Postmarks: Watercolor Decade
The images on this page are confined to postal markings that originated in the Watercolor period. The second part of this chronology (link in corner) is launched from 1877, the year of the first oilcolors at Jammu. That year marks a symbolic division in the broader affairs as well, for Queen Victoria becomes Empress of India.
Of the many British Indian markings that are pertinent to J&K philately, only those of Sialkot and Amritsar are attended to here on account of their prominence in the extant material. The material in this general chronology is also regrouped by separate region through the following links:
AD 1866
Famine takes the east coast of India, resulting in some million deaths in Orissa. John Russell, who will be grandfather to Bertrand, is prime-minister of Britain. Hires root beer was invented in May. Sun Yat-sen and H.G. Wells are just hatched, and the mathematician Bernhard Riemann died all too young this year. Bismarck, chancellor of Prussia, annexes most of Germany. Andrew Johnson is US president, after the assassination of Abraham Lincoln the preceding year. Mendel publishes on dominant and recessive characteristics in plants. Prussia and Italy declare war on Austria this June and Pluto was at aphelion. The Treaty of Prague ends the Austro-Prussian War in August and the American Civil War is declared over. The Atlantic telegraph cable is laid.
Ungummed “adhesives,” individually handstamped in watercolors, were inaugurated in March this year by Ranbir Singh, Maharajah of the State between 1857 and 1885. Pen-cancellation aside, the only State postal markings for 1866 are in the form of seal obliterations used at Srinagar and at Jammu.
March 1866
Two State postage stamps are known from the first days of stamp production, namely the ½a grey-black and 1a royal blue (or bright ultramarine) watercolor circulars. While the ½a black will be prominent for some eighteen months, the specific shade and demeanor that characterizes the first 1a blue is known for hardly a month at most.
° State Seal Srinagar. The seal shown on the left was in use as chief obliterator for more than a decade with brick-red pigments, and in black on its last runs in 1877-79. Its first appearance is on the back of the first known cover, dated 23 March 1866, for some function not obliteration, perhaps serving as a despatch marking. The inscription reads munshî dâk Srînagar ~ Official Post Srinagar. The second b/w image is taken from plate 2 of Séfi & Mortimer. Those authors tacitly presented this marking as an earlier franking use of the Srinagar seal in black in the pre-stamps period. Though the inscription is the same, to our eye the implements must be different; note specifically the starkly different shape and positioning of the word dâk at the lower-right.
° British serifed-UMRITSUR datestamp. This detail was taken from the first known cover, 23 March 1866, a Friday. There is a picture of the full cover on our page dealing with the ½a circulars. The British marking was struck upon arrival on 29 March to which was added in manuscript the “jawab” notation seen here, dated 13 zelqa'de [1282] ~ 30 March. Technically, the item was combination cover, but its Victoria stamp, probably the ½a blue as seen in the next scan, was lost at an unknown time. This long-lasting type of Umritsur datestamp was used prior to our period, and there are several cuttings over time. Some later examples are shown gathered together in the October 1866 entry.
Covers. What might be the earliest known intact combination cover (Haverbeck #1229) is a Srinagar to Lahore item dated 12 zelqa'de [1282] ~ 29 March 1866. It bears a blue Victoria cancelled with the SEALKOTE+54 duplex (example in next scan) as well as a ½a black circular struck in the brick-red at Srinagar. This cover is virtually identical to another mailed the next day that is even more significant: Lot #1239, which we call the “Boggs cover” on account of its b/w photograph in full in that author’s 1941 Stamp Specialist Blue Book article. It is significant in that it bears a second stamp from a second despatch point, and a highly notable stamp it is...
... namely the ½a dull blue circular. Haverbeck & Boggs mistakenly assumed that it was of 1-anna denomination. Only relatively recently has the class of early half-blues been generally recognized. These early half-blues must have been recognized in private for a long time, or else they were mistaken for 1a stamps just as was done by Haverbeck, Boggs, and others.
° British curved SEALKOTE+54 duplex and the Srinagar seal
cancelling the 1a royal blue watercolor. The (separable?) duplex
was in use between June 1865 in the pre-stamps period into perhaps early September 1867.
