The images on this page are confined to postal markings of the Watercolor Decade. While oilcolor stamps replaced watercolors at Jammu in 1877, watercolors remained in use in Kashmir to May 1878. Of the many British markings that are pertinent to J&K philately only those of Sialkot, Sialkot City, and Amritsar are attended to here, not only on account of their prominence in the extant material, but by virtue of the special British Exchange Offices located at these venues.
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 Bernhard Riemann died all too young this year. Andrew Johnson is US president, after the assassination of Abraham Lincoln the preceding year. Mendel publishes on dominant and recessive characteristics in plants. Bismarck annexes most of Germany. Prussia and Italy declare war on Austria in June and planet 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.
Stamps 1866. Ungummed “adhesives,” individually handstamped in watercolors, were inaugurated in March this year by Ranbir Singh, Maharajah of the State (1857-85). Three native postage stamps are known from the first days of stamp production, namely the ½a grey-black, the ½a dull-blue, and the 1a royal blue (bright ultramarine) watercolor circulars. The first was the workhorse of the threesome, and is prominent in the record for some eighteen months.
The ½a dull-blue is known postally on only a couple of important covers (the Boggs-Eames mysteries). Only relatively recently (from perhaps the mid-1980s) has a class of early half-blues been generally recognized at all. The specific shade and demeanor that characterizes the first 1a royal blue is in use for less than a month. These well-printed blues gave way quickly to a sequence of relatively degraded printings, gathered under the catch-all heading of ultramarine, and will be seen for about a year, primarily on Srinagar covers. A range of 4a ultramarines also appeared.
The 1a grey-black watercolor circular, one of the great J&K rarities, has been tentatively assigned to April 1866. The 4a counterpart in black is not of this period, and it is better understood as some kind of non-postal companion to the Jammu plate done in black next year.
23 September 1866 may be the earliest recorded of the Kashmir single-die ½a grey-black watercolor rectangular. The first Kashmir composite plate was likely 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. Catalogues erroneously mark the advent of the plate only from that juncture, not the preceding autumn.
Pen cancellation aside, the only Native postal markings for 1866 are in the form of seal strikes used at Srinagar and at Jammu.
° 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.
° 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 “javab” 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.
° 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, 1865, wmkd elephant head.
° 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 sorting or unpaid transit date-stamp. It was around 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.
° UMRITSUR hexagon. Struck here in red for 20 July 1866, this is the first attested use in Kashmir, but is known on other mail before the advent of native stamps. Though scarce, it is sporadically attested to about the end of 1869. It is also reported (Hellrigl) in black on 16 December 1875.
° 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 native 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 downscreen a bit, 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.
° 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; reference Bard. Both types are found sharing the same cover from October 1866 in shades of red, oranges, and finally black. Reports differ substantially about dates. There are also different cuttings. 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-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.
° U-26 obliterator. This implement, used by the Sialkot City Mail Agency, persisted in sporadic use for about two years starting perhaps in November 1866 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.
1867. A time of severe cholera at Srinagar. 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 (but the first Canadian postage stamps do not appear until next year). Luxembourg gains independence from Belgium this September. Alaska adopts the Gregorian calendar in October and therewith dispatches Julian. Garibaldi marches on Rome.
Stamps 1867. Four new printing implements are introduced this year, namely the ‘visitors’ plate of ten containing a ¼a-value in grey-black and a 2a value, printed in a kind of buff this year. The Jammu composite plate appeared in August (briefly printed with black and subsequently in a wide range of blues). The two high-value Kashmir rectangular single dies appear in the 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.
The three common circulars of the first year, namely the ½a grey-black and the 1a and 4a ultramarine, disappear this year. Kashmir rectangulars essentially took over their labors at Srinagar in the spring. As to Jammu, one naturally assumes that these circulars were in continued use until the advent of the Jammu plate. 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.
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 javab 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.
° POST OFFICE CASHMERE + C duplex. The drawing of the duplex on the left, which was taken from Séfi & Mortimer, should show a circle enclosing the obliterator segment, and is otherwise fairly impressionistic. This was the first British postal marking used in Kashmir. It is known from April 1867 to the end of the 1870 visitors’ season on mail leaving the state posted by Europeans resident in Srinagar. Such visitors were allowed a half-rate privilege on the State postage. This mail passed through the Indian hill-town of Murree (Marri) to the west. The date stamp section was used without date inserts in the 1870 season to obliterate native stamps (image right) on mail lacking British postage. It was also used as an unpaid transit or sorting stamp.
° POST OFFICE CASHMERE with ‘branch’ fleuron at the bottom. This rare marking in red (not part of a duplex) is now attested on only three or four covers, but spread over time from June 1867 (scan above) to at least September 1869.
° 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 1867). Where was this obliterator applied? The number 147 is to be contrasted with earlier counterparts 244 and 144 attested at Sialkot in the period before the advent of Native stamps. Bard reports the 244 for 1855-59 and the 144 (as an error) between 1859-60. Jaiswal collection.
