Refugee Relief Stamps and Covers

The SERVICE and definitive stamps that replaced the multitude of different overprints

From the 15th of November 1971, until the 31st of March 1973, India levied a 5 paise surcharge on all mails, except postal cards and newspapers. This surcharge was due to the influx of refugees to India from Bangladesh, the former East Pakistan, and was to help finance part of the relief efforts.

In order to collect the surcharge it was necessary to make the necessary stamps available throughout India as soon as possible. To facilitate such, several different overprints were prepared until a Relief stamp could be made available. To make the surcharge applicable throughout the country immediately, postmasters were authorized to overprint several different stamps locally. Thus, in addition to the several standard machine overprints, a multitude of varieties exist with rubber stamp overprints.
 

THE OVERPRINTS

Nasik Security Press, the printer of Indian postage stamps, prepared an overprint that was to be distributed throughout all of India. The overprint is in black and was applied to the 5 paise Family Planning stamp , issued on October 16, 1967, which was a part of the larger fifth definitive set, issued over a ten year period (1965-1975).
The bilingual overprint simply reads “REFUGEE RELIEF” in English and Hindi, with the English running vertically in one line on the right side of the stamp, and the Hindi in two lines horizontally towards the left.

Five other machine overprints are listed in all major catalogs and each was done for a specific geographic area or areas.

Determining which overprints are genuine is the major question facing anyone collecting this material. I have learned that much material is disputed and as soon as you feel you know if something is genuine or not, someone comes along and tells you just the opposite. I would appreciate any comments on any of this material from other collectors.

I have a great deal more material to scan and post, so please bear with me.

The Following Thirteen Overprints are Common Forgeries and can generally be purchased all over the world. Since most dealers have no knowledge of this specific issue they are almost always sold as genuine overprints. Other forgeries also exist.

• All of the above overprints are on the green Service stamp and are fakes.

• The above three Family Planning stamps have fake overprints applied to them.

• The above two overprints were prepared and printed by the printers who have printed many of India's stamps - Nasik Security Press. These two overprints were prepared for distribution to all of India. The words "Refugee Relief" is in English and Hindi. The green stamp is the Service stamp and the red stamp the 5p Family Planning issue from the then current definitive set.

• Pane of 9 stamps on the left has part of the English missing on the upper center stamp, part of the Hindi missing on the upper right stamp and all the English missing and most of the Hindi on the center stamp.

• The center block of four has the overprint shifted to the left.

• The block on the right has a quadruple (Four times) overprint.

• Bangalore overprints. The left item has the overprint on the reverse of the stamps and the right block has the overprint inverted and shifted.

• New Delhi overprint which is double (one inverted). I have been told that this is recorded by Gupta.

• I have been told by some collectors that this is a genuine overprint, but others say it is not genuine. I don't think there is any doubt that it is a fake as it has a similar oveprint to several of the fakes listed above. The back of the envelope has additional stamps, but none are RR overprints. While it is not generally done in the US, in many other parts of the world it is common to use varieties and errors on covers sent to onself, or other collectors.

• Several of the hundreds of rubber stamped overprints for this issue. The last one above, with the selvage has one overprint in Hindi and one in English. The English is the one on the angle. If anyone knows from which city or post office any of these came from, I would appreciate hearing from you and I will identify them here on the page.

• 
  Interesting blocks of four with overprint oddities.
  1.The 5np green stamp is from the 1957-58 definitive set. It was overprinted in several areas and is not rare.
  2. Block missing the English portion of the overprint. This can only be considered an oddity and not an error as many such oddities were inadvertantly created while applying the rubber stamp impressions.
  3. Shifted overprint
  4. Typical smudged overprint. This is common for many of the overprints.
  5. Printed (?) in English and rubber stamped in Hindi
  6. Hindi only.
  7. Double overprint. One in purple with a black overprint over it.
  8. The last image is the upper right stamp from the block.

 

• Two revenue stamps overprinted "Refugee Relief" in the two languages. Do other varieties of overprints exist on revenue stamps? I had collected Refugee Relief material for over a year before discovering that there were revenue stamps with the overprints as they are seldom mentioned.

• Ten Paisa stamp similar to the ones on the above documents but with a rubber stamped "Refugee Relief" impression over the Hindi. This stamp was sent to me by Prashant H. Pandya of Vadodara, India.

• These two additions to my page were made possible by my friend Anil Kumar, a stamp dealer in Allahabad, India.
  I have put enlargements of the stamps on the sheets so they could be better seen.
  

• Imperforate printer's waste from Nasik Security Press of the green Service stamp. The image on the right is a larger scan of the upper stamp of the item on the left. Note that there is a flaw in the background on the left side of the stamp. This is not found in the stamp below it. Possibly a rejected essay?

• Mr. Prashant Shaw of Ahmedabad, India was kind enough to write the following, which was forwarded to me:
  
  "The official definitive issue of 5p was released on 1-12-1971. The stamp was printed by offset litho. in yellow-green colour on indigenous paper with "Large Star & India Gov't" watermark without gum, in sheets of 90 (9 x 10. Perforation 15 x 14.
  The regular (Not provisional) type of Government/Official used RRT (Refugee Relief Tax) stamp was specially designed as "Sarnarthy Sahayata" printed in Hindi on the left side of the stamp with the letters running from bottom to the top of the tablet, where-as the same in English at the other side of the stamp. I found all of the examples were "Trial testing" prints, shown as "Bisected" as well as "imperf".
  Mr. Shaw then states that the above illustrated stamp "is not genuine" as "No such kind of issue was recorded anywhere in the postal history of RRT stamps of India".
  
  I purchased the above item from a dealer in India who stated he purchased this, along with some items from the British period of India's history. He said all the items were sold to him as waste from Nasik.
  
  Mr. Anil Kumar of Allahabad, wrote to state that this was printer's waste and that several years ago was fairly common and not that difficult to find at that time in the philatleic market.
  Whatever it's status, it is an interesting addition to a collection of Refugee Relief material.
  

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