The 54 must be distinguished from early and late species used with different datestamps:
a scarce pre-stamps version known from 1864
can be seen in the Bard Papers on site, and there is a ringed-54 known from 1868.
The detail shown above is from a 1 April cover in the Hellrigl Collection. The Victoria
stamp is the ½a blue Die I, wmkd elephant head, issued in 1865.
By the way, speaking of #54, the station at Simla was #55, but examples of Simla and Kashmir postal connections
are unaccountably (?) scarce given that British officialdom involved with Kashmir often took leave at Simla.
The celebrated Edwardian railroad to Simla was constructed only after our period.
April 1866
° Jammu sorting seal. This strike in a brownish red appeared on the back of the Hellrigl cover mentioned above, 1 April 1866, and predates the first sightings of the Jammu seal in magenta. The inscription is only partially readable by us as dâk [...] Jammûn ~ post [...] Jammu. It is reported again in black next month, May.
° State Seal Jammu. While this implement was in theory available from day one at Jammu (where the first stamps are presumed to have been printed) its marking in magenta is not actually attested until mid-April 1866. Like the Srinagar seal, it too was struck in black on its final runs (1868-70) after which it was replaced by the Jammu iron-mine seal. It was thus a significantly shorter-lived implement than the Srinagar seal. The inscription reads Jammûn dâk khane ~ Jammu Post Office. Inspection of the final-n so prominent in the scan suggests that the impression is mirror-reversed, and that is indeed the case. The second image is an extravagant example, in the form of a transit marking, of the more typical smudge that this implement usually provides.
Stamps. The 1a grey-black watercolor circular, one of the great J&K rarities, has been tentatively assigned to April 1866. There is a unique pair on a jawab fragment in the Hellrigl collection. The 4a counterpart in black is not of this period, and it is better understood as some kind of companion to the Jammu plate done in black next year. It is not known in postal use.
Stamps. The 1a and 4a ultramarine circulars. The well-printed 1a royal blue or bright ultramarine stamps that characterized the first days of production gave way quickly to a sequence of relatively degraded printings in a range of shades and demeanors. They are gathered under the catch-all heading of “ultramarine,” and will be seen for about a year, primarily on Srinagar covers.
June 1866
Cover. A second example of a “two-venue” cover of the Boggs type mentioned in the March entry is reported by Tim Eames for June 1866, details on the jawab page. It contains another of the ½a dull blues, this time cancelled (for now it could be) with the telling Jammu magenta.
July 1866
° UMRITSUR hexagon. Struck here in red for 20 July 1866, this is the
first attested use in Kashmir. Though scarce it is sporadically attested to about the end of 1869.
It is also reported (Hellrigl) in black on 16 December 1875.
September 1866
Stamps. 23 September may the earliest recorded of the Kashmir single-die ½a grey-black watercolor rectangular. (One well-known claim for June is based on a misreading, though perhaps there are other such early sightings.) The first Kashmir composite plate might conceivably have been carved in September as well, for the plate-½a black is now known for 8 October 1866. Since the 1a is not attested until the following spring 1867, it is likely that only a single sheet was printed in 1866, with several others following in late March or early April 1867.
° SEALKOTE Open-Circle cds. This example is one of at least two
cuttings. An earlier by some weeks (Jul-Aug 1866) was done in black in larger lettering.
The red is reported sparsely over the rest of the year (Sep-Dec 1866.)
The corresponding open-circle type for UMRITSUR ceased service
just shortly before the advent of the State stamps. The image shown above is a detail from a cover in the
Jaiswal collection that included the following special marking:
° Diamond of Dots (9×9) obliterator. Together with the
SEALKOTE datestamp shown next (the K version, not the C version) this British obliterator was
applied by the Sialkot City Mail Agency, as opposed to the Sialkot Exchange Office itself. Reference Bard.
The image is a detail from a cover in the Jaiswal collection that included the preceding open-circle datestamp.
