The Inverted Head Four Annas of India is a postage stamp prized by collectors. The 1854 first issues of India included a Four Annas value in red and blue. It was one of the world's first multicolored stamps; the Basel Dove preceded it by nine years.[2] However, an invert error occurred during production, showing the head "upside down."
The Four Annas stamps were lithographed by the Survey Office in Calcutta. Two colors were used, red for the frame and blue for the head. During production, the paper was first imprinted with the red frames, and then the sheets were laid out to dry overnight. The next day, the blue heads were added within the frames. The First Printing, using Head Die I and Frame Die I, both as shown here, began on October 13, 1854. There were 12 widely spaced stamps in each sheet. Exactly 206,040 stamps were printed for this Head Die I issue.
Inverted head four annas
Among these First Printing stamps, at least six sheets with the red frames had been inadvertently turned 180 degrees before being placed in the press. So, although the heads appear to be upside down, it was the red frames that were inverted. D.N. Jatia found that at least six sheets must have been fed into the press upside-down, as six of these stamps from Position 4 showed different lithographic stones were used for the head and frame dies.[3]
The surviving examples of this error are low in number. E. A. Smythies states that, at one time, "Details and illustrations of all the known copies [were] given in that interesting publication, Stamps of Fame, by L. N. and M. Williams."[4][5] One additional example has been reported, yielding 28 total known examples. All of these are postally used. Only two (or three) are known cut square; another 25 are cut to shape (that is, in an octagonal shape).[6] One from the collection of the Earl of Crawford was exhibited in the World Philatelic Exhibition in Washington in 2006.[7]
Discovery of the error
This error appears not to have been discovered until many years after the stamps were issued. None of the 1870s publications mentions the Inverted Head Four Annas. The 1891 reprints provide the first conclusive evidence that the error was known, but E. A. Smythies said the error was first noticed during a meeting of the Philatelic Society of London in 1874.[8] In 1907 L.L.R. Hausburg mentioned the Inverted Head Four Annas, but incorrectly, as he was not sure whether it came from the First or Second Printings. Mr. Séfi described this error in the West End Philatelist, January 1912.
Collections
The two cut-to-shape Inverted Head 4 Annas, on the cover. The Tapling Collection.
Three cut to shape examples of the Inverted Head Four Annas are in the Tapling Collection at the British Library, London, including two (positions 3 and 4 on the printed sheet) on cover, indicating that the error was created by an incorrect sheet placement rather than by a careless die transfer.[9] One example, carefully cut to shape, from position five on the sheet, is found in the Royal Collection. The Government of India Collection, in Delhi, has a cut to shape example on the piece, position two on the sheet. Two examples cut square, one of them on the cover, was in the collection of C. D. Desai. Desai "raised" his stamp from its cover for study. The provenance of several other examples is described in Martin and Smythies, as cited below.
Forgeries
A forgery of the Inverted Head (left), next to an ordinary stamp (right). The head and frame of the inverted stamp are not from the First Printing, so this cannot be a genuine inverted head stamp.
Forgeries have been made by chemically erasing the upright head or the frame and then printing over it. These can be detected using "black light" (long wave (UV-A) ultraviolet light) and other techniques. One of these fakes appeared in the Masson sale and one or two in the Ferrary auctions. Some clever forgeries purport to show an inverted head with incorrect head dies, which are obvious. Crude forgeries are plentiful.[10]
↑ The Robert H. Cunliffe Collection of Spectacular Inverted Stamps of the United States and the World - June 18–19, 2009, Spink Shreves Sale No. 114. Lot No. 1181.
↑ Robson Lowe, Encyclopedia of British Empire Postage Stamps, v. III: London, Robson Lowe, Ltd. (1951), p. 171.
Sources
D. R. Martin and E. A. Smythies, The Four Annas Lithographed Stamps of India, 1854-55 London, Philatelic Society of India and Stanley Gibbons Ltd. (1930), pages 36–8.
Robson Lowe, Encyclopedia of British Empire Postage Stamps, vol. III, p.171.
E. D. Bacon, The Essays, Proofs, and Reprints of the first issued Postage Stamps of British India of 1854-55. Third edition, 1927 (with the supplement in P.J.I, 1933), page 19.
Philately is the study of postage stamps and postal history. It also refers to the collection and appreciation of stamps and other philatelic products. While closely associated with stamp collecting and the study of postage, it is possible to be a philatelist without owning any stamps. For instance, the stamps being studied may be very rare or reside only in museums.
Stamp collecting is the collecting of postage stamps and related objects. It is an area of philately, which is the study of stamps. It has been one of the world's most popular hobbies since the late nineteenth century with the rapid growth of the postal service, as a stream of new stamps was produced by countries that sought to advertise their distinctiveness through their stamps.
