The Jammu Plate
Starting in the late summer of 1867, a four-subject composite plate became the primary production
implement for Jammu. The lower-left position in the block is 1a; the other three positions are
½a. As with the circulars, no essays or proofs of the Jammu plate are known; likewise the printing was
done exclusively in watercolors on
native paper to the summer of 1877, thenceforth in oilcolors on both native and European papers to
May 1878. Stamps produced from
this plate are generally scarcer in unused condition than they are in used. Critical Reference:
T. Eames India Post 29 42 (1995). Here’s a quick link to the
bottom of the screen, a quick look at the period watercolor forgeries.†
The Early Black Watercolor
Perhaps only a dozen blacks in the ½a are known on and off cover. August 1867 is the
earliest date we have encountered in the literature for this issue (Lot 135 Kashmir Blue Sale.)
We do not know a latest date, but the issue is said to have lasted only a couple of weeks or so.
As for the 1a denomination, only some half-dozen are now likely in collectors’ hands.
The detail shown here comes from an external Jammu to
Amritsar cover dated 27 bhâdron 1924 ~ 10 September 1867 that bears neither
British postage nor evidence of a postage-due penalty.
The Early Blue Watercolors 1867-68
Of the early Jammu rectangulars in “blues,” catalogues distinguish a number of shades, notably indigo, deep violet-blue, and deep ultramarine. Eames adds deep blue (seen on November 1867 cover) and a deep slate violet. These shades have counterparts in circulars (usually the 4a denomination) and some types are known postally used in both provinces.
Above: One may take a digital sampling from different places on a stamp surface to produce a kind of spectrum of its color make-up. Each color strip here was produced from the stamp shown above it. Among the few samples at our disposal, we already find a range of shades that do not fit tidily into the received naming scheme. The last specimen on the right shows a decided greenish cast in daylight, where green is also understood to be part of the indigo idea. The third item in the series above came with a certificate vouching for its deep violet-blue character, which we readily accept, but its deeper tones are like those of the second item, which we have understood to be an safe indigo.
Above: Detail of a 1a deep violet-blue watercolor from a February 1868 folded letter, ex Masson, and struck with the Jammu magenta seal.
Early Reds & Oranges 1868-73
Only two covers are known in which the Jammu rectangular in any shade of ‘red’ is cancelled with the magenta seal the earliest being a salmon-orange known from a May 1868 cover. There is another in the Hellrigl collection. Eames India Post 29 42 (1995) distinguishes this early shade from a later salmon-red known in the 1869-70 period. What is evidently a different salmon-red issue is noted by Garratt-Adams in Staal (p 98) as occurring uniquely between 1874-76, but we cannot verify the late dating for this item. Most Jammu reds are attested from the post-1874 period.
Of the early reds, Dawson & Smythies speak of a “sort of brown-red, unusually clearly printed, and somewhat resembling an oil-colour.” They bear the Jammu circular seal in black, and so must date between June 1868 and into the spring of 1870. Is the following an example?
The preceding is the earliest known use of a 4a circular stamp in red on cover, and external cover Jammu to Amritsar dated 6 mâgh 1925 ~ 17 January 1869. Collection Hellrigl.
Above: The ½a salmon-red on native paper, 1869-70. As seen here on a January 1870 cover, it has a distinctive pinkish cast in daylight. By its dating alone, the obliteration would have to be the Jammu circle in the late black. The Jammu Iron Mine seal is not supposed to appear before spring.
And oranges. The oranges debuted in 1872. The image on the left is a beauty from the collection of Ian Faucitt. No copy of the 1a is known unused, only two copies used. The anomalous shade on the right is terrifically orange in daylight, but also not like the later orange-vermilions. Whatever it may be, and whenever it may have been printed, I call it an orange.
Here is a kind of noble scarlet seen in company with a non-postal circular. The latter may have been color trials for the Jammu plate. In daylight, both the paper and the shade are indistinguishable. Such color sharing is almost a rule; at least there are examples from every period. The earliest we have encounted for this rectangular on cover is December 1873. There are close shades, some redder, some more orangey.
Late Printings 1874-76
The earliest of this late period may be the famous and rare Prussian-blue watercolor
on native paper currently in the Jaiswal collection. This anomalous shade is not reported for the circulars.
The ½a black watercolor on native paper. This is not a grey-scale image! Hellrigl collection.
The emerald watercolor on native paper. Catalogue prices notwithstanding, the ½a unused is reported to be rarer than the 1a unused, and the 1a used is the rarest of all (Dawson-Smythies p 14.) There are probably fewer than a dozen of the 1a attested in any condition. The famous full block sheet is shown on the back of the Dawson sale catalogue in some evident distortion of shade.
No yellow watercolor is attested for the Jammu plate (what a thought.) It had been tried with the circulars and the stamp makers had evidently learned their lesson.