W. Hellrigl reports also a late strike of the diamond in blue for September 1869.
October 1866
Cover. The earliest known cover bearing the Kashmir plate ½a black watercolor is dated 8 October 1866 and another is known for November 1866. Catalogues mark the advent of the plate only from the following spring.
° Serifed SEALCOTE and SEALKOTE datestamps. The C-type datestamp was known already in the pre-stamp period and will outlive its K-type partner by as much as three years. The C-type is reported to be of the Sialkot Exchange Office while the K-type is of the Sialkot City Mail Agency. Both types are found sharing the same cover from October 1866 (hence this entry here) in shades of red, oranges, and black. As seems a tradition now, black only is seen in the last years of usage. Reports differ substantially about dates. There are also different cuttings (cf. the April 1868 entry, where the basic type is found in duplex use with a circled-54 obliterator.) The K-type is assumed gone sometime in the summer of 1871, though we have heard of a report for May 1872. The horizontal unserifed SEALKOTE + L-3 duplex supplanted the C-type in July 1874.
° Serifed SEALKOTE cds. This K-type was applied by the Sialkot City Mail Agency and is assumed gone sometime in the summer of 1871, though we have heard of a report for May 1872.
° Serifed-UMRITSUR cuttings over time. The tell-tale differences in the lettering occur rather strongly in the forms of the -SU-combination viewed as a unit. The squashed moths at the bottom could also do with a zoological classification. The type was used primarily as a despatch marking, usually in black, and as an arrival marking, usually in shades of red, which come in a broad range from deep reds to light reddish-orange. They persist in one cutting or another to summer 1872 in red and as late as summer 1875 in black.
November 1866
° U-26 obliterator. This implement, used by the Sialkot City Mail Agency, persisted in sporadic use for about two years, to December 1868, when it also appears in violet. The marking is significantly wider than it is tall. This image is from a detail of an 1867 cover in the Hellrigl collection. This type is not to be confused with another U-26 obliterator of squarer shape surrounded by a circle seen in November 1870, where it is found in duplex with a rare serifed SEALCOTE CITY datestamp in arc.
AD 1867
The dual monarchy of Austria-Hungary was established this year. The US Government bought Alaska from Russia for 7.2 million dollars. The first paperback book, Goethe’s Faust Part I, went on sale in Leipzig, Germany. Prince Mutsuhito, 14, becomes Emperor Meiji of Japan (1867-1912) in February. The International Exposition opens in Paris on 1 April. John W. Scott, originally a Londoner, produced his first price-lists this June in New York, a venture that was to lead to the Scott catalog. His shop at 34 Liberty St adjoined the City Hall Post Office. The Dominion of Canada forms on 1 July 1867 (pardon, but no Canadian postage stamps about that till next year, eh?) Luxembourg gains independence from Belgium this September. Alaska adopts the Gregorian calendar in October and therewith dispatches Julian. Garibaldi marches on Rome.
Stamps. Four new printing implements are introduced this year, namely the ‘visitors’ plate of
ten clichés containing ¼a and 2a values, the Jammu four-plate in August, and the
two high-value Kashmir rectangular single dies in autumn, therewith completing the set of
printing implements of the Old Period. These implements will be in use for another decade—the single exception being
the Kashmir ½a rectangular single die, which was lost or refashioned this year. It was the only implement to
escape official defacement at the end of the century. Visitors may have had more pressing concerns than
preferential postal rates, however, for this
was a severe time of cholera in Srinagar.
The three common circulars of the first year, namely the ½a black and the 1a & 4a ultramarines,
disappear this year. Kashmir rectangulars essentially took over their labors at Srinagar from
the spring. As to Jammu, one naturally assumes that these circulars were in continued use
until the advent of the Jammu plate in blacks and blues at the end of the summer. Unfortunately
a large fraction of the blue circulars struck in magenta are undated fragments, and we are unaware of
reports of specific summer sightings for Jammu.
April 1867
° POST OFFICE CASHMERE + C duplex. The drawing, taken from
Séfi & Mortimer, should show a circle enclosing the obliterator segment.
