Convention State Essays

The Kashmir essays were discovered in 1918 by Mr Gordon Jones (the co-author of the book - Ref next article) among the papers of Rai Daular Ram Bahadur, an Imperial Post Office and Convention States postal official, who had retired a quarter of a century ago, showing that Jammu & Kashmir at one time had entertained the idea of a convention with the Imperial Post Office.

Note that similar essays had supposedly been created (as documented in the next article) for Patiala , Gwalior and Jhind - however none have been discovered so far. The significance of these is therefore not just in the context of Jammu & Kashmir , but as a crucial item in the history of all convention states (i.e. the states that signed a treaty with the Imperial Post Office for the use of overprinted British India stamps).

The expense in creating the above essays in 1883 is quite evident especially as each stamp is overprinted in a different colour. This is an unique set with just two additional such overprinted stamps known to exist elsewhere.

Jno Godinho has stated in his article that "These essays must be of the greatest rarity and have been absorbed into one of the great collections at home". Jno Godinho and his nephew Hamilton Godinho were renowned collectors of Indian Feudatory States (Ref. The Philatelic Journal Of India, September 1946)