A curious spate of still-uncatalogued productions are associated with the so-called “cherry-reds” of lore, known from items from the Masson collection. These were confined to the March to June period of 1876, and fewer than a dozen copies in the ½a are likely in existence. Séfi reports that “these were the only stamps in Masson’s collection which he had specially protected with transparent paper, but, though this suggested that he valued them highly, he did not, beyond a casual allusion to a cherry-red stamp, include them in his classified lists.” As to the 1a denomination, that is known uniquely off-cover in the Hellrigl collection and by only two covers. It was said to be unique in Dawson & Smythies (p 13) but Eames reports another. No unused copy of either denomination has ever surfaced. A yet earlier printing from the preceding autumn may be part of the story:
Above: The item on the left in a dull carmine-red is a detail from a railroad cover in the Hellrigl collection
dated 20 September 1875. (The earliest attested carmine appears on a cover, again in the Hellrigl collection, for 11 April 1874.)
The second item, from our own collection this time, is a kindred shade in a different demeanor (including a darker paper) seen on an assûj
1932 ~ September 1875 cover, which is to say, separated by only days from that of the first. Eames takes the
pigment of this type (he calls it ‘lake’) to be distinct from, but
“clearly related” to the carmine-reds
(India Post 29 44, 1995.) Staal also reports something in a ½a ‘gray-brown’
watercolor, its dating, status, and whether there is association with these anomalous groups is unknown.
A ½a “cherry-juice” watercolor (not oil) on native paper, undated. While Masson may have referred to the dull carmine-red as “cherry red”, the shade shown here is much more like the sort of cherries we know and love, and it even matches the ‘carmine-red’ of the SG Colour Guide rather better than the accepted variety does. Indeed, few of these color designations are close to the reference swatches given by the Stanley Gibbons Colour Guide. By Jove, it's high time that something were done about this one way or the other.
Above: Another indescribably awful shade in the ½a from an undated cover. The range of the SEALKOTE cds, however, suggests either August 1875 or August 1876. In sunlight and under a glass, the stamp reveals some affinity with the chemically darkened type that begin to show up at this stage, see next image. There are hints in these of the orange-vermilion class familiar in the Kashmir 1a rectangulars:
Above: An example of chemically darkened pigment, rather early as these come, this having appeared on a railroad cover dated 29 maghar 1932 ~ December 1875.
Above: Moods of the 1a, dating here unknown. The first is remarkably soluble in a water test, and the paper is inordinately polished, giving almost a gummed appearance. In demeanor and spirit it is reminiscent of some of the 1a bright blues shown next. Darker moods appear from spring 1876 with shade counterparts in the 4a circular. The third item is a deep rose hue with a winey aspect, vintage unknown.
Above: Shades of the 1a bright blue watercolors on native paper, 1876. The ½a is a rare item indeed, but it is known on cover (see next.) Of course everyone asks why virtually all the stock of the lower denomination was destroyed:
An extremely rare used example of the Jammu ½a bright blue. This detail is from a cover Jammu to Amritsar (with railway sorting at Umballa) dated 22 April 1876. Gem in the Hellrigl collection.
Period Watercolor Forgeries
Three single-die forgeries in imitation of some ½a Jammu plate variety exist in black, blue, and red watercolors, sometimes with faked cancellations. The 1a section of the plate does not seem to find itself burdened with such forgeries.
What follows is Séfi & Mortimer’s account of these period forgeries:
“A considerable amount of confusion has arisen respecting this rather dangerous watercolour imitation. Masson wrote (Part I, p 35) that he included it with the missing dies on the authority of Major Evans. Evans subsequently wrote [Philatelic Journal of India, Vol VI, p 286 (1902)] that Masson’s statement must have arisen through some misunderstanding, inasmuch as he had never seen the forgery; and Masson’s note is the more puzzling since he believed he had seen copies genuinely used with the square black seal of Jammu, an obliteration that ceased in 1879, while the missing-die type did not come into being until 1890. We have tentatively classified this forgery as one that was postally used to defraud the revenues, in deference to Masson’s profound knowledge of the early obliterations; but we are bound to admit that, in our opinion, those which we have seen, and notably those purporting to be the first Jammu obliterations in magenta, are unquestionably forged, and that we consider this imitation to have been merely made for collectors. Masson classified the forgery as that of a ½a from the Jammu plate, having the fatal inaccuracy of possessing a complete frame-line around the impression, instead of on two sides only; while Evans held that the complete frame proved the forgery to be intended as one of the types of the Kashmir ½a. The forgery is, however, only known with Jammu obliterations (whether genuine or false) and this, no doubt, influenced Masson in the view he took. This forgery is from a single die, and is of some rarity. It may always be identified by the “sun” at the top of the outer oval having the ends of the rays truncated instead of pointed; and by the downstroke of the character immediately to the right of the sun, being straight instead of bent in the middle.”
This way to the Jammu plate oilcolor printings†.