This duplex, known from April 1867 to the end of the
1870 visitors’ season, was the first British marking used within the State—at Srinagar.
The datestamp section was used without date inserts in the 1870 season to obliterate State stamps (image right)
on mail lacking British postage.
It was also used as a transit or sorting stamp on the same class of mail.
The detail of the cds potion shown above left is from a June 1867 cover in the Hellrigl collection.
The State stamp is off-cover.
Stamps. The Kashmir plate was printed at least thrice overall in slightly different shades of blue between April and June of this year 1867. The 1-anna denomination in these shades are thus extreme rarities. On cover they are known only on the special jawab covers, at least three of which have been erroneously tagged as local covers in the earlier literature (e.g. Haverbeck Lot 1427) on account of the absence of British postage. On account of their rarity, these 1a blues have been designated errors of color, though doubts about that assumption have been entertained often.
June 1867
° POST OFFICE CASHMERE with ‘branch’ fleuron. This marking is now attested on only three or four covers, but spread over time from now to at least September 1869. The drawing is from A. Bard, SG Stamp Monthly, 70, Dec 1982.
July 1867
Stamps. July (some say June) may have been the advent month of the Visitors’ Plate. The upper row of ¼a was printed only in black watercolor; the lower row of 2a was first printed in shades of ‘buff’ for an extended period (an example from an 1871 cover is shown below) until purer yellows are seen finally in 1872. The 2as on cover are rather scarce.
August 1867
Stamps. The Jammu plate is first reported in late August, printed in black watercolor for a two-week period or so. It is accompanied by a new 4a black circular (not known in postal use) which has been variously rationalized. The practice of matching the Jammu plate with a counterpart 4a circular in the same pigment persists throughout the entire history of the Jammu plate.
October 1867
° 147 obliterator. This numeral, enclosed in a lozenge or rhombus of horizontal bars, is sighted on a Ladakh cover that passed through Srinagar, Jammu, Sialkot, Lahore, and Nirpoor (12 October.) Where was this obliterator applied? The number 147 is to be contrasted with earlier counterparts 244 & 144 attested at Sialkot in the period before the advent of State stamps. Bard reports the 244 for 1855-59 and the 144 (as an error) between 1859-60. The cover is in the Jaiswal collection.
AD 1868
E.L. Pemberton wrote a very early account of the stamps of ‘Cashmere’ in
April 1868
° Serifed SEALCOTE + 54 duplex. This implement is known from April 1868 and is attested to as late as perhaps February 1874. The image is a detail from a cover in the Hellrigl collection. The cutting of the cds section is slightly different from that shown upscreen in the October 1866 entry.
May 1868
Stamps. May 1868 was the likely advent month of the Jammu Reds (in rectangulars, not circulars yet.) This month is also the end-date often ascribed to the use of the Jammu circular seal in magenta. A couple of covers are known from this month in which the magenta seal is indeed used with the red rectangulars; the shock of this color combination to sensitive souls must have prompted the immediate switch to black:
June 1868
° The Jammu Circular Seal in black. Strikes are seen only in black from June 1868 into the spring of 1870 (when the Jammu Iron Mine seal superseded it.)
July 1868
° SEALCOTE triangle. This marking is known from July 1868 into the spring of 1870. The type, which was used on covers lacking British postage, had no overlap with its later counterpart in the CASHMERE triangle, which came into use at Srinagar after Kashmir was admitted to the Punjab Circle (example downscreen under April 1871.) There are several other triangles of this type, Ferozepur for example. Whether such others figure in Kashmir stamp doings we do not know. The red-orange triangle shown above is a detail from a January 1869 cover in the Hellrigl collection.
AD 1869
With the opening of the Suez Canal in 1869 the mailing time between India and Britain is reduced to about 20 days from 30. Lord Mayo becomes Viceroy to India (to be murdered three years hence.) Charles Mortimer was born this year; his J&K co-author Alexander Séfi will be born in twenty years time. The Urdu poet Ghalib died this year.
