Identifying stamps from the Leeward Islands King Edward VII 1908 set is a very simple task. All of the stamps were printed on paper with the Multiple Crown CA watermark, and there is only one color variety. The stamps used the same keyplate design as the previous issues, but with new colors.

The only color variety is the 1d issue which can be found in either a Deep Red or a Rose-Carmine shade. The Rosy color is pretty obvious, and if you can't decide - most of the stamps were printed in the Deep Red shade. So that is the likely one you have if you don't have a few copies to compare.

Unlike modern stamps which are issued in the millions, definitive sets from this time period were issued very conservatively. I do not have the printing details, but it would be safe to assume the 5/ issue was printed in a quantity of less than 5,000 based on other issues of this time period.

Larry Goldberg provided this printing information from "The Leeward Islands Notes for Philatelists? by M. N. Oliver. The stamps were printed in sheets of 60. There were 154 sheets of the 2/6 issues (9,240 stamps) and 135 sheets of the 5/ issues (8,100 stamps). So my estimate was low, but remember that the Leeward Islands stamps were used on the 5 colonies of Antigua, Dominica, Montserrat, St. Kitts-Nevis, and the Virgin Islands. So that might account for the higher total.

The catalog numbers are from the 1980 Commonwealth Five Reigns Catalogue (CW), 2013 Stanley Gibbons Stamp Catalogue (SG) and the 2011 Scott catalog (ST). The description and print quantity is from the Commonwealth Catalogue. Please contact Bridger & Kay to obtain a copy of this publication. You can access the other publishers using the "Links to British Colonial Stamp Sites" at the bottom of this page. Some of the catalogues list these stamps by watermark, so you will note the order seems different than you might be used to seeing. For this article, the stamps were listed by value and in order of the date they were issued.

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