How Bijawar’s Stamps Were Printed: Units, Sheets, Varieties and Specimens

One portrait runs through all three Bijawar issues, but each was made differently. Compare the separation, format, gum and sheet arrangement before naming a stamp. A photograph shows the edges and the value; it cannot show the gum or the paper.^[1][12][14]

Issue	Printing and sheet	Separation	Gum
1935 low values	Typography; unit of six, three across and two down	Perforation 11	Paper gummed before printing
1936 low values	The same clichés in changed colours	Roulette 7	Look at the paper and the back
1937 high values	Unit of six; typography in the 1937 notice, uncertain in Stoney, lithography in Haverbeck	Perforation 9	Gummed after printing, according to Haverbeck

The printing method of the high values

The low values are always described as typographed. The 1937 high values need a more careful label. The May–June 1937 chronicle calls them typographed. Stoney repeated in 1942 that they were said to be typographed, but admitted he could not explain why they looked different. Haverbeck later described lithography with a halftone portrait, while Holman called all Bijawar stamps letterpress.^{[12][14][1][4]}

These are competing interpretations, not a known fact about the workshop. A halftone image does not name a printing process, an engraver or a press. Only a printer’s specification or a technical examination of the stamps can settle it.^{[12][14][1][4]}

Source	Issue date	Printing	What it shows
Philatelic Journal of India, May–June 1937, p. 37	All five values already chronicled	Typographed	A contemporary report, not an issue order or a printer’s specification
Stoney, October 1942, p. 137	Catalogue listings kept apart from issue dates	Said to be typographed; he could not explain their appearance	Open uncertainty, not proof either way
Haverbeck, 1959, pp. 288–289, 293	July 1937	Lithography, with a 60-line halftone portrait screen	A later interpretation; no printer named
Holman, November 2008, p. 33	May 1937	All Bijawar stamps letterpress	A later survey, no printing contract
Brunström, February 2019, pp. 80–81	May 1937	The Lakshmi attribution is for the 1935 set	Not to be extended to the high values

Six subjects, but not a six-stamp sheet

Stoney’s study of 1942 is an early check on the six-subject unit. He described a three pies block made of two vertical pairs, 19 mm apart, one pair upside down to the other, and concluded that more than one unit had been printed on the same piece of paper. Haverbeck later illustrated a double unit and explained it by work-and-turn printing.^[14][1]

So the unit is three across and two down, but the uncut paper could carry repeated units, and the size of the unit is not the size of the press sheet. Stoney also listed small positional differences in the low values, marking some as uncertain. His idea that one original type was used with altered values is a reconstruction from the stamps, not a record of how the dies were made. The extra S on the rupee is more firmly placed, at subject 2, top middle.^[14][1]

Stoney’s opposed three pies pairs are positions 3 and 6. His lists of positional details are leads for comparing stamps, not a finished plating: he himself doubted the dot he gave to position 6 of the two annas, and not every weak detail is constant.^[14]

Stoney’s measurements

Stoney’s dimensions and spacings describe the stamps he examined; they have not been measured again from pictures. He notes that the Hindi and Urdu inscriptions change sides between the two designs. Record the scale, the paper and where you measure from before applying his figures to a stamp.^[14]

Design	Size of stamp	Spacing	Paper and separation	Inscriptions
Low values	23¾ × 27½ mm	3 mm	Thin white wove; perforation 11 for the first family (the rouletted family is separate)	Hindi left, Urdu right
High values	25 × 29½ mm	6½ mm	Thicker white wove; perforation 9; process disputed	Urdu left, Hindi right

Imperforate between: keep the pair

Haverbeck’s checklist records the four annas imperforate between horizontally and the six annas imperforate between vertically. Both describe the join between two stamps: a single trimmed close on one side cannot show either. The one rupee also has an imperforate listing, which is a different claim from one missed line of perforation in a normally perforated sheet.^[1]

The May–June 1937 notice describes the six annas instead as imperforate between horizontally, and Stoney later mentions, without having seen it, a vertical pair imperforate between. Both descriptions stand until an intact pair settles which way it runs.^[12][14]

Haverbeck’s rarity ratings describe the unused and used stamps known to him. They are not today’s prices or a census of what survives, and a variety needs an intact multiple or other direct evidence, not a rarity symbol.^[1]

SPECIMEN markings are not proofs

Stoney recorded low values in his collection with SPECIMEN on the back in black, apparently put on before gumming, and high values marked on the face in violet. So such material existed at the time. It does not show who applied the marks, whether they were official, whether the stamps went out through the UPU, or that they were printer’s proofs.^[14][1]

No essay or proof with a documented history from the printer is known. SPECIMEN stamps, missing perforations, tête-bêche multiples and issued stamps are separate categories, and none of them adds a new value.^[14][1]

Sources

• [1] H. D. S. Haverbeck, “Bijawar”, The Collectors Club Philatelist, vol. 38, no. 6 (November 1959), pp. 287–293, with checklist.
• [4] John Holman, “New Collector: Indian Feudatory States”, Gibbons Stamp Monthly, November 2008, p. 33 (Bijawar).
• [12] “New Issues for Chronicle”, The Philatelic Journal of India, XLI, nos. 5–6 (May–June 1937), pp. 36–37, Bijawar p. 37.
• [14] R. F. Stoney, “The Stamps of Bijawar”, The Philatelic Journal of India, XLVI, no. 10 (October 1942), pp. 133–137.
• [15] Christer Brunström, “Bijawar: Seven Years in the Philatelic Limelight”, Gibbons Stamp Monthly, February 2019, pp. 80–81.