Encyclopedia > Stamps and postal history of Indian states
The postage stamps and postal history of the Indian states is a complicated subject; British rule was not a uniform exercise of authority, and many states ran their own postal services.
The two main categories were the convention states who had agreements with British India regarding mail, and the feudatory states who ran their own posts, and whose stamps were only valid within their borders.
The convention states all used contemporaneous stamps of India, overprinted with the name of the state, in Latin letters or Hindu letters or both, depending on state and period. The convention states were:
The stamps of the convention states all became invalid 1 January1950.
India had a great many feudatory states, but not all issued stamps. In some states the stamps served a legitimate purpose, but in others the stamps were issued more to please the ruler's vanity, and normal mail was franked with British India's stamps. The feudatory states issuing stamps were (the dates are the starting and ending dates of stamp issuance):
Since the stamps of the feudatory states were generally crude productions by local printers, and were later extensively forged, they are a challenging area for stamp collecting.
The postage stamps and postalhistory of India are complicated by the patchwork of British and local rule prior to partition in 1947.
The usage of the stamps began on 1 July 1852 in Scinde district, with the use of an embossed pattern on paper or wax.
The stamps were issued by the East India Company, which first printed a 1/2a vermilion in April but never sold it to the public, then put four values (1/2a, 1a, 2a, 4a) on sale in October.
The stamps of the 1920s were dominated by the Series of 1922, the first new design of stamps to appear in a generation.
Stamp printing was switching from a flat plate press to a rotary press while these stamps were in use, and most come in two perforations as a result; 11 for flat plate, and 11x10.5 for rotary.
Beginning in 1948, the Congress of the United States began to push the Post Office for stamps proposed by constituents, leading to a relative flood of obscure stamps that was not well-regulated until the formation of the Citizens' Stamp Advisory Committee (CSAC) in 1957.
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