January 1869
Stamps. The “Jammu Reds” appear among the watercolor circulars for the first time (examples from the Jammu plate having appeared already the previous spring.) There is again a strong parallelism between shades of the Jammu plate and the 4a circulars, presumably because this high denomination (for registration) did not exist for Jammu in rectangulars.
May 1869
The British POST OFFICE CASHMERE + C duplex that first appeared in April 1867 is recorded by A.S. Bard as having been used in red as a sorting mark on two covers dated 29 May 1869 and 5 June 1869.
AD 1870
The main rail line from Delhi reached Lahore in this year, and would inch its way to Jhelum in nine years, 1879. A suspension bridge was constructed at Kohala this year, which aided the mails on the western route to and from Rawalpindi, which later became an important disbursing office for the Kashmir mails. The Vittorio Emanuele II monument was built in honor of the first king of united Italy in 1870.
April 1870
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 State stamps, but starting in the spring of 1870 (mid-April perhaps) the seal began a long active service of more than nine years 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 âhan-e kân-e jammûn 1915 ~ ‘Seal of the Iron Mine of Jammu 1858 AD’. The seal retired from service in August or September 1879, i.e., during the early New Rectangulars period. The impression seen above is in the form of one of the 1981 Staal-Sharma strikes in purple ink.
November 1870
° Serifed SEALCOTE CITY cds in arc + circled U/26 obliterator, rare. The cds (alone?) is reported also for June 1872 by Séfi. The much more prevalent unserifed type is known only from much later, see Nov 1877 entry.
AD 1871
The world’s first cat show is to be held this Christmas season at the Crystal Palace in London. Mathematician Zermelo was born and Lewis Carroll publishes Through the Looking Glass. A number of important British postmarks make their appearance this year; those at Srinagar in consequence of that office coming under the auspices of the Punjab Circle this year. In other Asia, Japan and Afghanistan issue their first stamps.
April 1871
° Serifed CASHMERE + 325 duplex. This implement was used between April 1871 to perhaps May 1875. This image (containing the Kashmir 2a buff in its latest known usage) is a detail from a May 1871 cover in the Hellrigl collection. What follows in an instructive fragment bearing on this duplex:
° Serifed CASHMERE cds in independent use. The upper strike is of the duplex shown in the preceding entry, but now we also see in the lower strike the simultaneous strike from of a second implement used independently. Date insertions (when present) come in both the month-day and day-month formats. The year was discontinued from 1873. Reference: MacGillicuddy & Bard India Post 09, 062 (1975). The separated cds is attested between the same dates as recorded for the duplex.
° Serifed CASHMERE cds in red. One is familiar with Umritsurs, Sealcotes, and Sealkotes coming in a variety of red and orange shades, but not the CASHMEREs. Rare postmark from a cover in the Hellrigl collection.
° CASHMERE Triangle. This tds is one of a series of similar markings used in British India (the
SEALCOTE triangle being
another of interest to J&Kers, pictured upscreen under July 1868.) An early date for the CASHMERE seems
to be April 1871, the year that the British Office at Srinagar became part of the Punjab Circle. Though
rather rare, this marking persisted through several years, evidently into 1874 to judge by the
drawing in Séfi & Mortimer. It was more often employed
as a transit seal, not an obliterator, but it makes a certain ado about missing British postage
in both cases. This detail is from a Calcutta-bound
cover without British postage, October 1871, in the Hellrigl collection.
AD 1872
Viceroy Mayo is murdered at a penal colony in the Andaman Islands, and is succeeded by Lord Northbrook. Bertrand Russell (grandson of British prime-minister John Russell) was born. George Smith came across the most famous of the Sumerian Gilgamesh tablets in Akkadian (discovered in the British Museum!) Boltzmann published his H-Theorem. E.L. Pemberton published “Novelties, Discoveries, & Resuscitations” in The Philatelic Journal p 100. Two new Post Offices were opened this year at Skardu and Ladâkh. John W. Scott (as in Scott catalog) held the first auction for postage stamps in England at Sotheby’s this March. E.L. Pemberton, well-known to J&Kers, was a bidder.
