Nigerian Stamps and Postal History

This week's post will present the postal history items in my collection that cover the Crown CA issues of the Queen Victoria period of the colony of Lagos. Unfortunately I do not have any covers from the crown CC period, as these are exceptionally rare. But I do have a nice range of covers and postcards from this period, and these will be the subject of this week's post. 1882-1887 First Crown CA Issue A 4d cover sent from Lagos to Munich, Bavaria on March 5, 1888. The postage is paid with a pair of the 2d slate from the first crown CA issue. The pair is cancelled with strikes of a 9-bar Lagos oval obliterator, while the cover bears a nice strike of a 21 mm Lagos CDS, that has a 4 mm gap between "W" and "A" of "Africa". 1887-1903 Second Crown CA Issue A 4d cover sent from Lagos to Berne, Switzerland on March 18, 1891. This cover is franked with a single 4d lilac and black, from the first state of the plate. The stamp is cancelled ...

Today's post continues my examination of the three stamps issued in 1894 by Lagos to facilitate payment of insurance charges on registered parcels: the 5d, 7.5d and 10d. Last week we looked at the 5d lilac and dark green and concluded that there were approximately 18 printings. Given that only 55,620 stamps of the 7.5d were sent compared to 92,160 of the 5d, I would expect there to have been fewer printings, although it is entirely possible that there were as many printings consisting of fewer stamps each time. Like the 5d, there were a lot of unsold remainders that were eventually destroyed - 32,760 out of the original 55,620, leaving only 22,860 stamps that were sold and either preserved in mint form, or used. I have 78 mint and used stamps of this value, which I sorted into the same five groups that I had identified in last week's post. This is the starting point for this week's post. I will now sort each of these five groups further by the shades of the head plate an...