The ½a Kashmir Single-Die
The first Kashmir die. The advent month of this implement is not known.
Masson gives 3 Oct 1866 as an early sighting,
but that cover, shown downscreen, is better dated to 23 September 1866.
Reports of an anomalously early June 1866 advent
may have been inspired from the piece displayed on Staal Plate 8, but the dating lines should read
1283 shahr-e 29 jomādī'ul-avval
~ 9 October 1866, which happens to be the earliest date cited so far of
a plate black. The older literature erroneously reports the
advent for the latter as occuring the following spring. Our letter code for the
first Kashmir die is D.
With the possibility that the Kashmir single die and the first Kashmir composite plate saw postal use within at most weeks of one another—not almost a year as the older literature has it—we conjecture that the first productions from the single die were tantamount to essays for the design adopted for the ambitious 25-subject plate. Some of the single-die productions found their way immediately into postal action, passing in effect from essay to proof to provisional issue to regular issue. The stamps remained in service alongside the composite plate productions in black for several months, and they both went out of use together the following spring. A tandem career.
Essay. This is the unique unfinished watercolor essay of the ½a single-die issue. A gem in the Hellrigl collection. The paper is coarse and diagonally-laid. Séfi & Mortimer report that this item had been found in the notebook of the engraver Rahat Ju, and it came into the hands of Captain Godfrey. The design of the issued stamp (next scan) does evince a stage betwixt this unfinished essay that of the plate-designs. The leaf spandrels, for example, were turned first into simple squares at the single-die stage and then into dotted squares on the ensuing plate.
The ½a grey-black watercolor on native paper. The issued stamp is a group of one, for no other colors were employed. The literature does speak of an “intense” shade that comes in contrast to the example shown above (ex Dawson, Lot 305). The issue is known on some dozen covers in addition to used copies off-cover, as here. A unique used vertical pair on piece was offered in the Haverbeck auction, Lot 1373. Unused copies, which in our speculations were de facto essays for the first plate, number only some half-dozen. A production anomaly is known uniquely that bears an offset impression of the same stamp on the back.
For the item shown above, the Masson date discrepancy changes (one of) the accepted advent dates for this important stamp. The conversion utility assigns ‘9th Assu 1923’ to 23 Sep 1866, where Masson’s 3rd October is ten days later. That dating is apparently on the reverse, likely in javab notation, and represents the letter’s pickup date. The stamp might therefore have been affixed even in mid-September or earlier. Haverbeck Sale Lot 1374; scan Séfi & Mortimer Plate 11.
In javab usage, “taken up” at Amritsar without British postage on 23 November 1866. Collection Hellrigl. Very similar covers in the same hand exist with the plate-black and the circular-black.
As mentioned, it was the spring of 1867 that marked the demise of both the single-die and the plate blacks. The curiosity is the almost complete overlap in the period of duty of these two kinds of half-blacks from Srinagar. Indeed three kinds, for the circular ½a black watercolor was still in use, and would be carrying the banner in black for some months more. If there were some division of labor among the three, it is not a sharp or evident one. All were used on javab covers, for example, but all were used regularly as well on both internal and external mail. The latest date for the single-die issue that we read of is 22 April 1867 (reference Garratt-Adams in Staal p 105), which is about two weeks before the last sighting of the plate-½a black. It is thus the plate-½a ultramarine that stands as the effective successor to both rectangular blacks, and ultimately the circular black as well.
The single die was not among the implements that were officially defaced 32 years later. Since we have already surrendered this page to so much speculation, let us affirm our metaphysical conviction, sublimely untestable, that the ½a single die was recarved to produce the 8a die. It would be natural and convenient to make some re-use of an unneeded experimental implement (with a very nice handle) and there is just that intangible something about the off-squarish shape and size of both. The 8a impressions are just slightly larger in both directions, as might be expected if the ½a die piece tapered only slightly. This scenario might seem to run afoul of the fact that the ½a blacks are seen in postal service to the spring of the following year (1867). But there were only a few such usages and this meagre stock might have all been made in one session when the implement was first employed. It is indeed rarified philatelic fare, and a single-session printing scenario is not at odds with that.
Alone of the nine early-period implements, the authentic ½a single die was never used with oilcolors or inks on account of its early departure. So there are no pesky reprints to report. There are, however, quite enough forgeries and forgeries of forgeries.