they would choose to forge a Zanzibar cancel, quite a romantic name and all that, and I just happen to like/enjoy cancels.

I keep telling myself I am not collecting but I seem to find lots and lots of neat items that just insist on being collected.

Oh, another question: the bottom right stamp with the Zanzibar cancel, is that cancel known as a squared circle cancel om India stamps? I know the Canada squared circles and these seem somewhat similar. I don't know the British ones at all.

Puzzler-

I'm not qualified to judge the cancel if the stamp was in my hand, let alone on a small scan. There is some value to Zanzibar cancels on India stamps, according to SG. I'm including a tiny excerpt from 2006 to give some idea of the possibilities...not to say that any of this actually applies to what you have...further investigation is warranted. The second set of numbers deals with the cancel on the right (#5). Note the comment about missing year numbers. Interesting stuff.

Collin

That is fascinating Cjd. Thanks for sharing the info. I will definitely have to delve into the library's Scott catalog to see if they have any similar info. I know this was a British colony or something at the time so Stanley Gibbons would tend to have more info on them I would assume.

You can put a request in at our library system to ask them to buy a book. Hmmmm. Now how would I ask this so it made sense to a non stamp collector? I know, I'll hold my breath until I turn blue unless you buy the 2010 Stanley Gibbons catalogs too!!

I had forgotten about the forged (and revenue) cancels until you mentioned it, so I took another look.

I am not an expert on Zanzibar cancels, but the cancels on all 3 lower right corner stamps are questionable at best, for various reasons. But don't hold me to that. I have forgotten the criteria and cannot find my old correspondence with another collector on this exact topic.

Note that in Collin's catalog excerpt, it specifically mentions a short date range on a Type Z4 in which the year is not included. This is important. The reason is because most cancels that are missing the year or in which the year is not legible, are often considered forged/questionable/revenue. However, there is a short time period in which the Z4 cancel was used without the year. So missing year is not a sufficient criteria for disqualifying it as a postal cancel.

dear puzzler

spock to the rescue. yes they do look fishy the right hand corners and yes you should look for watermarks they have unusual things with indian stamps some of which sg does not cover

Thanks guys. I will search around on the internet between now and the time I get to the library also, maybe someone has a page about these. Even if they are fishy/dodgy cancels, do people still collect them?

A zoomed in scan of the bottom corner:

I just Googled 'zanzibar cancels' and a link to this thread was the sixth response returned with some of Cjd's first post quoted. Holy smokes folks, we are on the Google!

This is like going to the hospital and making sure you have clean underwear on!

er if you dont want it ill be happy to take it off your hands zanzibar or not at least it was grown in india :)

Thanks for the offer, these are beyond my knowledge at this time, but they belong to my brother's wife's family and since I am the only 'stamp expert' they know (boy are they in trouble now!) I get to examine them. Fun! Sometimes there is a lot to learn.

Are these possible Madame Joseph cancels (my recent web reading) or just regular dodgy cancels? Possibly. I know it is nigh on impossible to properly identify or confirm without having the actual stamp in hand.

I do not really care for forgeries but just the rare and romantic (to me anyway) names are intriguing.


Kind of too good to be true.
But the Canada stamps in this album were nice QV stamps in the medium price range.

the same brother whom we mail stamps to? if you get romanticized by a 2 century old queen we need to have another of our private talks. :)

and some of us dont live in millions so medium for you is beyond reach for me. lets see some pauper stamps we dont use money on vulcan anyway

spock1k

You crack me up!

Thanks for bringing a smile to my face this morning!

Dave N.
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