So Who's Afraid Of The Indian States?

Las Bela is, I suppose, strictly speaking a Pakistani State. It was in Baluchistan, and for many years Gibbons relegated it to the no-man's land after Pakistan, along with Bahawalpur. That meant one could happily ignore it. However, as it was part of India during the few years it issued stamps (1897-1907), Gibbons restored it to the larger list.

Las Bela is a great one for the simple lifer, too. Only two designs



(SG 2) and



(SG 8)

which were rather functional than decorative. If you're into multicolour pictorials, Las Bela will have little to offer you.

There seems to have been only the one printing of the 1 Anna, but there were numerous printings of the ½ Anna, differing in size and the colour of the paper - from olive, through grey to blue. However, in used copies, the different colours of paper all tend to converge on a sort of indeterminate sludge colour. This can make allocating used stamps to their proper SG number a bit arbitrary. Most of the papers used were granite, with coloured flecks through them.

In its defence, Las Bela was most definitely not a philatelic country, like the Dunes, just across the Arabian Sea were to become 60 or 70 years later. Its Post Office existed for a very good reason - to convey the mails between Las Bela and Karachi - and they were extensively used for that. Used are therefore relatively common, and most Las Bela are cheaper used than mint.

Covers are much more tricky, though:



SG 11 - and an example of the wide spaced stamps on blue

A last point of interest about Las Bela is that it maintained an 'extra-territorial' post office, in Karachi. Mail to be carried to Las Bela, in the days before an Imperial post office was established there, had to be handed in at the Las Bela office in Karachi, where it would be suitably franked. This means it's not uncommon to find Las Bela stamps properly postmarked Karachi - another 'country':



(SG 1)

Morvi had two strikes against it. It came far too late - its first issue appeared in 1931 - to be considered a Classic. It also suffers alphabetically: in the Ms, people start to shift their bottoms on seats and glance surreptitiously at their watches, and wonder when it's all going to end. This is all a bit unfair, though. Morvi is technically quite interesting, and its stamps did see genuine use. It was certainly not a philatelic State.

SG 1 is reasonably available, and won't break the bank (Gibbons prices it at £3 mint)



The other first values, a ½ Anna and 2 Anna



(SG 2 - unfortunately, it looks as if someone unfamiliar with perforations decided to remove them)

are rather harder, particularly used.

These were followed by a second printing, spaced rather less wastefully, and with a 1 Anna stamp added. This printing includes the delightful error with the ¼ Anna printed in the colour of the ½ Anna



(SG 4a - the complete sheet) and the ½ Anna



(SG 5)

It must have taken quite a while before the printers woke up to the mistake. The error of colour is actually cheaper than the stamp in the proper pink colour. (Once again, though, neither need inflict lasting pain. The pink ¼ Anna is £6.50 and the error in blue is £4.25.)

Next year, a new smaller, design was introduced, again in the four values, 3 Pies (¼ Anna), 6 Pies (½ Anna), 1 Anna and 2 Annas. They also come in nice, bite-sized sheets of eight:



SG 8

(Morvi specialists are trying to collect sheet numbers, in order to get a handle on printing numbers. They probably weren't all that large. My impression is that this sheet number, 1418, is a fairly high one.)

very nice even I the galactic emperor did not know of las bella

In 1934, Morvi had a new set of four values printed somewhere in London. There was an obvious improvement in print quality, although I doubt they were done by one of the great UK printing houses of the time :




These are the commonest stamps of Morvi. This shouldn't surprise. Morvi would have been anxious to present the best image it could to collectors. When they wrote to order State stamps, what more natural than to send them specimens from the London printing?

It appears that after the London printing, the plates were returned to Morvi, where the Morvi Press printed from the again between 1935 and the end of Morvi's philatelic life in 1948. It isn't too hard to distinguish the printings (quite apart from the perf difference: 14 on the London printings and 11 on the Morvi printings):

This piece has copies of (clockwise) SG 9b (the 1932 6 Pies emerald-green), SG 14 (the London print 1 Anna) and SG 18b (the Morvi print 1 Anna chocolate)



Comparing the two 1 Anna stamps, you'll see the differences in print quality - particularly in the background oval around the portrait.

