Nyassa - A New Web Resource

As some of you may have noticed, a number of my recent threads have been trying to find out more about stamps from the Nyassa Company - I've been both surprised and frustrated by the fact that even though this is clearly a popular area to collect, there's no single point of reference on the web dedicated to it. Just getting to the bottom of the various overprints and surcharges has taken months!

As most of its issues (70% or therabouts) featured giraffes, my research for my first site (www.giraffestamps.co.uk) had covered the majority of the Nyassa Company stamps, and on a recent rainy day I figured that it wouldn't be too much of a stretch to extrapolate that information out to a second site and to create a website dedication to the Nyassa Company. It turned out that it was a little bit more of a stretch than I'd anticipated, but I'm pretty much there now.

I'm therefore pleased to invite you to have a look at the pretty-much-finished-article. The site can be found at www.nyassastamps.co.uk, and apart from scans of one or two of the issues (the very expensive ones, mainly!) will hopefully act as a complete reference for all of the stamps that were issued the Nyassa Company during its existence between 1891 and 1929.

I hope that you find it interesting - the site is completely non-commercial, with no advertising, and with the exception of five stamps the images are all from my own collection. I'd welcome any criticism (constructive or otherwise) and comments, and in particular welcome anyone pointing out mistakes - whether they be factual or technical - and any issues that they may experience when browsing the site. I've tested it in Safari, and the fancy image-zooming should be cross-brower friendly, but I've no way of knowing!

Thanks!

GS

GS, that's a very good site, and, even though I don't collect this area, I've bookmarked it into my "resources" folder. Well Done.

I use Firefox exclusively, and everything worked except (you knew that was coming, didn't you???) the 1921 images, which didn't load.

Hats off to you, a great site and one that will be of use to many people.

Thank you - I hadn't spotted that the thumbnails on that page weren't working, actually! They're now fixed - an error over capitalisation of filenames, which Safari forgave when I checked the site locally (ie. exporting it to my computer) but which it wasn't prepared to forgive when actually up on the website proper. That'll teach me!

GS

Please report updates to the site. I'm learning something new today, which really did make it worthwhile getting out of bed!

My only other suggestion would be to add a "contact" page via a tab. You'll definitely get more emails that way. I also have HTML code for a "last updated" field if you'd like it, which helps your visitors see how dynamic the site is. Of course, if it's a completed project, you may not update often, in which case the "last updated" field is a negative! Email me if you want it.

Cheers
Dave

Dave,

I've got an email link at the bottom of every page, and also where I as for specific information (for example, in completing the Michel catalogue numbers) - adding another tab to the menu would push it onto two lines, which I'm loath to do for stylistic reasons!

In terms of updates, I'll happily let you know - these'll either be new images being added when I buy the missing issues, or updated wording when I discover more aspects of the history to add to the narrative - I'm tracking down a few historic articles which should flesh out the history a bit more.

When you say a "last updated" field do you mean a line at the bottom that says "This page was last updated on..."? If so, then thanks for the offer but I'll probably leave it out - as you surmise, once it's done, it's done (bar creating the stamp identifier), so it won't change very often, and I'm always suspicious of sites that say "This page was last updated two years ago"...!

GS

Like Jubilee, I probably won't ever venture as far as Nyassa, but, like Jubilee, I've bookmarked your site, to read at leisure. It looks like a wonderful resource - congratulations!

Very slick. Congratulations on putting it together.

Nice site Giraffe

About 2 years ago, I traded all of my Portuguese colonies off to a friend of mine for a good Belgian,German and Iceland collection.

If I was still collecting them, I think I would be referring back and forth in to this site for information.

Great site

Bujutsu

Excellent site Giraffe! Thanks for sharing it with us.

VERY, VERY nicely done!

Thank you all for your kind comments! Hopefully the site will stand both serious stamp collectors and the hobbyist in good stead.

GS

One or two people kindly asked me to keep them posted when there were updates to the site. Up until now it's only really been adding new scans of stamps (in particular the first 1898 series), but as of yesterday I've also added a page for historic philately articles relating to Nyassa - one from 1911 or thereabouts, and three from the 1970s / 1980s. If you're interested in reading them then you can find them at http://www.nyassastamps.co.uk/articles.html.

I'm also looking for any more relevant articles that would be of interest to the Nyassa collector to have collated into one place - if you're looking through back issues of magazines, and the like, could you bear this in mind and if you come across something relevant let me know and, ideally, let me have a scan of it? As the site says, although I'm having trouble tracking down the owners of those articles which are still copyrighted, I'll take it down on request, but given the friendly nature of philately don't anticipate any issues when all I'm trying to do is widen people's interest in this area of the hobby.

Thanks,

GS

Not much in my closet GS,
I have a Nyasaland 1949 Telegram form, but its ripped in half :(
(found in a FDC)
I came across a pair of SG54a's on Spinks auctions a week ago.

Aaah - you're committing the cardinal sin of confusing Nyassa with Nyasaland. The former was a region of what's now Mozambique which was administered by the Nyassa Company from about 1894 - 1929, whereas the latter was a British protectorate which is now know as Malawi. They both take their name from Lake Nyassa, however, hence the similarity (although the latter only has one "s")!

GS

Cheers GS,
I only knew Nyassa as Nyassa Company, hence my confusion.