Native Postal Markings 1866-76
This page abstracts from the combined chronology just those entries that pertain to the native Post Office system; no new information has been added. Pen-cancellation aside, the only native postal markings for the watercolor decade are in the form of seal obliterations. Circular date stamps for the native POs first appear in the summer of 1878, just after the inauguration of the new rectangular issues.
° Native Seal Srinagar. Its first appearance is as a backstamp in red pigment on the first known cover, 23 March 1866. It was in use as Srinagar’s chief obliterator for more than a decade in a variety of similar red pigments, and then in black from November 1877 to summer 1879.
This is another shot of the important Srinagar seal. It is shown here with a scan from plate 2 of Séfi & Mortimer, which purports to show the same seal in a pre-stamps franking use in black. Though the inscriptions are the same, namely munshī ḍāk Srīnagar ~ Official Post Srinagar, the implements are different.
° Jammu sorting seal in brownish-red (left) and the regular Jammu obliterator in purple (right). The sorting seal was seen on cover 1 April 1866, and predates the first sightings of the other by a couple of weeks. Given that Jammu was the center of the stamp production at this time, it is curious that no Jammu obliteration is attested on cover before mid-April, all extant covers being from Srinagar in the brick-red. The Jammu obliterator was struck in black from some point in 1868, and was superseded in 1870 by the Iron-mine seal. The inscription reads Jammūn ḍāk khāne ~ Jammu Post Office. Inspection of the final-n that is so prominent in the scan suggests that the impression is mirror-reversed, and that is indeed the case. The impression is not reversed in the sorting seal (the visible part at the bottom reading ḍāk Jammūn).
And here, above and below, is the Jammu seal in the more typical smudges-of-practice. Sometimes just a token bit of mauve spatter is seen.
And yet again, itself functioning as a transit or sorting marking. It was perhaps May 1868 that the purple was abandoned in favor of black. May was also the likely advent month of the Jammu-plate reds, with the red circulars yet to appear.
° The Jammu Circular Seal in black. Strikes are seen in black from June 1868 (rumor takes the advent back to May). Given that red pigments had just been introduced in the stamps, we like to imagine that the change to black for the obliterator was to accomodate sensitive souls who do not much care for the idea of magenta on salmon. The black persisted until 1870 when the Iron Mine seal superseded it. The registration cover shown above, dated 6 māgh 1925 ~ 17 January 1869, is the earliest known use of a 4a red circular, and is a nice example of the color sharing that existed throughout the years between the rectangulars and the circulars, particularly in the 4-anna denomination. Collection Hellrigl.
Someone should rummage the Jammu iron-mining archives to see if a certain handstamp seal appears on any of the paperwork—and then try to bribe the curator (for the good of philately of course). The seal was fashioned in 1858, some six years before the advent of the Native stamps, but starting perhaps in the spring of 1870 (Masson reports 1869) the seal began active service for as long as a decade as the chief obliterating instrument in the Jammu post office:
° The Jammu Iron-Mine seal. The impression of this implement often goes by the name of the “Jammu square” or the “black square” even though its corners were truncated to form a kind of octagon. Impressions, as above, generally show the corners as rounded. It replaced the Jammu circular seal that was being struck in black at this time (and indeed since that summer of ’68). The first word mohr ~ ‘seal’ is to be found in the lower-right corner of the design. Stacking upwards right to left we have mohr-e āhan-e kān-e jammūn 1915 ~ ‘Seal of the Iron Mine of Jammu 1858 AD’. The seal retired from service in August or September 1879 in the early New Rectangulars period. The impression seen above is in the form of one of the 1981 Staal-Sharma strikes in purple ink. The abnormally clear image on the stamp shows the obliteration of the rare ½a laid paper Jammu rectangular, collection Hellrigl.
° Ladakh Seal. By which we mean the pale sort of pinky-buff strike in the lower part of the scan, not the two smaller and prominent black seals, which are are those of Srinagar. The Bard listing reports 1874 as the earliest postal sighting, and the date inscribed on the seal itself is 1872, hence its presence at this place. The dating of this detail, from a registered cover in the Jaiswal collection, is 12 māgh 1935 ~ 23 January 1879. The latest sighting is perhaps April of that year. Given that the New Rectangulars have been in use for about eight months elsewhere (and at Leh too) the use here of Old Rectangulars at this time is anomalous. Perhaps remote Ladakh in the height of its winter was resorting to old stock. The literature reports the diameter of the seal to be in the 28 mm range.
Now we have a candidate for what the large seal actually looked like. The preceding are Staal-Sharma impressions made from implements found in the Pratap Singh Museum in Srinagar. The first good sign as that these impressions are about 28 mm in diameter. Which one, if either, matches the pinky impression on the detail? Tests with digital masking reveal in fact a good match with the item on the left. The second is a different cutting with a [corrected?] inscription that reads berang/dāk khāna/Ladākh sarkār Jammūn/1929 ~ Bearing/ Post Office/ Ladākh, Government Jammu /1872. There is much overt mention of Jammu authority, not Kashmir authority, in Ladakh.
And finally a good strike made its appearance, thanks to Sandeep Jaiswal, and thus eliminating all doubt that the Staal-Sharma in question was indeed of the Leh seal that was used postally. The scan, the latest known use in black as a transit marking, dates from 17 December 1882.
° Small Leh Seal. We have been speaking of the large Leh seal as if there is a smaller. The implement is indeed referred to in the literature but so far we have not encountered a description of a cover bearing one. Its reported size (about 18 mm) and color (red) mean that it might be mistaken for the Srinagar seal—and conversely. Some mail from Leh did receive a transit marking at Srinagar, and some were posted there (Garratt-Adams in Staal p. 111).
Now here is a remarkable thing: the use of the Jammu square seal as a transit marking in April 1873. We can all choose different names for its color. With thanks to Wolfgang Hellrigl.
° DAK JAMMU seal. This obliterator was struck in black watercolor and enjoyed a long, if sporadic, period of use from perhaps October 1876 into the New Rectangulars period. For what seems a late example, Lot 284 in the Blue Sale exhibits a November 1878. The Persian is mohr-e dāk jammūn ~ ‘seal (of the) post (of) Jammu.’ It was forged in oilcolour for cancelling some of the circular missing-die forgeries in the very late period. It or the forgery is also known in other bits of uncertain and dodgy fare along the way, such as its use for cancelling otherwise virgin postcards. The scan here is one (of eight) of the Staal-Sharma restrikes done in purple ink in the summer of 1981.