Identifying the New Zealand stamps from 1936 until about 1952 is primarily a matter of sorting between two watermarks and two paper types. Beyond that, there are numerous perforation changes in some of the sets as well as a number of color shades from various printings. If you include the Official stamps, it can be a challenging situation for many collectors.

The two watermarks you need to determine are the Single NZ Star which was used on the 1936 Pictorial set, and the Multiple NZ Star which was used for the rest of the issues during this time period. The single NZ star will show up as a single or dual watermark image (depending on the width of the stamp). The multiple NZ star has an overlapping design, so you will see more of the watermark and an irregular pattern. See the two images below for comparison. The watermark appears as it would be viewed against the back of the stamp. The wide format stamps are shown. Narrow stamps will be half the width as those shown.

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.