So Who's Afraid Of The Indian States?

There are total 9 scripts found on Indian Feudatory State postage stamps including Kalinga/Oriya script on Bamanda stamps.

1. Devnagari
(Languages: Ahirwati, Dhundhari, Harauti, Hindi, Malwi, Marathi, Mewati, Sanskritam)
States: Alwar, Barwani, Bashshar, Bhor, Bijawar, Bundi, Charkhari, Datiya, Dhar, Dungarpur, Haydarabad, Idar, Indaur, Jaypur, Jhalawar, Kishangarh, Nandgão, Nawanagar, Orchha, Punchh, Rajpipla, Saurashtra, Shahpura, Sirmaur & Vadhvan



2. Farsi
(Language: Farsi)
States: Faridkot, Haydarabad, Jammu and Kashmir, Jhalawar & Punchh



3. Gujarati
(Language: Gujarati)
States: Idar, Jasdan, Morbi, Nawanagar & Saurashtra



4. Gurmukhi
(Language: Pañjabi)
State: Faridkot



5. Kairali
(Language: Malayalam)
States: Kochchi & Tiruvitamkur



6. Takri
(Languages: Dogri/Kãshur)
State: Jammu and Kashmir



7. Telugu
(Language: Telugu)
State: Haydarabad



8. Urdu
(Language: Urdu)
States: Bashahar, Bhopal, Bijawar, Charkhari, Haydarabad, Jaypur, Jind & Lasbela

Joy,

Thank you again. Very interesting. Also some nice stamps! That looks like a nice Alwar SG.4

Are all these scripts still in active use?

Jack

Yes, all those scripts are vibrantly used in India in the respective areas.

India has total 1721 living languages including 22 official languages and 66 different scripts.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Languages_of_India

There are also 118239 registered newspapers published in India.

Help with Bundi dagger?

Can't find anything in Stanley Gibbons (or Scott) that quite looks like this. I believe that the dagger points left here, with value below and state name above. Is this a revenue stamp? Is it a genuine stamp at all? If so, how identified?

This is a crude fake of Bundi ½A dagger issue.
Paper, design, color, printing quality, all are wrong.

The commonest Bundi dagger stamp forgeries are of the most expensive Bundi postage stamp i.e. Bundi 1894 ½A SG 1.

Bundi 1894 ½A Raj Bundi dagger slate gray lithograph (SG 1) (ex-Harrell)



Trivia: The dagger depicted in Alwar and Bundi stamps, is called katar.

The defaced handstamps that were used to produce the Poonch stamps from 1883 were donated to the Royal Philatelic Sociey London and are in their museum. This is a description of the 1 Anna die from a search of their online catalogue:

"Die - Handstruck - 1880-1888 Handstruck stamp dies 1 anna (without handle), defaced - copper. Poonch, Indian States. Stone: 'One Anna Die Engraved on brass with a bronze peg for handle. 1884 Issue, defaced.' Perkins Bacon."

It mentions Perkins Bacon, presumably as being the originator of the five dies. I haven't seen this mentioned in any article I've read about these stamps.

Can anyone please confirm if these 5 dies were produced by Perkins, Bacon & Co. Ltd?

Thank you, Joy. Your help, along with that of others on this thread, has given me the courage to go deeper into Indian native states where, of course, knowing the stamp is a forgery is always better than believing that it's genuine.

mikyh said



I don't know what relevance Perkins Bacon have to the stamps of Poonch.

The dies were cut by the esteemed engraver and die-cutter Rahat Ju of Srinagar, who also produced the dies for most of the issues of Jammu & Kashmir.

Many thanks for that information Peter.

Faridkot: genuine, bogus, revenue?

1. Any chance this 1 folus is handstamped and a genuine SG N1 (SC 1)?


2. From the following two links, I take it that the red stamp on the left is bogus (i.e., an official reproduction?)
https://www.stampboards.com/viewtop...619#p4289619
https://goscf.com/t/71393



3. But the green stamp on the right: from Joy's remarks on this third link I get the impression that it could be a genuine revenue stamp. Yes?

https://goscf.com/t/53849

1 is genuine Faridkot 1879 1 Folus ultramarine imperf. postage stamp, handstamped singly, but without the scan of the back to identify the paper type, it cannot be outrightly assigned to SG 1.

Genuine Faridkot 1st issue has uneven horizontal border framelines (posthumous reprints have clearly defined straight outer framelines).

3 is indeed Faridkot 1882 1P myrtle green Köppel and Manners type 10 revenue stamp (K&M 107) but with a favor cancel.

Unfortunately, Köppel and Manners don't segregate the array of shades of green and club all under K&M 107 with color description "green (shades)".

Thank you, Joy. We rely on your expertise (I do, at least). Here's a scan of the back of my 1 Folus ultra.

So, it is Faridkot 1879 1 Folus SG N5/Sc 1 on wove paper.

Wonderful! Thanks again.

Eric

Has there been any effort to track postmarks on Empire stamps in Indian states that did not issue stamps of their own? Sikkim is easy, but there are several hundred that are unaccounted for.