° Large Ladâkh Seal. This refers to the pale sort of pinky-buff strike in the lower part of the scan. The two smaller and prominent black seals are those of Srinagar, acting here perhaps as transit markings or more assertive cancellations. The dating of this detail, from a registered cover in the Jaiswal collection, is 12 mâgh 1935 ~ 23 January 1879. 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 Ladâkh in the height of its winter was resorting to old stock. Now we have a candidate for what the large seal actually looked like, as well as a reason for placing the seal back here in 1872 even though no cover evidence places it so early. (The Bard listing reports 1874 as an earliest sighting.) The following are Staal-Sharma restrikes made in 1981 from implements found in the Pratap Singh Museum in Srinagar. They are indeed about 28 mm across, the first good sign. Which one, if either, of the two seals shown below matches the pinky impression above?
Tests with digital masking reveal in fact a good match with the item on the left, with the -kh of Ladâkh and the -n of Jammûn lining up as well as it ever happens. Unfortunately we cannot quite read the inscription at the top. The inscription on the other item appears to be berang/dâk khâna/Ladâkh sarkâr Jammûn/1929 ~ ‘Bearing/Post Office/Ladâkh, Government Jammu/1872.’ The first is the same, except the dâk seems oddly prefixed. Of interest too on these seals is the much overt mention of Jammu authority, not Kashmir authority, in Ladâkh. The latest sighting so far is April 1879 and a strike in black is reported (Bard) for October 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 18mm) and color (red) mean that it might be mistaken for the Srinagar seal—and conversely. As we have seen above, some mail from Leh did receive a transit marking at Srinagar, and some may have been posted there (Garratt-Adams in Staal p 111)
June 1872
° UMRITSUR POST OFFICE 1ST DELIVERY (and 2ND and 3RD.) The details shown here are for August 1872, August 1874, and December 1873. The first two are details from covers in the Hellrigl collection. The 1874 dating provides a latest reporting for the second type, though the cds itself had no year.
AD 1873
Sultan Bargash closes the slave market in Zanzibar, David Livingstone dies, and the rival cities of Buda and Pest unite to form the capital of Hungary in November. Bihar suffers famine.
° Serifed SEALCOTE CITY cds. This rare type is reported for this year by Séfi. The prevalent unserifed type is only known from much later, an example in the Nov 1877 entry in the second part of this chronology..
° All-India obliterators. Each Postal Circle was assigned a letter, usually after the initial letter of the sadr (~ ‘head’) town. Such being Lahore for the Punjab Circle, we see the use of L on the series of obliterators most pertinent to us. Even the L on the Leh obliterator (October 1876) is said to represent Lahore. Quoting from Renouf:
“The obliterator has the merit of effecting a very thorough cancellation—indeed far too thorough in the view of the philatelist. It is difficult to regard it as other than inartistic and even hideous.”
But how to read them? Paraphrasing Renouf: The center line contains the Circle letter on the left and the number of the regional Disbursing Office on the right, the two being separated by a hyphen. If the office in question was subordinate to the disbursing office, its own number was added at the top. If the office in question was a merely a branch of such a non-disbursing office, a third number was added at the bottom. In the case of a branch office of a disbursing office there is of course no number at the top, but only the branch number at the bottom.
April 1873
Now here is a remarkable thing: the use of the Jammu square seal as a transit marking in 1873. We can all choose different names for its color. With thanks to W. Hellrigl for the image.
AD 1874
Not to change the subject but ... It was stated in 1874 that the integer 8616460799 would never be factored. Well, a moment at our keyboards today gives 96079 times 89681. Houdini, Somerset Maugham, and Winston Churchill are born this year.
Stamps. This year is known in the minds of J&Kers as the beginning of the so-called Special Printings at Jammu. Alas, one would not know so from most of the extant covers from this year. Postally dated material involving the specials was scarce every year. Some rare Jammu rectangulars in later shades of orange appeared this year.
