This page concludes the chronology by taking the story through the so-called “Unified Period,” which was dominated by the use of 3-ring datestamps, British postal stationery, and older-printed native stock (“re-issues”). This transition period ended with the full assimilation of the native posts into the British postal operations, a process that was completed formally on 1 Nov 1894 when native stamps became obsolete.
1891. In April, Oscar Wilde published The Picture of Dorian Gray in novel form. On May 5 Tchaikovsky is guest conductor at Carnegie Hall, NY. Just as riveting, it is said that the native postcard received a repair. The 3-ring date stamps started to appear with more regularity. The denominations puzzle in the circular stamps became a matter of debate. An anomalous trio of printings on gummed wove paper, clean-perforated 12, are said to have appeared this year in ⅛a brownish-yellow, ½a orange-red, and 1a greens. The British 2½a green overprint on the 4a6p yellow-green Victoria was issued on 1 January this year; somehow it found itself on a Kashmir cover in 1893.
While the first of the 3-rings may have appeared in late 1890, they do not show up in real force until early this year. The series comprises some 80 types for different POs and functions. Some of them are not attested in actual use, and many others are rare.
The example of the 3-ring shown above for regular mail is what Séfi and Mortimer called the “normal form” (their Type 77). It has no western dating in the central area. The dating here is 10 sāvan in a rather odd rendering, but it is consistent with the Western dating. Some post offices seemed disinclined to use the date insertions, or were disinclined to change them. English and Dogri datings are sometimes inconsistent and the inserted numerals sometimes appear backward or upside-down. There are special usage types for REG[istration] and PAR[cel]. One type was for the CHECK OFFICE, the precise purpose of which was not certain to Séfi and Mortimer, who report that such cancellations are found on parcel paperwork. A.S. Bard in India Post 09 86 (1975) reports the Check Office as having been a temporary local post office in Srinagar. The latest date we have so far seen reported of the latter type is 18 April 1892. Séfi and Mortimer speak also of a rare type of 1892 CAMP POST OFFICE that those authors suggested might be associated with an officials’ travelling post office. Others have naturally suggested the military connection. There are also a couple of DEAD LETTER OFFICE types.
Jasmergarh and Gulmarg 3-rings, the one in purple in the form of a Staal-Sharma restrike. The date DE. 24 occurs in the Samvat month poh, but the marking shows instead the kātik of October-November, and so serves as the obvious warning.
The regular markings of Nowan Shahr are often seen in non-postal cancelling, including that of forgeries. According to Staal (p 233) it may not be a coincidence that the Nowan Shahr implement of the regular kind was not found at the Pratap Singh Museum in 1981. The same may be said for others, including the Srinagar regular implement. Conversely, some of the implements now held by the museum, such as a Manowar cancel (not a 3-ring), are precisely those found on fraudulent markings, even as to the preserved date. Khui Ruttah and Seri are not mentioned in the post office listings in Séfi and Mortimer p 246-47 or in Staal p 142, though Staal-Sharma restrikes were done for these.
April 1891 was an unusually active one for new postal markings. The new spelling JUMMU begins from this time, perhaps to mark its status now as a Head British PO, and it is only now with the snows starting to go away that the new 3-ring cancellations start showing up in earnest. All this provides a natural juncture for what might be called the Late Period.
Above: Other J&K venues came to employ the basic Tavi or corner-bars type. The JUMMU version seen here (from Masson II) may have appeared upon the retirement of the original TAVI (seen upscreen in the January 1891 entry). Three others in J&K use were the SRINAGAR, DOMEL, and BARA MULLA, the latter not seen until summer 1892. The SRINAGAR is the most common type; but see the September entry below for a caution.
Above: The J&K literature often refers to this basic style of combined datestamp and corner-bar obliterator as being of TAVI-type, presumably because the Tavi appeared earliest. The simultaneous use of a TAVI JAMMU-STATE datestamp of precisely the same design as seen here, but without the corner bars, is also attested. Were indeed the obliterator bars separable?
The curved DOMEL is known from these April days to just after the closing of the Native posts. Domel is not a long walk from Muzaffarabad on the western frontier of Kashmir. You don’t want to be there today, no. The scan is a detail from a postmark-rich postcard in the Jaiswal collection.
SRINAGAR + 1ST DELY ad 2ND DELY, known between April 1891 and April 1894.
More April 1891. The curved JUMMU delivery stamps come in both 1ST and 2ND DELY versions. The JUMMU REG[istration] type (right) also has a fleuron at the bottom. The R/JUMMU registration seal may also have appeared at this time. There was also a JUMMU PAR[cel].
Non-postal Tavi-type. First our apology for the unhappy hole in the second stamp; we were fighting off dagger-wielding zealots at the time. Séfi and others warn that the SE.4 91 dating is found in the cancellation of New Rectangular remainders, on reprints of Kashmir old rectangulars (as here) as well as on circular reprints. That must have been a busy day or three for the happy stampers. The marking is known again in postal service in later years, to at least spring 1894.
