South West Africa Collection Page Scans
The South West Africa stamps were printed by applying an overprint to South Africa stamps until 1953. The only exceptions were the King George V Silver Jubilee and King George VI Coronation sets. So in order to properly sort these stamps, you need to have some understanding of the South Africa issues.
Unfortunately, the catalogs assume you are familiar with the South African stamps, so there are no pictures just a note of which stamp and an image of the overprint. As a result, people have a lot of trouble identifying these stamps. Frankly, it is just too much work. As I was figuring it out, I had to open two catalog one to the South Africa listings and the other to South West Africa. The Official issues are even more interesting because you have the basic South Africa stamp with the South West Africa overprint and then the Official overprint. So be prepared for some confusion and frustration as you work on them. Hopefully the stamps shown on the pages attached to this page will help you understand what to look for as you sort your stamps. For a more detailed description of what to look for, consult the South West Africa stamps overview on my web pages. Please use this link to find the listings.
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.