Nigerian Stamps and Postal History

Last week I wrote a broad overview of the first King Edward VII Issue of Lagos, which was issued in 1904. I left off with an examination of some of the potentially constant plate flaws that occur on the issue, that are not listed in Gibbons. This week, I will show you some of the cancellations and postal history that can be found on these stamps. Before I get into the specific cancellations, a word on the rarity of the high values in postally used condition. This issue had a useful life of no more than 9 or ten months. Last week we saw that there were no more than between 720 and 1,680 stamps issued in total - mint and used. The high values would have seen very little usage, as they would really only have been required on very valuable registered items. So it is highly doubtful that more than 5% or 10% of these stamps would have been used during the life of this issue, so the number of total extant used stamps is probably not more than 150 or so of each of the 5/- and 2/6d and maybe...

Today's post begins a new series of posts which will finish off my examination of the stamps and postal history of Lagos. I have completed my examination of the Queen Victoria issues, and so it is now time to look at the stamps of Edward VII's reign. Lagos amalgamated with Niger Coast Protectorate in 1906 and became part of Southern Nigeria, so stamps were only produced for three years during his reign, from 1904 to the end of 1906. They did continue to be used after amalgamation, right up to 1914, when Southern Nigeria joined with Northern Nigeria to become Nigeria as we know it today. During this period, two stamp issues were produced, both exactly the same design and colours and differing only in terms of the watermarked paper used. The first issue which was placed on sale on January 22, 1904, was printed on paper with the single crown CA watermark that had been used on the previous Queen Victoria issue. The second issue, which appeared only 9 months later in October 1904...