Postage Stamp Chat Board & Stamp Bulletin Board Forum
 

I'm not sure if this is the correct place to post this question.....but......

I recently came across these two pages of what I believe to be Indian revenues:







My question(s) are do these actually fall into the revenue category and if so, is there any value to them?

John A

_________________
Armstrong'sStamps**http://www.armstrongsstamps.ca
Knowledge is Key.....Libraries work!

John, yes, these are revenues. Their purpose is for pre-payment of work insurance. There are several series but most of them are very common. The rates for the insurance were changed several times and they can be found in the latest work by Mr. Martin Blatt, Abdul Mollah and late David Heppell.

The strips and blocks are very nice, indeed and worth slightly more.

I have only looked it through at a glance. During longer weekend I hope I will have more time to go it through more deeply. I am not sure if there is a part dedicated to postal rates. However, I expect most of the covers to be philatelic and therefore overpaid.

A couple more rather thought-provoking prices on eBay from lots I was watching, but not bidding on:





http://www.ebay.com.au/itm/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=390409797655

from seller Stampedia reached £16.56. I make the catalogue value, excluding the ½ Anna blue revenue, and the two 1 Annas with revenue cancels, to be £19.75. And that's before allowing for the large thin in the last stamp, the 1874 4 Anna (£6).

And good old Las Bela:



http://www.ebay.com.au/itm/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=380430730828

again from Stampedia, which went for £62 against an apparent catalogue value of £76.

Not bagging Jind or Las Bela at all The first types of Jind are among my greatest Ugly favourites. But these prices are exceptionally strong.

I don't think this is a result of shill bidding. Stampedia has been offering a number of lots of Indian States, and some of them have been quite useful stamps. This seller has provided generous-sized scans, showing the backs of the stamps as well.

This does go to show that you can sell fairly modest Indian States for excellent prices if you're very open about what you have to sell.

_________________
'First I'll steal all the money, then I'll kill everybody, and then I'll go away', Père Ubu

Like this one which went for 21.89 GBP with a cat of 131 gbp.

_________________
Beauty Lies In the Eyes of the Beholder.

Bidding pattern in stampedia shows that there are 2 bidders who are bidding way above there next best bidder. In most of the cases there bid is almost double that of 3rd. best bidder. NO idea what's happening
Las Bela Lot

Member Id: a***d( 182) GBP 52.00 Apr-20-12 06:42:44 PDT
Member Id: e***2( 163) GBP 51.00 Apr-24-12 12:36:39 PDT
Member Id: 2***4( 8 ) GBP 31.30 Apr-24-12 12:36:39

Other Las Bela Lot
Member Id: e***2( 163) GBP 62.00 Apr-24-12 12:38:30 PDT
Member Id: a***d( 182) GBP 60.11 Apr-20-12 06:43:30 PDT
Member Id: t***n( 430) GBP 30.00 Apr-24-12 12:38:21 PDT

And In Charkhari where they were not present there was more sanity
Member Id: 2***4( 8 ) GBP 21.89 Apr-23-12 12:40:38
Member Id: 4***n( 709) GBP 20.89 Apr-23-12 12:40:36 PDT --
Member Id: s***a( 228) GBP 20.00 Apr-23-12 05:56:40 PDT --
Member Id: 0***h( 910) GBP 15.56 Apr-22-12 15:03:31 PDT --

And both are putting in snipe bids as the bids are entering in the last 5 secs.So its nothing but a game of two fools trying to outdo each other and in the process making a fool of themselves.

_________________
Beauty Lies In the Eyes of the Beholder.

A few months ago, a friend was selling some states on eBay, and a fellow in California contacted him and said he liked his lots, and intended to buy them all.

And that is exactly what he did- he simply outbid everyone else.

The buyer was perfectly legit, he paid promptly and was very happy with his purchases.

I guess Indian States just attracts some odd people

I heard that Mike, and I know where you live ...

_________________
'First I'll steal all the money, then I'll kill everybody, and then I'll go away', Père Ubu

Tony- It was too much to resist

Genuine cancels???

