Country ID Help Request

I came across the following stamp today while sorting. I'm not sure what country it is, and have had no luck in guessing. Any assistance is appreciated.




Thanks in advance,
Dale

1931 Hyderabad

Don

This is Haydarabad 1931 2A High Court of Justice at Haydarabad, Haydarabad deep mulberry SG 44/Sc 42.

The stamp is part of what is popularly called the 1931 Pictorial Series, issued on Nov 12,1931.

This stamp with perf. 13½, is printed on wove paper with Sarkar Aafiyyah watermark in intaglio by Stamp Office, Haydarabad but the plates were prepared by Thomas de la Rue and Company, London, England.

The most basic criterion to identify Haydarabad stamps or stationery imprints is the omnipresent inscription Sarkar Asafiyyah in Farsi or in Urdu, which is present in early issues of Haydarabad mostly in calligraphic manifestation in the formation of Tugra monogram.

Here the inscription Sarkar Asafiyyah in Farsi is present in the upper panel.

Since this site does not support Farsi/Urdu characters, I am posting the screenshot of the inscription typed in MS Word.



Sarkar Asafiyyah literally means "Government of Asaf" where Asaf is the part of the hereditary title of the ruler.

In this case, Sarkar Asafiyyah refers to the Government Asaf Jah VII, the official title of Usman Mahbub Ali Khan Siddiqi (1886-1967), the ruler (Nizam) of Haydarabad state (1911-1948).

Between the words Sarkar and Asafiyyah, is the year of plate registration 1349H in Hijri calendar which corresponds to 1930. Here the initial of Hijri is represented by the Urdu alphabet Do Chashmi which literally means "spectacles-shaped" because of its appearance.



The lower panel shows the word Tappah i.e. post.



The dextral panel shows the denomination Du Ana i.e. Two Ana but in Urdu.



The High Court of Justice at Haydarabad was established on Apr 20,1920. It was/is infamous for its several one-sided biased judgements against Indian freedom fighters, to please the Nizam's British masters.

Don,

Thank you for the pointer. I suspected it might have been India-related due to the denomination in annas (I know annas were also used in other places outside India, but none of those seemed right.).

Dale

Joy,

Thank you very much. Your reply contains some very helpful information. I'll be grabbing this to aid in future identification if I run across any more of these.

Dale

This stamp of 2A denomination was issued, primarily intended for the obligatory prepayment of the registration fee 2A per article, the rate in effect from Sep 25,1881 to 1935.

Majority of the commercial usage of this stamp were on registered articles.