The Gold Coast King George VI stamps were printed from 1938 until about 1952. Two different sets were created, but the 1938 set is the one with the most variation. It was printed by Bradbury Wilkinson, so you will see similarities with the Falkland Islands and other colonies printed by them. Other than the initial change in perforation from Perf 12 - Line to Perf 12 x 11.75 - Comb, there is not too much variation except in the paper and gum. You need a good gauge to determine the perforation, but line perfs appear jagged on more than one corner, so they are pretty easy to spot (see the 5/ Line Perf above). You will also tend to notice that the gum of the Line Perf stamps appears creamy. This is because they were the original 1938 printings.

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.

Based on the Potter & Shelton listings, I created an Excel spreadsheet showing the printings and their corresponding catalog numbers. This also includes Frank Saunders notes from his King George VI Collectors Society monograph. This information is available for download below.

The pages are from my collection, and 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.