Identifying the Norfolk Island 1947 Definitive Set issues is a matter of determining the paper color and thickness, and some color shades. The set was used into well into the late 1950's. It is one of the less expensive basic King George VI sets available, but has a few more expensive items that can be found by an eagle-eyed collector.

Identifying the paper color is a lot easier if you put the stamps face down on black paper. You should notice that some of the issues are on a toned appearing paper and some are on white paper. The easiest way is to look for stamps that were only issued on one type of paper. There are a number of values that were only issued on the toned paper. These include the 2-1/2d, 4d, 5-1/2d. 6d. 9d and 1/ values. The white paper issues are only found on the 3d Green and 2/ Blue issues. Use these stamps as comparisons for the values that were issued on both types of paper.

The thin white paper values are a lot more difficult to isolate because you have to make a judgment call. Try looking at the stamps face down against black paper. The thin paper issues will tend to show some of the black, and the other white paper issues will not be as transparent. The 2/ Blue was not printed on thin paper, so it is a good specimen for comparing the other stamps against.

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. Please feel free to supply the quantities if you have them.

The catalog numbers are from the 2008 Commonwealth King George VI Postage Stamp Catalogue (CW) published by Murray Payne, 2013 Stanley Gibbons Stamp Catalogue (SG) and the 2011 Scott catalog (ST). You can access the 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.