Pakistan Local Overprints

The upheavals of the social and political situation, which were traumatic, are not our concern here, but it is as well to remember that the background to the philatelic happenings we are about to examine was one of great disturbance.The main security printer on the sub-continent, indeed the only one capable of producing the overprints urgently needed in sufficient quantities, was the Indian Security Press at Nasik. The Pakistan authorities received co-operation to the extent that they were able to have stamps overprinted there and these were brought into use on 1st October 1947, following independence on 15th August. However, supplies were rather unreliable and it became necessary to authorize further overprints. These took place at various centers, as we will see, and in addition there were a multitude of hand stamps, typewritten overprints and handwritten overprints, prepared locally by people who wished to use stamps which were Pakistani in character, rather than Indian. No matter that some of the stamps found and used for overprinting and hand stamping were obsolete – anything that could be used was put to use. As is usually the case when political upheaval necessitates provisional issues, study and recording of all the different types started immediately and continues to this day. Col. D. R. Martin’s book on the overprints was published by Robson Lowe Ltd in 1959, and was later reprinted and updated in Pakistan (1972). Much further research was undertaken, both inside and outside Pakistan, culminating in the publication of ‘PAKISTAN; OVERPRINTS ON INDIAN STAMPS AND POSTAL STATIONERY 1947-9’, by Ron Doubleday and Usman Ali Isani, in 1993. This massive work is lavishly illustrated and authoritative, and I am greatly indebted to it.When I sit down each month to write an article for Stamp Magazine, sometimes my choice of subject is dictated by what I have available; I often don’t have the material to illustrate an article on a given subject, at least not enough to do it justice. So, having just had the opportunity to purchase a major collection of Pakistan local overprints, I am going to use this opportunity to write on the subject before all the illustrated items find new homes! Although I briefly covered the topic last year, I can’t pass up the opportunity to share some of these items with you and I make no apology for returning to the field. This is one of the times when I cannot hope to be comprehensive in surveying the subject under review, but I can outline the different categories of overprint, hand stamp etc., and (I hope) provide some items that may be pleasing to the eye.

The Nasik overprints were exceptionally well carried out. When it became necessary to supplement them, photographic copies were made in Lahore and elsewhere, and distributed to centers such as Peshawar and Karachi. Naturally, such copies lacked the precision of the originals, and this is where specialization begins to become feasible. One of the most important things for the collector to do is to understand the necessity of accurate measurement; to quote Doubleday and Isani – ‘Always measure length in a straight line from the outside of the foot of letter "P" (excluding any serif) to the outside of the right foot of the letter "N" (again excluding any possible serif). The full stop, which may not always be apparent, or any other possible traces of a hand stamp holder should be excluded. Height is taken from the letter ‘I’ unless obviously unrepresentative. In such cases the height of the letter ‘K’ should be taken." Accurate measurement is a vital first step in narrowing down the myriad of possibilities with the hand stamps.

Even before the Nasik overprints became available (1st October 1947), and hand stamps and the local overprints went on sale (January 1948), there were some unauthorized local hand stamps, seemingly done by people who disagreed with the decision to continue using Indian stamps until the Nasik

prints became available. Few of these early hand stamps have been recorded, most having apparently been used on telegrams. We are fortunate to be able to illustrate one of these, from an unrecorded die (it is tiny, at 11 x 1½mm), one of a newly-discovered group. However, these early usages are so rare that they need not concern most of us!

The imitations of the Nasik overprints are reasonably easy to separate, which is just as well. Although there were a number of errors, many of the more important ones emanating from Karachi the quality was reasonably high. The major errors on the 1r, which merit footnote status in Gibbons, happened there. Finding an example of the few King George V high values used for hand stamping or overprinting at one of the major centers is an unusual event – as is locating any of the proof overprints in red, or examples of the high values where overprints fell on the gutter margins – in fact the 1r ‘overprint missing in pair with normal’ is an example of just this, no allowance having been made when setting up the printing plate for the existence of gutter margins.

Overprinting was also carried out at other centers, notably at Barisal, which has a particularly neat overprint, existing in two types (as is often the case). We can also illustrate an example of the Khulna overprint in blue (an unrecorded color)  on the 3p (an unrecorded value). Overprints on the Service issues are always treated separately, and much the same remarks as above apply; plenty of errors can be found. Among the centers which carried these out was Bahawalpur, but the main centers were Peshawar, Karachi and Lahore.