Portuguese India Postage Dues: Numerals, PORTEADO and Currency Changes

A due stamp is not prepayment

Postage dues deal with an unpaid or short-paid amount, not with the sender’s prepayment. A numeral may look like a postage value while doing a different accounting job, so identify the stamp’s category before deciding what part of a cover’s charge it stands for.^[1][2]

A due stamp does not tell you the original tariff, the amount prepaid or why it fell short. A full assessment needs the letter’s date, origin, destination, class and any written or handstruck charges; the stamp is one piece of that evidence.^[1][2]

The first numerals, 1904

The due issue of 1904 has its own numeral design. The new-issue report of the time and the modern catalogue list small réis values, tangas and a 1-rupia value. Keep it apart from the Carlos postage stamps, even where the same amount appears in both.^[2][1]

The list of values is a framework for an inventory; it does not show that every value met a common shortfall on inland letters. High amounts could relate to different classes, weights or accounts, and a loose used stamp has lost the document that would tell them apart, so its cancellation should not be turned into a detailed rate story.^[2][1]

Unit	Values
Réis	2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 9
Tangas	1, 2, 5, 10
Rupia	1

Republican dues

Republican wording reached the dues as well as ordinary postage. The catalogue separates the numeral group overprinted REPUBLICA in 1911 from later local overprints; the numeral design stays the base, and the political word marks a later operation.^[1][3]

Record the lettering, colour and position of an overprint without assuming that every difference is an error, and take important measurements from the stamp and an identified type, not from a resized picture. A political overprint did not turn a due into ordinary postage because the same word appears on the definitives.^[1][3]

Ordinary designs given a new job

Later dues include PORTEADO overprints on designs that also served as ordinary postage. The added word changes the stamp’s function and so its classification; the design’s earlier identity still matters but is no longer the whole description.^[1][4]

Such a stamp needs a fuller record than a simple change of value: the base issue, the overprint of function and any new value, read in order if both were added. A photograph can show the wording, but an unverified added word does not become genuine because the stamp underneath is.^[1][4]

Numerals and the decimal change

The later programme includes numeral dues again and, in the end, adaptations to the new currency. Centavos and escudos belong to a different monetary system from réis and tangas, and the reform of 1959 should show in the dues section of an album as much as in ordinary postage.^[1][5]

A broad date range in a catalogue is not a release date for every value and shade. Keep the catalogue’s family but record the value actually on the stamp. A full list of settings and local overprints has not been established, and uncertain counterparts are not assumed.^[1][5]

Reconstruct the charge, not just the design

For a cover with dues, write down every charge and its unit. Separate the postage first paid from the amount collected later, and look for signs of redirection, return or delivery, which can change the reading of a simple-looking underpaid letter.^[1][6]

Do not take a general rule, such as double the deficiency, from one example until the Portuguese India regulation is known. Similar handstruck marks occur under different administrations and periods. Sometimes the useful conclusion is only the added charge and the office that handled it, and that is stronger than an attractive but unproven calculation.^[1][6]

Sources

• [1] StampWorld, Portuguese India, postage dues 1904–1959.
• [2] The Philatelic Journal of Great Britain, 25 April 1904, new-issue report on Portuguese colonial postage-due stamps.
• [3] Bernard Towler, “Forgotten Countries: Portuguese India”, originally The Stamp Lover, reprinted in IND DAK, July–August 2001, pp. 103–104.
• [4] William E. Steiner, Portuguese India album pages (46-page PDF).
• [5] “Portuguese India”, journal report of 3 April 1959, p. 235, from Dr W. Alexander-Katz of Lisbon.
• [6] “Cancellations of British & Portuguese India”, undated collection mounts nos. 1, 8 and 9.