_________________
Beauty Lies In the Eyes of the Beholder.

I've already emailed the seller about those crazy Bamra imitations. I'm 99.99% sure those Duttia cancellations are fakes, and I'm not at all convinced by most of the underlying stamps either, for that matter. Definitely two lots to be avoided.

On the Duttia cancellations, you have to ask yourself how likely it is that a group of stamps issued as widely apart as those were would all end up with such similar cancellations. At best, they could only be favour cancellations, but these ones stink to high heaven. Here is a typical Duttia favour cancellation:



Enough said?

_________________
'First I'll steal all the money, then I'll kill everybody, and then I'll go away', Père Ubu

I may not be an expert but definitely a good sniffing dog

_________________
Beauty Lies In the Eyes of the Beholder.

I agree with Tony about these.

My opinion is that the Duttia stamps are all forgeries themselves.

Thank you for the reply. As I have absolutely no idea of value on these items, would these 2 pages be worthy of selling? If you don't mind me asking, what would be a reasonable price for both pages?

John A

_________________
Armstrong'sStamps**http://www.armstrongsstamps.ca
Knowledge is Key.....Libraries work!

The seller, padstamps, quickly removed those Bamra fantasies after being alerted to their status. Full marks to padstamps.

_________________
'First I'll steal all the money, then I'll kill everybody, and then I'll go away', Père Ubu

What would these fiscally used lot worth be ?

_________________
Beauty Lies In the Eyes of the Beholder.

Well, now, this is quite heart-warming. This eBay lot of Barwani http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=280865037969



from seller mareval2 has just sold for £23 against a 2012 catalogue value of £21.25.

All my efforts to plug Barwani are paying off at last

(To save my readers from diving for their catalogues, most of the money (£19) was in that rather chewed up SG 12 at right )

_________________
'First I'll steal all the money, then I'll kill everybody, and then I'll go away', Père Ubu

Tony Is this price rational ?

_________________
Beauty Lies In the Eyes of the Beholder.

I am afraid there will be not much interest in the lot. You have mostly only few denomination and although they are in nice strips of 3 or more, they will attract only few collectors if any.
I would price this lot for about 5-10 USD. Maybe you can put it on eBay and you will see what happens.

These are mostly very common fiscal usages and I think 10 USD for the lot is reasonable price.

It is hard to decide. Personally, I will be not interested in the lot as the condition of the "key" item is not very good. But Indian states are on the move and it is also likely that the CV is not appropriate.

Just today, Travancore stamp printed double ended at 76 pounds and the CV is only 50 pounds. But who knows? It may be still a good buy for the successful winner. Or maybe an eBay BUNNY?

I agree with you completely on CV being not appropriate. I living in India find it extremely hard and near impossible to find any decent Indian Feudatory State stamp even with most senior dealers. All is available is common charkhari, new bhopals, some alwar, a lot of Bijawar , truck loads of Hyderabad, common Indores, common Jaipur's and lot of other rubbish. So that shows the non availability of good Indian Fed's. Same case I used to observe in Pre- Independence India which I used to collect before I banged into your Topic . Some of the stamps were almost non existent with my friendly dealer.And there prices have skyrocketed since then. I used to deny Gandhi Rs10 at Rs 400 in 1979 and now see yearningly at it at Rs16500. So I really think that Indian Fed States really need a serious re rating purely based on there availability.
Take for example the SG2 above. In my 1.5 years on ebay I do not remember seeing a copy available.Excuse me if it had appeared but I don't remember. So is the SG cat of 19 GBP reasonable. In contrast Gandhi Rs10 which retails at $300 is available in loads daily on ebay. So by the way how are the stamps valued?? On the basis of rarity or rigging??

_________________
Beauty Lies In the Eyes of the Beholder.

Thank you very much for the opinion. I stopped using eBay when all sellers became evil and all buyers became gods! I may list them up here on Stampboards and see what happens. The assistance is appreciated!

