Nigerian Stamps and Postal History

Overview Today's post will look at how to distinguish the six printings of the 1/- orange definitive of Lagos that was in use between 1884  and 1887 when it was replaced by the bi-coloured black and yellow green definitive stamp. The six printings were dispatched as follows: First printing - July 8, 1884 - 60 sheets of 60 stamps - 3,600 stamps. Second printing - December 16, 1884 - 60 sheets of 60 stamps - 3,600 stamps. Third printing - July 13, 1885 - 62 sheets of 60 stamps - 3,720 stamps. Fourth printing - December 29, 1885 - 60 sheets of 60 stamps - 3,600 stamps. Fifth printing - June 30, 1886 - 60 sheets of 60 stamps - 3,600 stamps. Sixth printing - October 12, 1886 - 68 sheets of 60 stamps - 4,080 stamps.  It will immediately be apparent that the quantities dispatched for each printing were roughly the same, so I would expect that in a given group of stamps taken from random sources, that I should have roughly the same numbers of each printing, as they ar...

Overview In 1884 the decision was made to finally comply with the standard colour requirements of the Universal Postal Union. Thus it was necessary to issue a new series of stamps that incorporated the required changes. The only value that did not require a colour change, was the 1/- orange, and so it remained orange until the bicoloured Third Crown CA Issue of 1887-1903 replaced it. Several new denominations appeared in this series. Some of these, like the new halfpenny value, along with the 1d value continued to to be used indefinitely, and were still in use when the Edward VII issues replaced the Queen Victoria Issues in 1903. Others like the 2/6, 5/- and 10/- stamps had a very short life of only six months or so. They are among the rarest stamps of the colony, having had extremely small printings. The new series consisted of 9 values, which were supplied over a period from July 1884, until December 1886. As the halfpenny and 1d stamps continued t...