This piece has another useful lesson to teach, too. The more common Morvi postmarks are like those on the SG 2 at the beginning of this post. However, oval rubber stamp postmarks like on this piece are also to be found, probably from the smaller post offices. Here it is again on an SG 9 cover



and here is SG 9 again with a CDS



Covers from Morvi are fairly available, and by the standards of the smaller Indian States, not too expensive. A cover in reasonable condition, with average rarity stamps, would go for around $US50. Postal stationery cards also exist, and should be much cheaper: starting around $US5.

I've always meant to to do more with Morvi, but by the time you get down to the Ms ...

Spock, if you knew everything, you'd be too dangerous to allow to live

keep that up and I will send jubilee to your place with his break in kit. I wonder how life will be without Barwani stamps in your collection :)

No use. Jubilee gets lost in any settlement with more than a thousand people.

well he needs my transporter services so I sent him on a mission we will know soon enough :)

if he fails they are already looking for him for trying to break into atlantis :)

please id this for me tony. how much is this worth?

Spock it's Hyderabad SG O46, catalogued (in the 2010 Part 1) at 10p. I'm afraid this one of those States stamps that are sold by the kilo. Much nicer if it was still on cover. Then it would be worth a couple of dollars.

Yes, I have a kilo of those

The un-overprinted stamp on souvenir sheet with RAF cancel.

Rod, I remember seeing a similar presentation sheet on ebay not so long ago. I don't think it had RAF cancellations, though, and I can't see how they would have been legitimately applied. Hyderabad State stamps would only (legitimately) be cancelled with Hyderabad State cancellations. I'm not even aware of any RAF base there at the relevant time. I think someone has been misbehaving with a RAF rubber stamp.

The nearest thing I know of to an airforce connection is the set of cinderellas that this label came from:

Nandgaon is another of those States I've shamefully neglected. It was a bit of a mayfly: first issued stamps in 1891 (though Gibbons notes the possibility that the first stamps may have been issued in 1887), and closed in 1894.

Like Dhar, it had an eventful few years, though. The first two stamps



SG 1 and 2

have been rather widely forged. Also note Gibbons' remark about the cancellations on these stamps: that the few covers known have manuscript cancels, but that 'other' types of cancellations are known on loose stamps.

These were followed by three values, ½ Anna, 1 Anna and 2 Annas in a rather large number of printings, which the specialists can detect, but I can't.



These were also handstamped MBD (the initials of the ruler, Raja Mahant Balram Das) in an oval, for official use:



Like the type-set issues of Dhar, you can find the odd missing letter:



SG O4a - the first and second stamps on the second row are missing the down stroke after the first Hindi letter (which lengthens the preceding 'A')

Cancellations are also a bit of a vexed issue. Nice, clean CDSs are usually CTO. The genuine postal cancellations really were intended to make reuse of the stamps impossible:



Lastly, reprints exist: any of these stamps in brown or blue is a reprint, and some other reprints are unpleasantly close in colour to the originals.

I hope this hasn't scared anyone off. Nandgaon is a bit of a collecting backwater. If you're prepared to put in the effort, it could be quite a rewarding State to take up.

There is a link there somewhere, I believe Tony.
The Nizam was a very generous supporter of the
war effort, and I think he supported financially a squadron
of planes in Britain.
I'll have to dig out my shoe box of info :)

You have shown me that beautiful cover before, and I am very envious.

The recipient Miss Gwendolyne Peyton-Jones was a member of
the famous and very brave F.A.N.Y.s
I believe she had served in the first WW
She went to Palestine under the order of St John

It was formed as the "First Aid Nursing Yeomanry" in 1907 as a first aid link between the field hospitals and the front lines, and was given the yeomanry title as all its members were originally mounted on horseback

During the First World War, FANYs ran field hospitals, drove ambulances and set up soup kitchens and troop canteens, often under highly dangerous conditions. By the Armistice, they had been awarded many decorations for bravery, including 17 Military Medals, 1 Legion d'Honneur and 27 Croix de Guerre.

Nice bit of research, and a nice cinderella there, too, Rod.

I think you may have seen this old stereo slide of the Rana of Barwani (Captain Ranjitsingh) with the unit of field ambulances he raised during the First World War, but in case there's still someone left who hasn't ...



Many of the rulers were thoroughly public-spirited. I have a record somewhere of Ranjitsingh making a fairly sizable donation to a famine relief fund somewhere fairly remote from Barwani as well.