So Who's Afraid Of The Indian States?

i can really make myslef useful and get rid of your uglies for you but it would hurt your cat and I am an animal lover so I wont do it :)

unfortunately the gent who wrote that script had the worst handwriting possible and I cant read wha the is saying the three letters to the right corner are bhor

such atrocious writing has ruined the cover

remind me which state bhor is in today maybe I am looking at it from the wrong script in that case the cover may have 2 scripts

peterh you like rajasthan?

than you can start by paying homage to a rajasthani prince hrh spock. heell for $1000 I will even send ou a letter on my royal letterhead with the coat of arms on it

for those who think ai m joking I indeed have the letter head and the seal and everything but I am not sending it I wish to remain in mufti :)

thats a pretty strange comment just pick kishangarh neighbour sigh :)

Thank you, Your Royal Highness, for trying with the script on the Bhor cover.

Bhor is now in Maharashtra. See here:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bhor

well ia m very familiar with that script studied it for 8 years absolute case of bad handwriting it is 99% devnagri though :)

Maharasthra

yes yes dear tony peter told me about it as I said 8 years of practice the guy who wrote this had a terrible handwriting. the bottom corner bhor is clear as day rest is mud.

I read through this thread the other night and it really helped with the handful of Indian States stamps I had to identify. I am left with a puzzle, though. I have these -



(Have I scanned upsidedown!?)

They came from an inherited album. They are all on thin paper. The red-on-yellow one is on extremely thin paper, tissue paper almost. I have no idea, but they seem fake to me, the printed "perforations" on the black and the red seem suspect..! However, I know nothing! Any thoughts?

Thankyou!

yes lets start with turning them upside down my urdu has gone from bad to worse

Apologies for upsidedowness - my Urdu is worse to non-existant...

Sorry stampgal - two are now correct but the first one is upside-down.

Tony will give you the definitive answer when he comes on, but here's my opinion for what it's worth.

They are Jammu and Kashmir "new rectangulars".

The first one is the four anna value and if on thin wove paper is probably SG 129. Tony will tell you if it is a reprint or forgery.

The second is the half anna Official, SG O7. Again, could be a reprint?

The third is the two anna red on yellow or yellow-green paper SG 153 or 154. This one looks definitely OK to me.

Hold hard, there, PeterH Let's say I'll give a provisional definitive answer ...

First up, I think all three are quite OK. There are a few very dangerous fakes of these stamps (the so-called Brighton Forgeries), but we'd need to take highly detailed measurements to be certain. These, though, do look genuine on the screen.

Peter has identified them correctly, of course:

The red 4 Anna of 1879, SG 129: a nice stamp - Gibbons prices it at £13. The faux perforations are actually part of the design on this stamp and its companion 8 Anna. Here is a sheet of the stamp:



If you have nothing better to do with a couple of hours you could try to plate your copy. Each stamp in the sheet was engraved separately, so you can work out which position a single stamp came from.

In the earliest days of this series of stamps, in 1878, Jammu & Kashmir experimented with perforating them. It was not a success. They perforated a few of the ½ Anna value, like this,



but then basically gave up on it, apart from the occasional sporadic attempt (all of which are scarce to rare).

The next stamp is a ½ Anna Official. From the look of it, it's probably the cheapest variety , SG O7, the wove paper type of 1880. However - never say die - do check the paper it's printed on. If it's laid paper (with a watermark of close-spaced parallel lines), we're onto something better. If it's a thinnish paper, rather like that of the 4 Anna, it's from one of the occasions when the printers bought a small supply of laid paper by accident, a few years around 1890, and it's SG O13, and worth £5.50. If it's on a thicker, rather good quality, laid paper it's from the 1878 printing, SG O2 - and it's a £110 proposition.

The last stamp is a 2 Anna of 1883; I'd make it SG 153, the variety on yellow-green paper. The coloured papers the printers used for the 2 Anna value are mostly pretty flimsy. Gibbons rates this stamp at £4.25.

Jammu & Kashmir stamps are quite involved, but full of interest. Only those with very deep pockets can consider taking them very seriously, but you can build up a representative showing without causing too much damage to your bank account. If you'd like to read more about them, this http://www.kashmirstamps.ca/index.html is a super Web site.

well said Tony

Thankyou very much Tony. I have enjoyed reading this thread. Even though I only have a handful of Indian States stamps, your information has made them more interesting and enjoyable for me, much appreciated