Indian Stamp Identificaiton Question

I can't seem to identify the red colored Indian stamp in the middle. The rest seem to all be pretty standard issues from that period.



If anyone knows about the red one it would be much appreciated. Cheers. Marc

It is an official stamp. Look in the O### section. There are usually quite a few watermark/perforation varieties on many of these stamps, I didn't check. You will probably have to do the final ID yourself, or maybe one of the others is able to ID on the spot for you. Most of my India is still in glassines/envelopes, so I am not that familiar with Indian stamps.

Thanks. At the same time, there are so many varieties of the others too. I am trying to figure out if any of them are worth anything. Oh well..

Can't give you Scott numbers for these, but left to right they are
1. Either 1922-6 1 Anna, if watermarked single star (there is an inverted watermark variety - single point of star facing down; unpriced used, £25 mint), or 1926-33, if watermarked multiple stars (inverted watermarks exist, but are minimal value) - all except the first inverted watermark are minimal value
2. 1937-40 3 Pies - minimal value
3. 1939-42 2 Annas Service (Official) - watermark multiple stars (exists inverted - unpriced) - watermark upright minimal value
4. Either 1922-6 3 Pies, if watermark single star (exists watermark inverted - unpriced) minimal value if watermark upright or 1922-6, if watermarked multiple stars (exists watermark inverted, priced at 30p) minimal value if watermark upright
5. Queen Victoria 1882-90 ½ Anna - minimal value (exists single star watermark inverted - unpriced)

Basically, all very common stamps unless they have inverted watermarks; Gibbons prices them at 10p, which is their minimum. Gibbons has begun listing the inverted watermarks on these issues in recent years, but it seems they haven't yet established values for many of them.

"PEG" on the official Tony...don't recall seeing that before, Ideas?

Aaargh! my clanger for the day

"REG" for Registration (kicks himself in the butt)

Thanks so much Tony for the detailed answer. It seems there isn't much of value there so I wont spend any more time on those. Basically I have gone through my father's collection and have more or less determined what is of value and what isn't. I still got his Roos and KGVs to sort through, but that is about it. I have a few large envelopes of canceled stamps though, grab bag type stuff it looks like and so I have started to sift through it an pull out anything that looks rather old and obscure. That is the source of the Indians and a lot of the older obscure ones I have been asking about. The rest of it is more straight forward luckily. I did find a couple of the Roos and KGVs in those grab bag envelopes though so not a complete waste of time so far. Cheers for the great detailed explanations as always though.

Sorry to be the bearer of sad tidings on those Indian stamps, Marc, but the problem is that they were printed and used in vast numbers. However, you can find some interest in the postmarks, like on this cover sent between two of my favourite Indian States, Bhor and Dhar:



If you were wondering where the stamps went, well, they didn't go anywhere. The sender forgot to put them on in the first place. Here is the front of the cover, with the Postage Due marking:



The letter should have had a green Queen Victoria ½ Anna stamp, like yours.

Haha Tony. Funny story. Thanks for sharing..