John A

_________________
Armstrong'sStamps**http://www.armstrongsstamps.ca
Knowledge is Key.....Libraries work!

Amazing prices also seem to be being paid for old Feudatory States auction catalogues on eBay. A copy of the 1939 catalogue for C H Mortimer's collection of Jammu & Kashmir went on eBay the other week for a wallet crunching $177.50. A couple of days later I bought an identical copy of the catalogue from Bridger & Kay for about an eighth of that and I thought that was steep!

_________________
I believe there is another world waiting for us, Sixsmith. A better world.

Well, my first reaction would be, No - it isn't rational. As I said of another SG 12, they interest me for technical reasons (where do they fit into the story of the printings of the 1 and 2 Annas?). Moreover, the stamp is in poor shape. That isn't so uncommon for the 1 and 2 Annas though: the perforating was erratic, even for Barwani

On the other hand, they aren't particularly common stamps. I have 19 of them, and a cover with a pair: in terms of my Barwani collection, not an especially large number. But I've been hoarding these stamps for years.

Ideally, the catalogue prices should reflect the balance of supply (numbers sold and numbers surviving) and demand. We have no idea how many SG 12s were printed, sold or used. We have no idea how many collectors are serious enough about Barwani to want one or more SG 12s. Perhaps we're seeing the market re-balance itself, and SG 12 is settling at a much higher equilibrium price.

_________________
'First I'll steal all the money, then I'll kill everybody, and then I'll go away', Père Ubu

This question of catalogue prices deserves a little more discussion.

First, of course, we must acknowledge that the markets for, say, modern India or Australia are far, far larger than they are for, say, Barwani or Poonch. Far more of the key, or at least expensive, items from modern India or Australia will be sold each year than of Barwani or Poonch. This makes it easier for the editors of Gibbons to establish a market price for the Gandhi 10 Rupees or a 1st Watermark £2 'Roo from Australia than for an SG 12 of Barwani, or even this block of SG 50 of Poonch



I just received from eBay.

But as you rightly say, if you had the money, there wouldn't be any problem about buying that Gandhi 10 Rupees, or a 1st watermark 'Roo. (The former is catalogued at £250; the latter is £4750.) You could take your pick of specimens ... if you had the money.

I couldn't find a basic Barwani stamp catalogued at £250, so an SG 1



at £180 will have to do as a comparison. You probably could find one for sale, eventually. But you wouldn't have much, or any, choice of specimens.

Or take that £2 'Roo. You wouldn't have a huge range to choose from, but the big Australian dealers would be able to find you one if you wanted it. By comparison, there are no Barwani stamps catalogued as high as £4750; this SG 18da



at £4000 will have to do. This is the only copy of SG 18da I know of, and I'm not selling

So what do we do about the cheaper items, like the Barwani SG 12? My own experience is just like yours, Mukulgarga. The dealers can offer plenty of the cheapest junk. You can buy it on eBay any day, too. But the £10 to £100 items just don't appear in the dealers' stockbooks - or what choice there is, is strictly limited. You could go into Gibbons in London with your Want List of £10 to £100 Uglies, and I think you'd come out with fewer than half of what you'd wanted.

eBay seems to be the place to buy and sell these items. But then we run into all those typical eBay problems: basically, whom can you trust on eBay? To get the identification right in the first place, and then to get the stamp to you? It's a sad fact, but true, that many buyers don't trust Indian dealers. Many buyers don't seem to trust foreign sellers of any sort.

