Nigerian Stamps and Postal History

In my first post dealing with this issue, I talked about how some of the printings could be distinguished by some differences in the designs, and went on to show those differences on the 1k and 18k values. However, differences exist on more than half of  the values in the set. The reasons for the existence of the photogravure and lithographed stamps is somewhat conjectural, as the official first day cover issued in 1973 contains many of the lithographed printings. One possibility is that the Nigerian Security Printing and Minting Company was unable to obtain satisfactory results with the photogravure process, and only attempted to produce stamps using this method from January 1973 until the lithographed stamps appeared in April 1973. It is curious though that used examples of the photogravure printings can be found used as late as 1980, although this may simply reflect the fact that small Nigerian post offices simply kept their stocks on hand until sold. The following images show t

As promised, I am going to dive right into this fascinating set. One of the most amazing aspects to collecting this issue is the vast array of different colour combinations that are found on each printing of each value. For a modern set such as this, this is highly unusual because modern stamps, especially those that have been printed using modern techniques like lithography and photogravure, are know for their uniformity of colour. The stamps in this set were printed using a combination of 4 colours ore more, with each colour being used for a different part of the design. The colours were each printed separately by passing the sheets through the presses multiple times. Most of the time the colours are pure colours, but occasionally the colour you see results from the mixing of two or more colours. I have found variations in each component colour, and often the variations will be found in many permutations and combinations. Some differences are so dramatic, it is hard to believe that