A Rare Treasure: Indian Stamp

Every year on October 1, National Postal Day is celebrated in India. This celebration is an extension of World Post Day.

India has a long and unique postal history and has delivered countless postage stamp of India. These have been created by an assortment of systems including line etching, typography, lithography, photogravure and web-counterbalance. Stamps in India have been created both for postage and for administration or income. Stamps have been delivered both as imperforated sheets, punctured, and smaller than usual sheets.

The history of stamps of India began with the introduction of paper postage in Sindh, India (now in Pakistan) in 1852. Sir Bartel Frere, the commissioner of the Sindh, introduced the stamps, and then known as 'ScindeDawk' in 1852 but the Indian stamps were withdrawn in October 1854, after the introduction of regular Indian postage stamps.

The old Indian stamps have a very big collection of rare Indian postage stamps such as: The Queen Victoria Collection from Gwalior Convention State during British India or the King George V collection from the Indian Expeditionary Force of British India.

Another such Indian rare stamps are the British India-Feudatory State time’s collection of Indore stamps. Indore was earlier known as AhiliyaNagri. The founder of the House of Holkar was MalharRao, born in 1694. In 1761, after the Panipat, MalharRao acquired territories stretching from the Deccan to the Ganges. In 1805, a peace treaty was concluded between the chief and the British.

From 1904-06, definitive type of vertical rectangle Indian stamp were issued. These rare Indian stamp were printed on the following theme; Devanagari and English inscription, Raja,Type 4, Overprinted with S1. These rare stamps of India were issued in the commemoration of Maharaja TukojiRao Holkar III, who ruled Indore from 1903 – 1926.

There were 8 stamps issued under this collection. They were of 1/4 anna (orange color), 1 anna (green color), 2 annas (brown color), 3 annas (violet color), and 4 annas (ultramarine color). The other three were different variants of the 1/2 anna.

All these stamps were printed at Recess Perkins, Bacon & Co. To find out more about the old Indian stamps visit the Mintage World.