Dominion of India's 1949 pictorial definitives

By Henry Gitner and Rick Miller

India has a sizeable following of collectors in the United States and the United Kingdom. The general market for its postage stamps has cooled a bit from the high of a few years ago, but there is good demand for a number of specific issues.

One that is still in strong demand is the set of 16 pictorial definitives issued Aug. 15, 1949 (Scott 207-222). We last tipped this set in the April 6, 2009, issue of Linn’s.

This is one of the last sets issued by the Dominion of India before it became an independent republic on Jan. 26, 1950.

The stamps were printed by lithography, and the high denominations in the set are attractive bicolors.

The 2019 Scott Classic Specialized Catalogue of Stamps and Covers 1840-1940 values the set in mint never-hinged condition at $338.70. The set is selling briskly in the $250-to-$275 price range, and it is a good buy at those prices. The gum must be nice and fresh and not toned.

Be careful of the 1948 Mahatma Gandhi set of four postage stamps (Scott 203-206), which was formerly the high flyer of postwar India. The Scott Classic Specialized catalog still values the set at $407 in mint never-hinged condition, but it is selling for less than half of that now.

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