Sunday, December 14, 2008

Too cold here. Let's go to Kenya!

Very wetty cold in Montpellier today. Icely and snowy elsewhere in France. Let's go to Kenya!

Lake Naivasha, in Kenya, is the topic of stamps in British colonies of Kenya, Uganda and Tanganyika since 1935, during the reign of George V. On 11 April 1938, the same landscape is reused in the new definitive series figuring King George VI. The Lake appeared on the 10 pence, 1 shilling and 2 shilling stamps.

If I possess this 1 shilling stamp, it must be very common and worth little pennies. Certainly less than the 30 pence the 2008 Stanley Gibbons Commonwealth Catalogue gave it cancelled (#145 ; 23 pounds sterling unused... but had this kind of stamps ever put teeth in Africa?). But, I should retrieve it in my archives to be sure it is not one of the undertypes that appeared during the printing history by De La Rue:
* -a: black and brown of 1942 instead of black and yellowish brown: 30 pence too;
* -ab: quite visible variety of the broken mountain (August 1948-June 1949): 450 pounds;
* -ac: linked to the previous, the retouched mountain after June 1949: 275 pounds, one thousand if unused;
* -aw: more discreet, the inversed watermark at 2750 pounds cancelled;
* -b: perforated 13x12.5 in October 1949 instead 13x11.75 = 60 pence;
* -ba: the deep black and brown printing of 14 June 1950: 2.25 pounds, twenty-five unused.

In comparaison, the George V version in black and green had only one variation of perforation in 1936. A lucrative one unused: 1300 pounds.

Final episode of the Lake Naivasha stamp, it is reissued on 1st February 1952 with the mention "ROYAL VISIT / 1952" to commemorate the visit of Princess Elisabeth and her husband, on their way to the British Dominions in Oceania. On the 6, King George VI died and the couple went back to London.

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