The ½a Plate
New Rectangulars likely came into use at Jammu on a fine day in May
1878 and the plates saw postal service to the end of the Native PO system on
1st November 1894. It is also likely that the ½a plate was the first
carved and the first to see postal service. Séfi & Mortimer
report that the earliest known example is a ½a red, rough perforated
on thin wove paper. That is to say, if you look at the catalogue, not
European laid paper. It is truly difficult to
tell with certainty that a stamp on cover is not laid paper, and we should very much
like to know how well-corroborated these reports of such
early woves really are. Unless a perforated stamp has been fully detached from
a cover, one can remain skeptical. We have done just that ourselves
only to find promising candidates for a wove to be of the common laid variety after all.
Simply not seeing laiding lines on a partially detached corner is not enough evidence.
A “laid stamp re-attached” tag is a small price to pay for certain
knowledge in this matter. As to claims for such early woves off-cover, we do not know the
argument involved. What postal marking or paper-lore would come in aid of these claims?
Black watercolor, perforated, paper here unknown. Scan taken of Séfi & Mortimer’s Plate 35. Those authors suggest that it might actually have been produced somewhat later than the first issues in red. If so, the item is not a proof sheet, unless it so served for the Official blacks specifically.
The bulk of the early production at Jammu was certainly done on laid papers, a favorite paper in those parts. Some of this paper is identical to that found in the experimental printings of the preceding year that were done with the circular dies and the old Jammu plate. In a continuing tradition that didn’t mean terribly much in practice, red issues were intended for primary use in Jammu, blues in Kashmir. The innovation was the use of blacks as official stamps for use in both provinces. Only two celebrated examples are attested perforate, which see:
Above: The rare ½a black on laid paper, perforated. The Jammu cds is dated 18 bhadom 1935 ~ 1 September 1878. The scan is taken from Séfi & Mortimer Plate 34.
Above: The later of the two known perforated officials, also on laid paper; this from kātik 10 1935 ~ 25 October 1878.
The ½a black imperforate on laid paper, Srinagar to Wazirabad, 1878-79. There are no known Jammu-printed wove blacks in this denomination (only in the 1a).
Jammu-Printed ½a Reds
An early shade is the ½a red-brown on thickish vertically laid paper and used in Jammu only. A unique full sheet is in the Tapling collection.
Left: The ½a carmine-lake perforated on bluish-tinted paper. The tinted papers, some of which are slightly tinted yellowish-green are known to be early. Right: the ½a deep scarlet, perforated on vertically laid paper, also 1878. Horizontal laiding is also found on both types.
Above: A ½a red, perforate on laid paper, dated 32 sāvan [19]35 ~ 14 August 1878. The date is written in the Persian, in the lower line of the Dogri, as well as across the stamp itself.
Above left: The ½a chestnut on thick vertically laid paper, 1878. The cancellation is the First Jammu cds, dated 18 poh ~ 30 December, with the 8-element inserted backward. The second stamp is a ½a dull vermilion on horizontally laid paper, 1878. The question arises as to a latest date of these early laid-paper reds. An eagle-eyed correspondent reports a very late date indeed, November 1879, for a vertical laid.
Perforate medium wove papers (~ 0.10 mm) are reported on cover for July and October 1878 in the Haverbeck (Lot 1473) and Garratt-Adams sales, which latter also offered a example unused. Imperforate medium woves seem not to be reported before the summer of 1879.
Imperforate thick woves (> 0.12 mm) first appeared in 1878, and are scarce, especially on cover. A cover dated 20 shavvāl 129[6] ~ 7 October 1879 was offered in the Haverbeck sale. The catalogue has the year as 1292, but that cannot be correct.
Above left: The ½a dull scarlet on medium wove paper, 1879. It has a close shade counterpart in the 4a circulars. The image is a detail taken from a cover processed at Jammu and bears an uncommon octagonal seal (the mohr ḍāk Jambu) known between April and August 1879. The second item is the ½a dull vermilion, also on medium wove paper, 1879.
But it was thin wove paper that won the day in the end. When it comes to undated singles, some of the late Jammu-printed and the early Srinagar-printed material cannot be sorted, especially in the black of course.
Jammu-printed ½a Blues
For the ½a blues, SG speaks only of shades of slate-violet. Staal reminds us further of fugitive inks that have faded over time. As the range of hues is hardly minor, from indigos to slate-lilacs to deep violets, many collectors are forced to test their ingenuity in color naming. Sanity is also tested when any two checklists are compared. We spare the reader our own take, but here is the basic item from the early period, State I of the plate:
The ½a slate-violet on horizontally laid paper, medium thickness. The plate is in the requisite state I condition. This example is similar to Haverbeck auction Lot 1458. A reconstruction of the plate from perforated versions of the stamps has been assembled, surely an unlikely feat today. Of perforated intact sheets, only four or so are probably in existence. Vertical laiding would seem to be scarcer than the horizontal laiding.
Speaking of the Haverbeck catalog, a rare ½a dull blue is chronicled in Lot 1463. The Kashmir to Calcutta run on 20 August 1879.
Above: A few of the more highly-soluble slate-violet and deep violet dyes give rise to these distinctive blue washes when presented to water. Staal plate 11 displays an example said to be of actual watercolor pigment, which will of course not run in the fashion of these soluble dyes.
An unmolested example of the ½a deep violet on laid paper that will suffer the kind of damage shown in the preceding entry. This is a detail from a cover dated 13 Poh ~ 26 December [1879], with 19 Poh ~ 1 January [1880] on the postmark here visible.