The market for the Uglies is still very thin when compared with those for modern India or Australia, and these problems of supply don't help. I think the Uglies will always be a marginal collecting area. Collectors do tend to collect their own country first. How many residents of the former Barwani State collect Barwani? The Uglies are difficult, too. The other day, I warned an eBay seller that he'd misidentified a Barwani SG 23b



(at £20 each) as an SG 23



(at £150 each). I'm sure it was an honest - if optimistic - mistake, and the seller immediately agreed to correct the listing. But how many non-specialists could unerringly pick the sewing machine perforations of SG 23? It's much easier to find that Gandhi 10 Rupees in Gibbons

So, Barwani SG 12 might well receive a useful bump up in the 2014 Part 1, but I don't expect the price to ever reflect its actual scarcity. So much the better for us who collect the Uglies. We can add rarities to our collections at prices collectors of mainstream India and Australia can only dream of

_________________
'First I'll steal all the money, then I'll kill everybody, and then I'll go away', Père Ubu

This is what I put in the advanced search on Ebay India

Barwani, Bhor, Bundi, Bussahir, Cochin, Duttia, Idar, Jammu, Kashmir, Jasdan, Las, Bela, Morvi, Nandgaon, Orchha, Poonch

and guess what? I find only Cochin and Travancore in the auctions (that too off extremely toned and poor copies) and nothing else.
I yearn for the day when Indians start buying Indian Feudatory states in the way they buy modern India.

_________________
Beauty Lies In the Eyes of the Beholder.

A case in point: this



is one of the commonest stamps of Barwani. Just about any mixed lot of Barwani will include one. Gibbons prices a single very generously at £3.50. The print run was 12,800, or 400 booklets.

There were 800 (25 booklets) of this 4 Anna stamp from Printing 6 printed:



Gibbons' price: £28 each. Any collector wanting George VI complete will have to have one (it dates from March 1945).

You can extrapolate these numbers to the other States. Duttia, for example, had a population similar to Barwani's. If its printings were on the same scale ... You can see why these stamps are hard to find.

_________________
'First I'll steal all the money, then I'll kill everybody, and then I'll go away', Père Ubu

Tony´s comments are right. But why SG with enormous experience and records don´t reflect rarity in current issues where the boom in collecting India and states is apparent?

During study of Travancore and T&C listings, I have come to a number of stamps that must be much undervalued. For example, printed both sides of 6 ca conch shell issue (SG 35c) is listed at 50 pounds only compared to normal and common stamp at 4.25 pounds. And the catalog value for this variety is still the same for at least 20 years?

I have suspicion that SG have no example in the stock for several years and therefore they are waiting for a cheap purchase and after enough stock they will hugely increase their CV?

I know very well that CV is only approximate, but why 200 pound British stamp is common and e.g. Travancore with the same value is a rare stamp? I think that catalog should lead the collector in the market, but with such misleading valuations they are nearly worthless.

The answer is in what Tony had said before
This question of catalogue prices deserves a little more discussion.

quote""First, of course, we must acknowledge that the markets for, say, modern India or Australia are far, far larger than they are for, say, Barwani or Poonch. Far more of the key, or at least expensive, items from modern India or Australia will be sold each year than of Barwani or Poonch. This makes it easier for the editors of Gibbons to establish a market price for the Gandhi 10 Rupees or a 1st Watermark £2 'Roo from Australia than for an SG 12 of Barwani, or even this block of SG 50 of Poonch."" unquote

_________________
Beauty Lies In the Eyes of the Beholder.

Dear Tony
If it's not much to ask could you provide me with the data available with you for the nos. of various Barwani's printed ? If the list is long you can mail me at my gmail id.Regards

_________________
Beauty Lies In the Eyes of the Beholder.

Ikanek is perfectly right....the day I started Travancore seriously back in 2000-01 i was in search of 35c , printed both sides without any success till 2010 .at that time i think it was 40 pounds and in 2004 it went up to 50 pounds and till that time it stood still at 50 pounds till 2011-12 SG cat:

I enquired this stamp along with two other stamps(SG -O41 and O42) to almost all delaers in south india but none was able to give a genuine one.
And finally i was able to gather a copy of 35c at 50% of SG value in 2011 which I still believe to be a very fair deal.image as below

George

Very nice marginal example. I got mine in the collection I bought in Gaertner auction where also some other treasuries were hidden (such as compound perf. 3 ch in wmk C,...).

