Stamps from India catalogue

4,119 items

India Overview of the stamps and points of attention for identification More

The country of India has existed as a stamp-issuing territory since 1852. The first stamps were introduced by the British East Indies Company, which already had branches in India. In addition, the Portuguese (Portuguese Indies = Goa), the French (Pondicherry) and Danes and Dutch were present.
The country has been ruled as part of the British Empire since 1858. Queen Victoria was crowned Empress in 1876. The empire continued to exist under the British kings, so the stamps always showed the British head of state. In 1947 India became independent and proclaimed the Republic. In fact it is a federation. You can find these stamps at India.
Hindus are the predominant ethnic group, but there are hundreds of minor religions. They often had, and still have, their own part of the country. The Republic now has 29 states, but in the past there were many more. Many of them issued their own stamps before independence, some intended solely as service stamps. Some states used stamps from British India with an overprint, others used their own design. You can find them at LastDodo under the area name India – state name.
Special points of interest are the watermarks and perforations, while there are also stamps with slightly different inscriptions. Watermarks can appear in all kinds of positions: portrait, head portrait, landscape and inverted landscape. The more modern long-running series also has perforation differences, for example 14½x14 and 13x13, in addition to different watermarks.
The attached image shows examples of watermarks used. From left to right these are the elephant head, star, stars, Asoka column and star+INDIA GOVT.

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Number of stamps

4,119

Number of related items

Oldest item

Queen Victoria (1854)