India Scott# 36 Or 56 (Design A17) With Purple "B. E. S / Press." Overprint , Any More Info?

Hi,

I found this stamp with an interesting overprint on it recently.

From what I found looking at various forums, it appears to be a semi-official or private overprint, that was a forerunner for perfins in India.

It looks like it says "B. E. S" (period after S missing) over "(P)RESS.". It's difficult to make out the "P", but it made sense after looking at the following links.

https://stampboards.com/viewtopic.php?f=10&t=40036
https://www.stampboards.com/viewtop...?f=29&t=8464

On the first link, one of the stamps has an overprint "B.E.S. / PRESS / BYCULLA". My stamp's overprint doesn't mention Byculla, but the cancel is for Byculla, Bombay.

Interestingly enough, the first link mentions that these overprints were prohibited after 1905. Correct me if I'm wrong, but the cancel looks like it is 1909. Does this make it an illegal usage?

I guess my main question is if anyone knows any other info about this stamp, scarcity, value, or other available online resources for more information about it?

Thanks!

Very, very common.
Referred to as a Commercial Overprint, to prevent re-use, or theft.
Many many companies used this device.

If anything is unusual, most also include a script mark, to tie the stamp to the cover.

BES = Byculla Bombay Education Society
https://neilsabisa.wordpress.com/20...ion-society/

Great Britain boasts over 2000 Commercial Overprints
Ceylon has among others "CAVE"
India's most common "Stamped" in script. seen : STAMPED in violet rubber handstamp

BES may be scarcer, impossible to place a value on it.

Other Press Houses had Internal Post Office facilities
Empire Press Calcutta



Remains Unidentified for me PRESS SORTER N????


Re-use protection Script "Stamped" (Not my cover)

Hi rod222,

Thank you for your response!

Have you seen any used after 1905, when the overprints were supposedly prohibited?

Short answer BBB, No,
but not really qualified to substantiate.
We need Joy the Indian specialist, but he is not posting lately.

If your estimate of the date, is correct, that is a very late usage of the QV stamp.
But strange things do happen.

In my collection "Squared Circle" Postmarks are dying out as early as 1882, there are some, but CDS Circular date Stamps begin to dominate.

I was about to opine, that I had 4 or 5 Oval Business Commercial seal
markings [In Violet] (presumably used as re-use protection) around the 1882 mark, but they do vanish after that.
So possibly the 1905 directive was in force.
So I am scrolling through my Stamp Images.....and there it was

BES Overprint in Violet
Ratty old Squared Circle Postmark BYCULLA Suggest : August 19th 1889
(Poor scan..I would have done this perhaps 15 years ago)

The violet B.E.S PRESS. rubber stamp overprint is a preventive mark of Mumbai Education Society Press, Mumbai, located at Bhaykhala area.

The same entity also used preventive mark B.E.S.P. in single line, struck in violet.

Preventive marks were security markings applied on British India stamps or postal stationeries
by companies or organizations which were not authorized to use service stamps.

The main objective was to deter pilferage of stamps and the subsequent resale/reuse by orderlies or peons who were responsible to post the bulk quantity of office mail. They were all Indians and very lowly paid and the British had intense distrust of them.

The practice of overprinting of stamps with the name of company/organization as a security measure began immediately after the introduction of official stamps on Aug 1,1866 and officially forbidden in 1905.

@bmbmbm



The date of the cancel is Nov 26,1889.

It is Danby type A(a) squared circle cancel (circle diameter: 17mm) of Bhaykhala SPO, which is recorded used from Jun 1885 to Sep 1893. So, the date fits in perfectly.

Danby type A(a) squared circle cancels were specifically allotted to the local Sub Post Offices in the city of Mumbai and also to Mumbai-Karachi Sea Post Office.

Apart from Bhaykhala, this sub-type is recorded used in SPOs of Crawford Market (now Mahatma Jyotiba Phule Market), Girgão, Kulaba, Malabar Hill, Mandvi and Mazagão, Paral and Umarkhadi.

The letter Z above the date, is an index letter denoting the time of clearance of the letter box for a specific mail dispatch.

Index letters (X-Z) were introduced in 1881 but from 1883, with the increase of the number of dispatches, the range of index letters increased to M to Z following the Rule 844 of the Indian Post Office Manual 1883.

@rod222



Rod, can you post your Indian squared circle cancels from 1882 or before? That would completely change the history of squared circle cancels of India.

As of now we know that the squared circle cancelations were officially introduced in India in 1884 (though Experimental POs used it from 1883) as recorded in Paragraph 4 of the Post Office Circular No.66 dt. January 11,1891, to replace the complex Renouf type 17/Cooper type 32 duplex cancelations with the combination of both cds and killer in a single postmark.

Joy,
I'll review my Indian images shortly.
My stamps are dated as Scott, so maybe I have "set dates" as text strings.

Great ID and commentary, by the way...fascinating.

Yes, that explains it.
As a worldwide collector, I use Scott text strings as easily identifiables when sorting bulk stamps.
Also Steiner Pages, are readily resourced.
I make no apologies for that, BUT certainly illustrates the inaccuracies to the specialist.

Some of my stamps, as I had read them.
Noted : Squared Circles Introduced 1884

@rod222





The postmark is Bartlett type 32Db/Danby type B(a) PRESS SORTER No. 2/R.M.S. (the R.M.S. part below not clearly impressed here) squared circle cancel which is recorded used from Sep 1890 to May 1891.

For some reason, only Sorter No. 2 has yet been recorded.

A Press Sorter by definition was a Railway Mail Service Sorter at a Stationary Office, who had the job to sort registered newspapers and forward them in closed sorting mailbags for onward transmission thru RMS.

Both the postmarks are ISC type A24Db combined datestamps and obliterators of EMPIRE PRESS SORTING OFFICE, Kolkata, which was run by the Indian Posts and Telegraphs Department at the cost of the Empire newspaper office.

The Indian P&T Department opened and operated post offices at newspaper offices which had to provide free accommodation of the post offices, pay the salaries of the postal staffs and bear the cost of mail transportation from/to the newspaper post offices to/from nearest RMS Stationary Offices, located at railway stations.
The newspaper offices were obligated to pay the tentative monthly expenses to run the post offices at the respective premises, in advance to the Postal Accounts Dept., Shimla/Shyamala.

Empire was an English evening daily which started publication in 1911 from Kolkata, with Fraser Blair as its first editor.
The paper incessantly ran an imperial agenda, glorifying the British and denigrating the Indians.

Thank you Joy,
Fascinating information for my Album.

I don't think racism, is the sole preserve of the British, more the individuals.
I suffered badly, in my first 2 years in an Australian primary school,
due to my West Country accent.

Our route should be to learn from it, and not carry hatred forward.

rod222



Rod, have you found Br. Indian squared circle cancels from 1882 or before?