Nigerian "Tin" Stamp - 2 Versions? Why?

Hi all,

I have been researching a Nigerian stamp that appears to be from around 1953. Its subject matter is the mining of tin. The stamp was created during the time when Nigeria was still ruled by the United Kingdom, thus we see a small picture of Queen Elizabeth II in the upper right corner of the stamp.








There appears to have been two different stamps printed on this subject matter. Both identical in many ways, but not color.

I had read that of the two stamps printed on the subject, the "slate gray" stamp was more rare because of something to do with the ink that it was printed with.

Does anyone know why there were two versions of this stamp?


Thank you,


JR

Maybe you read this already..
http://naijastamps.blogspot.fr/2012/12/

Hi Perf,

Yes, I saw that website, thank you!

I was just trying to see if someone had a bit more of the "story".


Thanks!


JR

Don't quote me on this, but as I recall 2 different printers produced this value using 2 slightly different dies. Since they each mixed their own ink, shades were inevitable and a total of 4 die/shade combinations are collected.

The Crown Agents only released 2 of the printings to the trade. The other 2 were sent to the colony without stock removed for philatelic sales. Most of the latter were used for postage thus their scarcity mint. That's the back story and actually a reason why certain commonwealth stamps became rare in mint condition.

Many printings went sent to the colonies and territories without any stock held back for sales to the philatelic trade. Most stamps handled as such were used for postage. If these stamps were easily sortable, eg by perf, shade, watermark, paper type, etc then collectors became interested only to find that new issue firms did not have the stamps in stock. So the chase was on.

The Nigeria set was overprinted "Cameroons UKTT" in 1961 for use in the portion of this territory that decided to merge with the nation of Cameroun (the other portion opted to join Nigeria). The overprinted 2d gray stamps also exist in 2 die and color combinations, with one combination now exceedingly rare.

I have a good stock maybe 100 each type of all the stamps in the set I think there are 7 or 8 *** Edited by Staff - Please Review the rules that you agreed to when you registered. ***

There are 2 types of the 2d slate violet, Type A & B. There is also a major re-entry listed for the 2d black and yellow ochre, showing duplication of steps of the terraces. Catalogues at £130 mint compared to £4 for the normal stamp (2011 SG part 1). Well worth checking for.

All this series was printed by Waterlow & Sons. The change from two colour to one was required when the internal letter rate increased from 1½d to 2d, requiring a large number of 2d stamps. Large orders were more easily produced by rotary plates rather than flat plates, and that for this one colour was much more easy than two. The new rotary plates were used by a Waterlow subsidiary in Belgium.