A 2-ring. Séfi and Mortimer Type 84. Those authors claim a date-range from May 1892 to
July 1893, but the example shown here is 8 September 1891. Bhadarwah is
in the eastern part of Jammu Province bordering Chamba. An exceptionally
difficult runner line connects it to Jammu via Ramnagar. The stamps
are ½a orange reissues. Bard refers to this office
as a “Jagir PO,” as was that of Poonch and Kahuta.
1892. A large number of covers bearing 1891-92 Srinagar markings, 3-rings and registration boxes, are found with odd combinations of officials and reissues, sometimes in blocks of unseemly size. There is a growing awareness that these were philatelic concoctions for collectors. British stamps are very scarce on Kashmir mail after 1892, Poonch somewhat excepted. The British 3a brown-orange is mentioned by Séfi & Mortimer as a rare usage this year. Gino Fano made the first axiomatization of projective geometry.
The barred-L seen here on a January 1892 detail is a variant, characterized among other features by the shortened bars on the left and the appearance of a slight backward slant to the upright. The Amritsar delivery cds seen here made is first appearance back in September 1888. We have no latest date to report, except to report that one of our 3rd DEL versions of the same is dated April 1894.
Anthony Bard reports the Kotli 10-bar between May 1892 and February 1894, with the latest date showing sorting use. The type is characterized by the relatively thin lines, at least in its usual execution. The detail on the left, taken from the internet, is from a Kotli to Jammu cover via Nowshera on 29 May 1893. Kotli is south of Poonch. That on the right is unidentified.
1893. Stanley Gibbons Ltd. moved to its present location at 399 Strand, London. It had been in business since 1865, just months prior to the issuance of the first circulars. British stamps, excepting the embossed stationery, become very scarce in Kashmir mail in this late period. A rare cover with the surcharged 2½a on the 4a 6p green Victoria of 1891 has been reported for this year. We are not aware of postal markings that made their advent or marked an explicit funeral in this penultimate year.
1894. The final year of operations of the Native PO. The system will formally amalgamate with that of British India on November 1. The transition has been occurring for some time, as told by the advance of the “unified” 3-ring date stamps and the diplomatic absence of British stamps in the final period before they take over entirely.
The latest (also the earliest) curved AMRITSAR 3RD DELY that we can show, April 1894. We have no reports on its date range. This type is in four lines, not the usual five as seen in the earlier 1st and 2nd delivery (1888) counterparts. By the way, the manuscript scribble on the image is the year samvat 1951.
Above: A number of late curved Sialkots appeared in the months before the closing of the Native posts. These scans are taken from Séfi & Mortimer. The lettering on these schematic drawings is not to be trusted as to detail.
This Z-type JUMMU (there is also a Y-type) are known for September 1894. There are also earlier W-types in a different format (see the Bard Papers). We do not know what these letter distinctions were for. But no X, whyever not?
On left, the curved SRINAGAR 1ST DELY. On right, The rare RESIDENCY JUMMU uniplex, seen here for 28 October 1894. The design motif combines datestamp and obliteration bars. These scans are from Masson II. The last mail runs under the formal auspices of the Native Post Offices are taking place with these letters, to end midnight Hallowe’en. A good run.
A number of the British postal markings natually spanned the cross-over date. Shown here is another of the 1st DELY shown above, but for 5 November, Guy Fawkes, just days after the formal closing of the native posts. On the same item was this rare MUZEFFERABAD B.O. (Branch Office) for 3 November. We have no idea about its time range. These details are from an internal postcard in the Jaiswal collection.
Séfi & Mortimer remark that the marking shown above on the left is seen on New Rectangulars “remainder-stock.” Perhaps some headway can be had in reading it from these images: As the marking appears in mirror-image form on the stamp, we have reversed it for easier viewing in the second image and have also done some makeshift reconstruction using the upper piece. It is dated 1293 ~ 1876, and thus antedates the New Rectangulars themselves. The circle in the center looks like a ‘5’, purpose unknown.
RAJOURI B.O. JUMMU (no dating). The British Rajouri Branch Office, established by January 1895 after the closing of the native post, was on the runner line that stretched along the valley of the Tavi river between Nowshera and Thana Mundi. The strikes seen above on a block of ½a black officials are not highly visible from the front, and being of an oily character are much better seen in reversed form from the back. We have re-reversed the image for an easier inspection of the marking. A suggestion by Anthony Bard is that these datestamps lacking date-slugs may represent a fiscal use and that some native stamps may have served a revenue function before they were “sold off to the Good Reverend.”
It is no surprise that echoes of the native postal service linger in the post-postal period. Native postcards, for example, used in an unofficial capacity by visitors, persist for many years. The latest example we have seen on the internet is from 1935 with a George V Indian stamp.