List Of British Commonwealth Countries During KGVI Era

QEII became queen in Feb 1952 and Autralia issued a couple of stamps showing George's effigy in March and April. There are included in Murray Payne as KGVI stamps and also in my Gibbons Crown album. I think it's the right decision, personally. (Incidentally my album also includes spaces for the four Edward VIII stamps and their overprinted equivalents from Morocco/Tangier, so they have a home. They aren't in the Murray Payne catalogue though.)

Murray Payne does have catalogue numbers, but they use their own system, starting with 1 in each territory. Gibbons of course don't start at 1 because of all the previous reigns, so they are different systems.

If I wanted a more general book, is SG British Commonwealth 1840-1970 the best book to get?

Yes - you should be able to pick up an older copy cheap at auction or on ebay.

GeoffHa,

I have already started watching a few.

Or Amazon, angore. Careful, though... I bought a copy a few years ago from one or the other. Later on, I found that there were some pages missing. You would never know as there are hundreds of pages in these catalogs. I had to buy another one. Between the two, I figure I must have all the pages accounted for. Then again, maybe not!

Jack Kelley

If you plan to collect King George VI stamps, you will need to make a decision about how deep you want to go, and how much you are willing to spend.

The Scott Catalog lists the basic sets and most of the perforation changes for these stamps, so it is the easiest way to collect them.

The Stanley Gibbons Catalogue goes into more detail and adds a number of flaws that occurred as the stamps were printed.

The Commonwealth Catalogue (published by Murray Payne) goes into more detail on the various shades that emerged as the stamps were reprinted. Typically it is more comprehensive than the Gibbons Catalogue, but lately some of the Commonwealth listings have found their way into the Gibbons catalogue.

If you collect the perforations, make sure you get a gauge that can accurately measure them. I use the Stanley Gibbons Instanta Gauge. It is a continuum of lines that will give you a more accurate measurement than the gauges with the circles.

You may also have to figure out color shades. This can be pretty difficult unless you have a number of stamps to compare. The shades occurred as the stamps were reprinted. Some KGVI sets have values that were printed as many as 20 times because they were used from 1938 until as late as 1956. So you will see variation in color, but you may also notice that the paper and gum is different on some issues. This occurred due to shortages and bombing incidents during World War II.

It is a pretty interesting area with a number of avenues for specialization - or not. It all depends on how you want to collect them.

I make my own pages based on what I have found, and attempt to collect the stamps by printing date (as I gather the information). I used to draw them by hand using archive paper and hingeless mounts, but now I print the information on my inkjet printer for each stamp and buy Vario hingeless pages. It takes up a lot more room, but allows me to make changes as I learn about new stamps that were found, and has a lot more detail than album pages.

Good luck with your project.