The Coronation Issue of 1937 and King George VI Definitives from 1938-1953

On May December 11, 1936 King Edward VIII abdicated the throne and was succeeded by his brother, King George VI. The coronation was held on May 12, 1937. To mark the occasion all member countries and territories in the commonwealth issued stamps, most of which were in a common design type. The common design featured the King and Queen beside the Orb and Royal Sceptres. The issue was the work of two printers: De La Rue and Bradbury Wilkinson. Each common design issue consisted of three denominations, which were generally used to pay local surface mail, surface empire rate and the foreign surface rates. Each territory or country used its own colour combination, and these combinations repeat several times in the set. Nigeria's stamps were printed by Bradbury Wilkinson.

The King George VI Definitive issue appeared on May 1, 1938. My wife learned that she was married to an imperialist anglo when I told her that this was my favourite issue from any country, or all time. She shook her head. But seriously, the designs strike the right balance between simplicity and ornateness, and the colours are so brilliant and fresh that it is a hard set to beat aesthetically speaking. the low values up to 1/3d were printed by Bradbury Wilkinson, while the 2/6d and 5/- high values are De La Rue Productions. There were upwards of a dozen identifiable printings of each value to delight the specialist. There was a major perforation change in 1950 on the low values, from 11.9 line to 11.5 comb. On the high values there are no fewer than four different perforations. I illustrate a selection of the major varieties of each value in the set. As you examine them you will notice several subtle and not so subtle shade differences on most values.