The Nyasaland King George VI stamps were printed from 1938 until about 1952. There were two different sets produced. The 1938 set used a design that was previously used under King George V, This included the Colony Badge printed by Waterlow for the low values and Keyplates printed by De La Rue for the higher values. There weren't too many printings, so it is possible to find most of the issues from this set. The later set was printed beginning in 1945 by Bradbury Wilkinson. It is a pictorial set with a few catalogued color shades. I don't have that much information on the later set, so most of my focus is on the 1938 set.

The pages from my collection were created using information presented by W. J. W. Potter & Lt. Col. R. C. M. Shelton in their "The Printings of King George VI Colonial Stamps" which was published by Stamp Collecting Ltd. in December, 1952. The publication listed tables for each of the countries' issues that were included. The Potter & Shelton details were combined with David Studd's Crown Agents report for Nyasaland in an Excel spreadsheet. These two documents are included for download if you want to see them.

The stamps from my collection are identified by the Commonwealth, Gibbons, and Scott numbers in that order. The page images were scanned in a larger size and at a higher resolution so you can more easily see the details used in viewing them. Feel free to select the page and let it download to your screen and save it to your hard drive for viewing. If you are using a PC, selecting the page will typically open it in Microsoft Photo Viewer (or whatever you are using as your default). From there you can enlarge the size for more close-up viewing. If you are using a phone - go find a PC or a Mac. The images are 1200 pixels wide and you will go mad trying to view them on your phone.

Please be patient if it takes a few minutes for each page to load.

This article was written to help you identify your stamps.
Please feel free to ask a question, or suggest a correction.