Some more interesting realisations. Barwani first and I can't see what the two high bidders wanted here for it to fetch £141.25:

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/390410870440? ... 1438.l2649





And two Bhopal lots, which I guess are OK if you're a completist, but my understanding is that this sort of stuff is printer's waste.

Went for £27.51:

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/380431813505? ... 1438.l2649





...and this one fetched £33.00:

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/390410870454? ... 1438.l2649

Peterh, you aren't hacking into my computer, by any chance, are you? I had just those three lots on my watch list overnight too

They all astonish me.

I calculate the catalogue value of the Barwani lot at £100.35. At £141.25, this is about 40% over catalogue. I can't see any stamps in the lot that would justify that sort of excitement. There certainly wasn't anything I felt I had to have, or even should have. Yet the lot sold to a buyer with a feedback score of 473, so presumably he/she knows how to read Gibbons.

On the other hand, how many dealers could have sold you that entire lot, straight from stock? This is the issue I alluded to earlier: a thin market, but very thin stocks. Even slight demand pressure can produce big price rises. Add one or two collectors to the half-dozen who take Barwani seriously, and look what happens

The Bhopal are just printer's waste. I put in a few low bids on them, but the final prices look rather too high to me

I can't agree with Ikanek about the catalogues leading the market. We saw what happened when K&M did that with their Revenues catalogue. They were quite right in their prices, in terms of relative scarcity; but they were quite wrong, in terms of what the real world would actually pay. I'd rather see the catalogues try to reflect real world prices. The only alternative is to adopt a R, RR, RRR ... scale. That might be fairer, but we're all human: many of us want to be able to put a money value on what we buy and sell, or just own

_________________
'First I'll steal all the money, then I'll kill everybody, and then I'll go away', Père Ubu

There is only one printing number for the pre-1932 period. That is 1200 for SG 17, and that came from an anonymous source somewhere in India at the time. You can believe it or not, as you like.

For the post-1932 period, the numbers are incomplete. I can only give you numbers, in Gibbons terms, for the 'Narrow' settings:
¼ Anna Devi Singh: 16,800
½ Anna Devi Singh: 10,400
1 Anna Devi Singh: 7,200
2 Anna Devi Singh: 4,000
4 Anna Devi Singh: 5,200

1 Anna Devi Singh Revenue type, SG 43: 8,000

Ranjitsingh ¼ Anna: 9,600
Ranjitsingh ½ Anna: 4,800
Ranjitsingh 1 Anna: 4,800
Ranjitsingh 4 Anna: 1,600

A couple of comments:
The ¼ Anna value had no postal use. The postcard rate was ½ Anna, and the basic letter rate was 1 Anna. Genuinely used



are quite scarce. Be extremely cautious of any post-1932 ¼ Anna on cover. I've never seen a genuine, commercial cover of the ¼ Anna, nor any postcard. The block above was probably a favour cancel, although it would have paid the single letter rate.

SG 43 had quite a healthy printing. It's probably a bit overpriced in Gibbons. (But then, who knows, these days?) It was quite extensively used.

These numbers cover two printings, in the case of the Devi Singh types. Perf 12 or compound stamps come from the first printing; perf 11 stamps may be from either printing.

_________________
'First I'll steal all the money, then I'll kill everybody, and then I'll go away', Père Ubu

I still have deep reservations as to the integrity of the seller. These stamps do come up for auction at other sellers where they do not command even half the premium these lots have been getting. And how come these two buyers are at stampedia auctions only?

_________________
Beauty Lies In the Eyes of the Beholder.

And Now another of those "stampede" auction

_________________
Beauty Lies In the Eyes of the Beholder.

However, the buyer and under-bidder on the first two Barwani lots were
n**s at £141.25 and
e**2 at £139.25, with
a**t at £86.60
and
e**i at £23 and
a**t at £22

Neither n**s nor e**i won the earlier high-priced lots from stampedia. There were 24 bids from 11 bidders for the larger Barwani lot. This was also the biggest lot of Barwani I've seen on eBay for some time. I must say, I don't see any evidence of shill bidding here. Of course, if the same stamps come up for sale again in the next couple of weeks or months from different sellers, I might revise my opinion

On the two Las Bela lots, the prices realised were surprising, but I don't think it's so surprising, in itself, that the same two bidders were competing. The Jind lot, which also effectively went for around full Gibbons, sold to a different buyer, with a different under-bidder again.