1868. The first
postage stamp cancelling machine was patented in the US in March.
Edward Loines Pemberton (1844-78) wrote a very early account of the stamps
of ‘Cashmere’ in the old journal
Stamps 1868. May was the likely advent month of the Jammu Red rectangulars. While a few covers are known from this month in which the magenta seal is still being used, even on the new red rectangulars, the switch to black pigment is nigh.
° Serifed SEALCOTE + 54 duplex. This implement is known from spring 1868 and is attested to as late as perhaps February 1874. The image is a detail from an April 1868 cover in the Hellrigl collection. The cutting of the cds section is slightly different from that shown upscreen in the 1866 section.
° 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.
° 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. There are several other triangles of this type, Ferozepur, for example. The red-orange triangle is a detail from the cover shown above.
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.
Stamps 1869. The “Jammu Reds” appear among the watercolor circulars for the first time (examples in red 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.
° 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.
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. Back in England, Charles Dickens dies in June, aged 58. The Vittorio Emanuele II monument was built in honor of the first king of united Italy in 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 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 dreadful 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.
° 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 late 1877.
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. Germany was unified with the inception of the German Empire. 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. In other Asia, Japan and Afghanistan issue their first stamps.
° Serifed CASHMERE + 325 duplex. This implement was used between April 1871 to perhaps May 1875. This image (containing the Kashmir 2a buff) 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 at all, come in both the month-day and day-month formats. The year was discontinued from 1873. The separated cds is attested between the same dates as recorded for the duplex. Reference: T. Mac Gillycuddy and T. Bard, India Post 09, 62 (1975).
° 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 pictured upscreen in the 1868 section. The earliest date for this Kashmir use may 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.
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 in May; Max Beerbohm in August. George Smith came across the most famous of the Sumerian Gilgamesh tablets in Akkadian (discovered in the British Museum). Physicist Ludwig Boltzmann published his H-Theorem. Two new Post Offices were opened this year at Skardu and Ladakh. 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. This was the year that he published his “Novelties, Discoveries, & Resuscitations” in The Philatelic Journal, p 100.
° UMRITSUR POST OFFICE 1ST DELIVERY (and 2ND and 3RD). There is now a new earliest dating for the 1st-delivery type of 22 January 1872 (not the example shown above, which is an August delivery). The second image is an August 1874 dating, and is the latest recorded for the 2nd-delivery type. The third image is the only example we have seen of the 3rd-delivery type; it was delivered on Christmas Eve 1873.
° 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 is 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).
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. The Maxwell Theory of Electricity & Magnetism is launched. 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 late 1877.
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.
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. The name “electron” was introduced by G. Johnstone Stoney this year, but the entity was not experimentally detected until Kashmir stamps are history. Houdini, Somerset Maugham, and Winston Churchill are born this year.
Stamps 1874. 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.
° The 1.DELY UMRITSUR. The scruffy example on the upper left dated March 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 (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, so far as we know). 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.
° Horizontal SEALKOTE Type I + L-3 duplex. Perhaps July 1874. The implement was of the separable type, and the L-3 obliterator section stayed on for many years in other employment with other date stamps 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, but Séfi & Mortimer report that the type also occurs with 1st or 2nd delivery notation, which must be decidedly scarce.
As to the L-3 obliterator, one of the “All-India” series: 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.
° Horizontal SEALKOTE Type II. This beautiful strike in a different cutting shows a usage independent of an obliterator. This is from a Jammu-Calcutta cover for August 1875.
° Horizontal SEALKOTE Type III, possibly from September 1874. This variant is easily distinguished by its larger lettering and by the shape of the S, which nudges the circle. Another 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. This was the last of the SEALKOTEs, the spelling having been changed to SIALKOT in 1877.
° The 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.
1875. This was the year of the Great Fire at Murree. Violent bread riots occured on 17 December 1875 in Montréal, Québec.
Stamps 1875. 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.
° 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, seen possibly from May 1875, 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 for a 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.
1876. 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.
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 (treated here on the next page).
° First LEH datestamp. This marking is attested for more than seven years between October 1876 and March 1884, and is thus found with watercolors, oilcolors, and both Jammu- and Srinagar-printed New Rectangulars. The possibility has arisen that there are 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. (With thanks to Phil Lunn for the alert.) Despite its longevity, this marking is scarce and must be assiduously distinguished from the more commonly-seen version that immediately superseded it in March 1884. The scan is a detail from a March 1882 cover in the Bard collection.
° The 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 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.
Thus the Watercolor Decade in rough outline. Still we have to remember that the postal use of watercolors persisted at Kashmir and Ladakh into the New Rectangulars period. The Srinagar seal in black, which made its first appearance in November 1877, is therefore technically beyond the period of this page, but we must include it as an honorary Watercolor Period marking even though it did go on to a part-time retirement job cancelling New Rectangulars.