March 1874
° 1.DELY UMRITSUR. The scruffy example on the upper left dated Mar 9 is seen on a Srinagar to Amritsar cover dated in manuscript 14 moharram [12]91 ~ 4 March 1874, and is thus a candidate for first sighting. The example on the upper right, from (some) April, shows better what seems to be the same cutting. The example underneath is a different cutting altogether (this from an October 1875 cover.) Note the spacings between the D and E, for example, and how the T lines up under the E. There is also a second delivery type (no third) for which we have a nice early sighting for September 1874 in the next entry. As for a latest dating of the 1st delivery, August 1876 is definitely a possibility for a number are known from late July 1876, even though this date is already past that of the first sightings of the new AMRITSAR spelling in June of that year.
July 1874
° Horizontal SEALKOTE + L-3 duplex. The implement was of the separable type, and the L-3 obliterator section stayed on for many years in other employment with other datestamps when this cds and other cuttings like it disappeared toward the end of 1876. Reports take the obliterator to as late as summer 1880. Not only do distinct cuttings exist for the cds portion (see for example next entry) but Séfi & Mortimer report that the type occurs with 1st or 2nd delivery notation, which must be decidedly scarce.
° L-3-8 duplex. A rare variant of the preceding obliterator for Sialkot City exists, dates unknown, with the bar pattern reversed, three along the top and two along the bottom. The doublet at the bottom is separated to contain a small ‘8’, presumably to distinguish the City subtype. It was used independently of a datestamp.
September 1874
° Horizontal SEALKOTE cds Type II. This variant is characterized by the notably by the larger lettering and the idiosyncratic broken-S that nudges more closely to the circle. Another distinguishing features is the anomalously short L. This type did not supersede the earlier, and both are known in contemporaneous action to the end of 1876.
° 2.DELY UMRITSUR cds. This is first reported for this date 11 September 1874, a detail from a cover in the Hellrigl collection. Since the 1st delivery type is already attested for March, we might be on the lookout for possible summer sightings. Maybe it was too hot for second deliveries!
AD 1875
This was the year of the Great Fire at Murree. Violent bread riots occured on 17 December 1875 in Montréal, Québec.
Stamps. Distinctive orange-vermilion watercolors are attested this year for the the 1a and 4a circulars, as well as for the Jammu plate. A very similar shade appears in the 1a Kashmir rectangulars from the same time and all are subject to chemical darkening.
The older blue-colored embossed lion on the flap of British stationery envelopes gave way to this colorless version sometime in 1875. We are looking for an early date for its advent in Kashmir usage. Unfortunately for datings the blue lion is still seen well into 1876 and occasionally beyond.
May 1875
° KASHMIR + 5/L-6 duplex. This separable implement appeared just before the Special Printings and persisted in service throughout the transitional period and well into the early New Rectangulars period. The type is not seen after the summer of 1880. It is with this implement that the traditional spelling of old ‘Cashmere’ had assumed its final form, which Séfi and descendants tag the Hunterian spelling. The lettering is large and spacious, with the S and the H particularly more ample and airy compared with later constricted versions in one or both of these letters. There is a dot at the end that is sometimes not visible. In the obliterator, L = Lahore, which was the sadr of the Punjab Circle; 6 = Rawalpindi, which was was the disbursing office to which 5 = Srinagar was the subordinate non-disbursing office.
° L-35/4 obliterator. This type is mentioned in the Billig Handbook, and we have not seen other discussions of it. Here is the quotation from Renouf p 508:
“The Punjab series ends at number 22, ..., but I have an entire from Cashmere with the cancellation L-35/4. The letter shows a postmark of Srinagar, which is probably a sorting mark, for the place of origin is doubtless a branch office of Srinagar, Srinagar being the disbursing office. The number 35 for a disbursing office requires some explanation. Is it simply a bad blunder by the central Punjab office?”
Was Srinagar a disbursing office at the time? Our tentative stab at an accounting for the anomalous marking is that it is really an L-3, i.e., disbursal from Sialkot. The 5 is the (non-disbursing) office number for Srinagar, which was simply inveigled into the central line instead of excising the upper bars and carving the 5 at the top. Then the 4 at the bottom (we presume it was at the bottom) was indeed for a mysterious branch office of Srinagar.
