Nigerian Stamps and Postal History

I am very sorry for the fact that I haven't had any new posts in over 3 weeks. I have been incredibly busy trying to keep my business afloat, so that I can continue to conduct philatelic research and publish my findings. A key to that has been getting all of the functionality in my website working and developing a marketing plan to build traffic to my website. All of these things take a tremendous amount of time, and I have been finding for the past few weeks that I simply do not have enough time to do everything that I need to do, and write two blog posts each week. So, regrettably I am going to have to put this blog on hold for a while. Hopefully, it won't be too long, but I will certainly let all of you know when I am ready to start posting again. Thanks so much for your support!

This week's post was quite short, as I was only starting my examination of the different perforations on this stamp. My examination of the previous issue had indicated to me that the classification system used by Gibbons for the perforations is too simple, because it treats several distinct perforation measurements as being the same. What I mean by this is that Gibbons lists 14.5-15 and 13.5-14 as the basic perforation measurements. The problem with this is that in the first Waterlow issue, there are actual measurements of exactly 15, 14.5, and 14, all of which look quite different from one another. A variation of 0.2 of a hole is not that different visually, but a variation of 0.5 hole is noticeably different. So, in studying this issue, I wanted to see of the same trend held true. Although I am not finished examining all of the halfpenny stamps in my possession, it is clear that the same trend does in fact hold, and that in addition to the three perforations mentioned ab...

I see that I missed posting last week about the Second Waterlow Issue of Niger Coast Protectorate. Facebook issued me a temporary sharing ban last week and because of that I did not share last week's post to this blog. So, this week I will give you the hyperlinks to both this week's and last week's post, as well as my synopsis. Last week I wrote an overview post for the Second Waterlow issue of Niger Coast Protectorate. This issue is the unwatermarked one that was issued with the new designs incorporating the name "Niger Coast Protectorate" and no mention anywhere of "Oil Rivers". I discussed the general aspects of the issue and gave detailed printing data from Ince and Osborne for all the known printings. You can read that full post here: https://brixtonchrome.com/blogs/nigerian-stamps-and-postal-history/the-1894-second-waterlow-issue-of-niger-coast-protectorate This week I looked at the halfpenny green in detail and covered all aspects of...

This week's post is much shorter than usual, as I am finding it necessary to write shorter posts if I want to have any chance of being able to continue to post on a weekly basis.  Today's post finishes off this first Waterlow issue, with a detailed study of the perforations on the 1 shiling black and then a quick look at some of the postal history that can be found from this issue.  In terms of perforations, my detailed study turned up some 36 different measurements. Most of these were very close together, but it was common to have different measurements on three or sometimes 4 sides of the same stamp. By far, the most common perforations were variations of 15 and 14.5 x 15. I proposed that I believe the Gibbons practice of grouping 14.5-15 and 13.5-14 together in the same ranges to be too simplistic, and I argue that there are really 6 basic measurements, that also exist as compounds.  Postal history is scarce for this issue, and much of what can be fou...

Today, I explore most aspects of the last value in the first Waterlow series, being the 1/- black, which in many respects is my favourite from the set. At least is a close toss up between this and the 2d green. The aspects that I cover today are the paper varieties, which are more or less the same as for the other values, the cancellations, which do not show up as easily on these black stamps, and the plate varieties. The plate varieties are interesting. There are three varieties that can be found on every single stamp in the sheet, two that can be found on about half of the stamps, and six that are specific to just one position in the sheet. I have been able to illustrate all but three of these in my detailed post. For the full post, including illustrations of the varieties, please click on the following link: https://brixtonchrome.com/blogs/nigerian-stamps-and-postal-history/the-unwatermarked-queen-victoria-waterlow-issue-of-niger-coast-protectorate-part-nine

This week's post completes my examination of the 5d mauve value of this set, which I started last week. This week's post will look at the plate flaws and re-entries found on this value, and the perforations. In terms of plate flaws, my detailed post gives details of six listed plate flaws and re-entries that occur on this stamp, that were listed in the West Africa Study Circle bulletin from May 1976. Two of these occur on many stamps on the sheet, and one occurs on every stamp. I give illustrations of all but three of the six listed flaws. In addition, I have found two varieties that were not mentioned in that bulletin. What is interesting is that there are very few re-entries, though the ones that do occur are quite outstanding. The only problem with them is that they occur on several positions in the sheet, so that they are not really that scarce. I have 74 mint and used examples of this stamp, which includes 1 mint pair. Careful measurement of the perforations reve...

