Identifying the New Guinea 1935-39 Airmail Set issues is very simple. There are no listed color shades, all of the stamps have the same watermark. The biggest challenge with this set is to find it at a reasonable price.

Unlike modern stamps which are issued in the millions, definitive sets from this time period were issued very conservatively. I do not have the print quantities for these issues. The two high values were issued in 1935 and the rest of the values in 1939. Japan invaded New Guinea in 1942, so there was not a lot of time for many printings. Please feel free to supply the print quantities if you have them. After the end of the war in 1945, Australia stamps were used until new stamps were issued for the combined territory of Papua & New Guinea.

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 dates are 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.

The images were saved in a larger size and at a higher resolution so you can more easily see the details used in sorting them. Please be patient if it takes a few minutes for this page to load. Although the two high values were issued first, the stamps are shown in value order below.

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