École

1890 · rif. 1343 — 1890. Good. Ink and gouache with gold heightening on fibrous brown laid paper with a Jaipur Court Fee tax stamp in blue ink on the recto as well as the Jaipur City Council blindstamp 13 1/4 x 8 1/2 inches 335 x 215 mm. Toning handling creases and minor scattered surface soiling throughout. There are scattered coeval inscriptions in ink on the recto and verso. The first revenue stamps in India were issued in the mid-nineteenth century during the Raj and they are still being issued to this day. Apart from issues for the whole of India many princely states provinces and other states also had or still have their own revenue stamp issues. Before independence Indian revenue stamps were closely modeled on similar designs from Great Britain as is the case with this carriage motif stamp from Jaipur. The stamps were issued to denote various denominations including rupees and annas. An anna or Änna was a currency unit formerly used in British India equal to 1â„16 of a rupee. It was subdivided into four old Paisa or twelve pies thus there were 192 pies in a rupee. When the rupee was decimalized and subdivided into 100 new paise one anna was therefore equivalent to 6.25 paise. This particular stamp was used as evidence of court taxes remitted for property dealings. unknown