The Inverted Jenny is a 24 cent United States postage stamp first issued on May 10, 1918, in which the image of the Curtiss JN-4 airplane in the center of the design is printed upside-down; it is one of the most famous errors in American philately. Only one pane of 100 of the invert stamps was ever found, making this error one of the most prized in philately.
Indian postal systems for efficient military and governmental communications had developed long before the arrival of Europeans. When the Portuguese, Dutch, French, Danish and British conquered the Marathas who had already defeated the Mughals, their postal systems existed alongside those of many somewhat independent states. The British East India Company gradually annexed the other powers on the sub-continent and brought into existence a British administrative system over most of modern-day India, with a need to establish and maintain both official and commercial mail systems.
The Inverted Swan, a 4-pence blue postage stamp issued in 1855 by Western Australia, was one of the world's first invert errors. Technically, it is the frame that is inverted, not the image of the swan, but it has become commonly known as the Inverted Swan.
In philately, an invert error occurs when part of a stamp is printed upside-down. Inverts are perhaps the most spectacular of postage stamp errors, not only because of their striking visual appearance, but because some are quite rare, and highly valued by stamp collectors.
Thomas Keay Tapling was an English businessman and politician. He played first-class cricket and was also an eminent philatelist who formed one of the greatest stamp collections of his era.
Choonilal Devkaran Nanjee (1890–1948), also known as C. D. Desai, was a twentieth-century Indian commodity trader, financier, and philatelist.
Jal Manekji Cooper FRGS in Mumbai, was an Indian philatelist, and an expert and authenticator of the postage stamps and postal history of India. Cooper was also a Fellow of the Royal Geographical Society and the author of several philatelic handbooks. He was both a stamp dealer and a collector and was associated with philatelists like C. D. Desai, N. D. Cooper, and Robson Lowe.
Colonel Denys Richard Martin was a distinguished 20th century philatelist. As a systematic scholar and prolific writer, Martin illuminated some of the most difficult topics and set a high standard for the study of the postage stamps and postal history of India and Burma.
Evelyn Arthur Smythies, CIE, was a distinguished forester and philatelist, born of British parents in India. Smythies was an expert on the ecology of Uttarakhand and Nepal. His careful studies of the earliest postage stamps of India, Jammu and Kashmir, Nepal, and Canada produced groundbreaking handbooks on which philatelists rely, even today.
Sir Edward Denny Bacon was a British philatelist who helped with the enlargement and mounting of collections possessed by rich collectors of his time and became the curator of the Royal Philatelic Collection between 1913 and 1938.
Plating refers to the reconstruction of a pane or "sheet" of postage stamps printed from a single plate by using individual stamps and overlapping strips and blocks of stamps. Likewise, if a sheet 10 or 20 postal cards is typeset, the variations of the letters or design elements may allow reconstruction or plating of the sheets based on these differences.
In philately a cut-out is an imprinted stamp cut from an item of postal stationery such as a postal card, letter sheet, aerogramme or wrapper that may have been used as a normal stamp.
Postage stamp paper is the foundation or substrate of the postage stamp to which the ink for the stamp's design is applied to one side and the adhesive is applied to the other. The paper is not only the foundation of the stamp but it has also been incorporated into the stamp's design, has provided security against fraud and has aided in the automation of the postal delivery system.
The British Library Philatelic Collections is the national philatelic collection of the United Kingdom with over 8 million items from around the world. It was established in 1891 as part of the British Museum Library, later to become the British Library, with the collection of Thomas Tapling. In addition to bequests and continuing donations, the library received consistent deposits by the Crown Agency and has become a primary research collection for British Empire and international history. The collections contain a wide range of artefacts in addition to postage stamps, from newspaper stamps to a press used to print the first British postage stamps.
The Tapling Collection of postage stamps was donated to the British Museum from the estate of Thomas Tapling in 1891.
The Philatelic Society of India (PSI) was formed in 1897 by a group of, mainly, expatriate Englishmen resident in the country as the first all-India philatelic society. During its first fifty years the society included most of the important Anglo-Indian philatelists and had a particularly strong publications record with two award-winning books. The society meets every first and third Saturday at the Mumbai G.P.O., convened by Dhirubhai Mehta, President, and D.M. Pittie, Hon. Secretary.
Lionel Edward Dawson (1887–1976) was a philatelist who won the Crawford Medal from the Royal Philatelic Society London for the paper The One Anna and Two Annas Postage Stamps of India, 1854-55. He was an expert on the stamps of India and the Feudatory States and signed the Roll of Distinguished Philatelists in 1961.
Alexander Joseph Sefi was an English philatelist and stamp dealer who signed the Roll of Distinguished Philatelists in 1933.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply. Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.