° KASHMIR cds. This independent datestamp is found alongside the duplex type from May 1875. In contrast to the cutting shown above, the S here is more constricted, the M is less symmetrical, and the top of the R is not so wide. Its life was also shorter, lasting only until autumn of 1877, the year of the first transitional oilcolors. Unlike its companion it is therefore not seen on covers bearing New Rectangulars. Both types are to be distinguished from later types that have a noticeably narrower H. It is shown in the second part of this chronology (first in April 1878 entry.)
AD 1876
Stamps. This year is known in the excitable minds of J&Kers as the beginning of the end of the so-called Special Printings at Jammu. The year is marked by the introduction of the distinctive bright blues, known in the circulars, Jammu rectangulars, and with the Kashmir plate as well. This spring sports Masson’s “cherry reds” in the Jammu rectangulars.
May 1876
Above: Here is a late example (18 May 1876) of the 1.DELY UMRITSUR type on one of its last runs before the AMRITSAR type in the new spelling started to show up:
June 1876
It was somewhere around here that the new AMRITSAR spelling began to supplant the earlier UMRITSUR spelling, though a few of the latter will be showing up for a few weeks yet, maybe even to August. The new-spelling types come not only in 1st & 2nd delivery versions as did the other, but now adds a 3rd delivery version. The 1st delivery comes in at least two different cuttings. Such delivery examples in the new spelling from the watercolor period are somewhat scarce and desirable. Since we cannot postpone a view of the basic type, here is a sampling of different sorts scavenged from the post-watercolor period; they were a long-lasting fixture:
° Type 1 of the 1.DELY AMRITSAR. These samples are for January & September 1878. Two characteristics, among several, that distinguish this type from the following is that the T does not wholly lie under the E above it and that the final-R is wide compared with its counterpart below. Contrast the following:
° Type 2 of the 1.DELY AMRITSAR. In these details from June 1877, April & May 1879, notice how the rather narrow T now does line up under the E above it. Most notable perhaps is the constant upper dotting of the second A. The final-R is narrower here, and the spacing between the intial-A and the circle is greater. The latest for both types seems to be autumn 1881, well into the New Rectangulars period.
° 2.DELY AMRITSAR. The earliest date we have heard of is for July 1877 on a Kashmir watercolors cover. The example left is from August 1878 and the one on the right is December 1880 with clear cover corroboration.
° 3.DELY AMRITSAR. This type seems to have had a limited run from July to October 1877, and so does not appear on this page until we know for certain that it had its origin within the watercolors period. A nice example with a Jammu oilcolor can be seen in the July 1877 entry in the second part of this chronology.
By the way, a [blank] AMRITSAR is a late and rare cds that is naturally associated with this group has no delivery notation at all, and may indeed have been a receiving or sorting stamp. A good example is seen in the second part, in the March 1881 entry, which is the only date we know for it.
October 1876
° First LEH datestamp. This marking is attested for more than seven years between October 1876 and March 1884, and is thus found with State watercolors, oilcolors, and both Jammu- and Srinagar-printed New Rectangulars. The possibility has arisen that there are at least two different cuttings for this early type, where, most notably, a dot may or may not appear after the end of the name (together with other differences in the lettering.) More examples of better images than we currently have access to are needed to decide the point. (With thanks to Phil Lunn for the alert.) Despite its longevity, this marking is curiously scarce and must be assiduously distinguished from the more commonly-seen cutting that immediately superseded it in March 1884. The scan is a detail from a March 1882 cover in the Bard collection.
° 3/L-3 obliterator. This marking appeared with the first Leh cds in spring 1876 and both are occasionally seen on the same cover, at least up to late summer 1882 when the obliterator was abandoned. The scan on the left is a detail from a cover ex Mix and the other is the schematic drawing taken from Séfi & Mortimer. To go by Renouf’s description of these implements, the 3 at the top, assuming it refers to Leh, means that Leh was a non-disbursing office subordinate to Sialkot, which is designated by the 3 in the lower line. The L stands for Lahore, the head office for the Punjab Circle.
° 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 dâk jammûn ~ ‘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.