I don't know the seller. It looks as if he/she is breaking down a fairly large basic collection of Indian States. Perhaps this seller has a following in the UK, or perhaps UK buyers are more prepared to trust a UK seller, who seems to be trying to be transparent. Whatever it is, there seems to be a fair spread of bidders, paying abnormal prices. This a trend that will bear watching.

_________________
'First I'll steal all the money, then I'll kill everybody, and then I'll go away', Père Ubu

This won't be a good test. I predict now that it will go through the roof: someone is going to think they see an SG 35aB (£475) in that Devi Singh 2 Anna in the bottom row. Big hint: it isn't. It's an SG 35A (£3.75).

_________________
'First I'll steal all the money, then I'll kill everybody, and then I'll go away', Père Ubu

Yes even I have noted that
and the last one?Is it 42B or 42Ba?

But again if the buyers are the same then it would definitely be a matter of doubt.

_________________
Beauty Lies In the Eyes of the Beholder.

No, I'm not hacking Tony - I guess we are just interested in similar things

I tend to watch a lot more than I buy, though, so don't worry about me as a competitor.

I take your point, though, about it being unlikely that anyone would be able to get all those in one go from a dealer's stock.


On the point of the Devi Singh 2 annas in the latest offering from stampedia, don't you think the SG listing of these is confusing?

I realise that you may have advised SG, so apologies, but the second 2 annas in the lot pictured above is clearly a different stamp - taller, wider and a shade which probably is more rose-carmine than purple, which would lead the non-specialist to interpret that it is SG 35aB.

SG 35A is evidently quite a broad church!

What SG doesn't say is that (if I'm correct in your interpretation) the genuine 35aB has to have that characteristic tall appearance that I think you've illustrated before - I think this picture of yours is the relevant one?

Any idea about these stamps on Indian Ebay

http://www.ebay.in/itm/150801191126?ssP ... 1438.l2649

_________________
Beauty Lies In the Eyes of the Beholder.

Peter, you're quite right about the problem of sorting out the true SG 35aBs from the wannabes. The real problem is Gibbons' division into 'narrow' and 'wide' settings. (The 'medium' settings are unmistakable.) It works well enough for the Ranjitsingh types, but it gets tricky with the Devi Singh types, and particularly SG 35aB. It would help collectors considerably if Gibbons noted that the rare stamp has that distinctive tall and narrow look, like the right hand stamp above. The colours aren't all that dissimilar, but there were only 400 of SG 35aB printed, against eight times that many for the stamp at left.

Incidentally, I also watch a lot more than I bid on, too. It seems we have very similar - exquisite - tastes

_________________
'First I'll steal all the money, then I'll kill everybody, and then I'll go away', Père Ubu

Bird watchers I presume and not real hunters

_________________
Beauty Lies In the Eyes of the Beholder.

These are all reprints/imitations. Normally, when these are offered on eBay, they fail completely to attract a bid. I just don't believe the bidding on these. I see that it's a Private Sale, too. Re 5900, at time of writing, is just not credible: I think the seller is engaged in a private auction with himself

_________________
'First I'll steal all the money, then I'll kill everybody, and then I'll go away', Père Ubu

No: that's Birder's country ... And I'm too old for the wingless variety

_________________
'First I'll steal all the money, then I'll kill everybody, and then I'll go away', Père Ubu

Tony couldn't these be 1/2 anna genuine unissued stamps?

_________________
Beauty Lies In the Eyes of the Beholder.

I think that's about right for me - unless the birds are really cheap

but good birds don't come cheap

_________________
Beauty Lies In the Eyes of the Beholder.