My apologies for the lateness of today's post. I have been very tied up with the website and it took me a few days to catch up after a well deserved, and much needed 2 weeks off. This week I finished off my coverage of the 2.5d lake Queen Victoria stamp from the 1894 First Waterlow unwatermarked issue from Niger Coast Protectorate. I had covered all aspects of this stamp, except for the perforations. So, this week I took all 86 mint and used examples of this stamp in my inventory and measured the perforations very carefully with my Instanta gauge. As I had expected, based on the large number of different perforations I have found on the 1/2d, 1d and 2d values, I found no fewer than 45 different measurements. Of these 45, there were a few that stood out as being the most common: the perf. 15 and perf. 14. The Gibbons listed compound perforation of 13.5-14 and 12-13 was the scarcest of all the varieties, and in all cases, the compound came in the form of two different measure...

I must apologize again to my readers for another break in the continuity of my posts. I had intended to resume posting last week, and to complete thiss week's post today before I go on vacation tomorrow for two weeks. However, the final content edits that I had to make to the my new website took more time than I expected, so unfortunately I did not get a chance to prepare either last week's or this week's post. However, the new Brixton-Chrome website is now completely functional. The only thing I have left to do is migrate these blogs to it, install the language translation app and connect all the social media sales channels. I will deal with all that when I return, as well as resuming my regular posting schedule. I do apologize for all the interruptions, but I can promise you all that I don't have any other plans, except possibly to take a week in January next year. So, you can look forward to at least 2 or three uninterrupted months of postings. The website itsel...

I wanted to let my readers know that I am almost finished my new website, and need another week to complete the finishing touches. So, I will not be posting this week either. However, I will pick up where I left off next Tuesday, with the perforation varieties of the 2.5d lake 1894 Waterlow Issue. Thanks very much for your patience. In the meantime, I would encourage you all to check out how the site looks so far: www.brixtonchrome.com I have added a lot of information resource pages aimed at collectors of all levels of experience. The "Getting Started With Stamps" section covers a lot of topics for beginners, and "Stamp School" covers a range of topics for the intermediate to advanced collector. I would love to have comments about any topics that you think should be covered that are not, as I would like to include as many as I can ultimately. 

Hello everyone. I wanted to apologize for the fact that I will be unable to write any new posts for the next 2-3 weeks. I feel that I owe all my regular and loyal readers an explanation for why I am having to delay my posts, so here goes. When I started out as a stamp dealer and blogger, my intention was to focus all my attention and energy on building the best stamp stock that I could, writing top quality content and getting into a position to be able to service collectors from all over the world. This is no easy task, as I have written about many times in the past. So, when it came to deciding how I wanted to build a business online, I thought that paying a company like e-bay to take care of all the information technology, transaction processing, marketing etc. would make sense. I really thought that e-bay would act like a business partner and help my business grow, in exchange for the $500-$700 I was paying them every month. I was wrong. Dead wrong. E-bay is a member of a g...

This week I will be finishing my examination of the 2d green from the 1894 first Waterlow watermarked issue and starting my examination of the 2.5d lake. The only aspect remaining to be looked at on the 2d green are the perforations, which I will discuss now. Perforations on the 2d Green Gibbons lists five perforations for this stamp: 14.5 to 15 15.5 to 15 compound with 12-13. 13.5 to 14. 13.5 to 14 compound with 12-13. 12 to 13. Of course, just like all the other values looked at so far, the picture is quite a bit more complicated than that. The perforations that I have found in my detailed study of these stamps is as follows: 13; 14 x 12; 13 x 14 x 13; 12 14 x 13  14.4 x 14 x 14 x 14 14  12; 13 x 12.3; 12.6 x 14 x 12.9; 11.7 14.1 x 14 x 14.1 x 14; 12 14.1 x 14 x 14 x 14 14 x 14 x 13.9 x 14 14 x 13.9 x 14.1 x 13.8  13 x 12.2 x 13 x 12.4 14 x 13 x 14 x 13; 12 14 x 14.2 x 14 x 14 14 x 14; 12.4 ; 13.1 x 14 x 13.4 ; 12.1  14.1 x 14 x 13...

This week, I explore the aspects of the next value up in the series, the 2d green. This had the most ornate design of all the stamps in the set, and in my opinion, this was the most beautiful stamp in the set. Shades In studying this stamp, I have identified four shades of the green ink that was used to print the stamps. It is curious to me that Gibbons does not list any shade variations for this value at all. The individual scans below show each of these shades more closely: This is an almost exact match to the basic green shade on the Stanley Gibbons colour key.  This is closest to deep grey-green on the Stanley Gibbons colour key, but contains a hint of olive. It is a very distinct colour that is completely different from any other examples of this stamp that is currently in my stock.  This shade is an exact match to Gibbons's myrtle green shade.  This is close to Gibbons's basic green shade, but is paler.  Paper and Gum ...