The Ceylon King George VI era set of stamps were printed from 1938 until about 1951, or 1958 if you count the design change set that was released that year. The 1950, 1951 and 1958 sets are pretty simple to figure out, but the 1938 tends to be really challenging. It was printed by both De La Rue and Bradbury Wilkinson. So there are noticeable differences in some of the stamp characteristics. The De La Rue stamps have a number of perforation changes, and the Bradbury Wilkinson stamps have upright and sideways watermarks. Both issues have color shades and differences in the paper and gum that can also be used to identify them, after you separate them by either the perforation or the watermark.

The pages 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 relevant Commonwealth numbers are listed for each applicable printing.

The pages are from my collection, and 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.