Stamps of Indian Convention States-Early overprints on Victoria Heads

The illustration below shows some of the variety of overprints on the early stamps over Indian Convention States. Examples are of Jind, Nabha, Chamba and Gwalior. Early overprints were in red or black often as a "halo" around the head of Victoria. Many must have been done by hand since the positions of the overprint can vary considerably as the Jind examples show. The Gwalior overprints also show some variation, sometimes written in Hindi script only other times in English and Hindi and with variations in position.

Some early Stamps of Indian Convention States

The stamps of Indian Convention States were stamps that had currency throughout British India with the name of the individual state overprinted on the stamp. There was some variety in the overprints in the early stamps. For example Patiala State was originally printed as Puttialla State in red as a "halo" around the head of Victoria. When the word "service" was overprinted on earlier stamps  it appeared in red, later in black with some printed in smaller letters others in larger and in different areas of the stamp. Some examples are shown below. The half anna, second from the left on the bottom row, shows an error in the printing of Puttialla, being printed as Auttialla. These varieties did not last as the printing became standardized and by the late reign of Victoria and the accession of Edward the 7th these varieties had disappeared.

Illustration 2 shows the now standardized overprint on stamps of Edward the 7th. With an interesting new overprint of "telephone service" now in use