So Who's Afraid Of The Indian States?

I've bid a truly frightening amount. I only hope others will come in over the top of me on at least some - otherwise, I'll be on short rations for the next 20 years.

Tony Hope you are free of phila exhibition fever. Please inform the latest SG bidding success and scan of such winnings if received. kolarshenoy

Actually, Australia 2013 left me with a small memento: I caught a bad cold, almost certainly at the Exhibition.

I did have some success at the Harell auction. Some of the items:



Bhopal SG O320ba - How many copies of the pair like this can have been used? It doesn't seem sensible to me that Gibbons prices the pair used at less than half the mint pair.

Jammu & Kashmir:



SG 32 - blocks of genuine original Jammu & Kashmir Circulars are scarce; more often than not, multiples turn out to be reprints



SG 99a - the tête-bêche pair of the 4 Annas emerald-green; there are said to be nine in existence



and SG 100a - the 4 Annas myrtle-green; a rare shade

Tony,

Gorgeous stuff, all nice acquisitions! Your scans are even nicer than the auction catalogue images. The color variation between the emerald green and the myrtle-green is striking, and especially given their rarity, you should be pleased.

And I really love the block of SG32 slate-blue circulars!

Thanks for sharing--and if you have more, keep 'em coming!

--Kevin

Those were the pick of the items I won, but I did win one absolute bargain:



This is SG 22b: the 1912-22 ¼ Anna 'pale olive-yellow', imperf vertically, for £150. This lemon shade isn't recognised by Gibbons, but it's much scarcer than the ordinary (and listed) pale olive-yellow.

The perforation errors on the 1912-22 printings are greatly undervalued in Gibbons, in my opinion.

Tony,

A great strip of chariots! Again, your scan highlights the color better than in the Harell auction catalogue.

Do you have a version of Jaipur SG22b to show the difference in the shades of yellow, the accepted "pale olive-yellow" and your lemon-yellow? And do you think you have a sufficient case to present to the esteemed Dr. Philip Kinns at Stanley Gibbons?

Thanks for sharing!

--Kevin

How wrong is it that I think the 4A myrtle-green is quite sharp?

Pretty wrong, I'm thinking.

Congratulations on the pickups. Although I only aspire to find representative samplings of the basic pieces, I'm always interested in which pieces draw your interest, and why.

Stamp Mole, this cover has some examples of the pale olive-yellow:



As you can see, quite a different shade altogether.

I really don't know why the lemon shade has never been recognised in Gibbons. It was listed in the Harry Burgess INS Catalogue, published some time in the 1950s or early 1960s. He called it lemon-yellow, and priced it at about 3x the value of the olive shade, mint or used. Dr Kinns has certainly seen the shade: after all, he supervised the lotting of the Harell sale!

Cjd, early Jammu & Kashmir isn't for the faint-hearted! It's both fiendishly difficult, and expensive with it.

So here are the three established shades of the Kashmir 4 Anna:

The emerald-green, SG 99 (and the normal shade)



The sage-green, SG 100



and the myrtle-green, SG 100a



which is already a rarity in its own right (around a dozen in captivity), but it also exists in a jade-green shade, which is even rarer ...

The emerald-green is also found in the contemporary Circulars:



The emerald-green ink was apparently arsenic-based, so I wouldn't chew on one, if I were you. I don't know what went into the sage and myrtle shades. Whatever it was, arsenic must have been cheaper.

Sage advice on the emerald shade...

Great thread! Thanks for all the info, though I suspect I never handled a "ugly"....which have a lot more charm then most modern USPS "Forever" stamps....

Zedwardson, the Uglies do have their own special charm - and as you say, they leave modern stamps for dead.

They do take a bit of hunting down, but they're a great deal of fun. These days, with ebay and the like, building a representative collection isn't very hard, and needn't break the bank.

Those Jaipur ¼ Anna stamps we were discussing earlier sell for a few cents each used. However, if you dig a bit deeper, there are several shades to be found and different and distinct papers used (and the challenge of finding specimens showing part of the watermark).

There's also the possibility of making a nice find, at the expense of lazy or ignorant sellers. For instance, Gibbons prices these ¼ Anna stamps of Orchha



at £3.20 for the complete sheet on wove paper. If it was on laid paper (it isn't , and I don't know if a complete sheet even exists), it would be a £6,400 proposition. But even if you can't turn up a laid paper specimen, you can have fun plating single copies.

And then again, the Uglies are true 'forever' stamps. Since 1953, when the Bahawalpur State Post Office was shut down, there haven't been any more issued

It awesome stuff, though since I am just starting back in, I am just in the process of sorting about 1500-2500 stamps into countries and then deciding what to collect. though a few examples that do not cost much might need to come into my possession as examples and talking pieces.

The Indian States provide lots of examples of good talking pieces, though they aren't always cheap.

Still, keep an eye out for the later issues of Kishangarh, like these



say, that were printed in the Diamond Soap Works at Kishangarh. Blocks with the imprint



are a bit more expensive, though. You should be able to find examples of the wonderful handstamped stamps of Poonch,



at around a dollar or so, too. And then, many of the spectacular errors of Travancore-Cochin, like this inverted surcharge



(Gibbons SG 3ec, cat. £5) or these imperf between pairs



(SG O11bb, £11 each)) can be found at decent discounts to catalogue.

Just received this cover of the 1 Anna postal-fiscal of Shahpura, SG F1





There's long been debate about which type of SG F1 was used for postage, so here is the detail of one of the stamps:



The cover came with a BPA Certificate, so there's no doubt it's authentic.