Southern Rhodesia Philately: 1964 Definitive Series – 2d Tobacco

The artist’s brief was also brief and concise – “A hand of tobacco”, and the source of the design was another stamp, the 2s. 6d value of the Tobacco Congress issue of Rhodesia and Nyasaland, 1963. The “hand” depicted is of the cured Virginia type of tobacco, and when the artwork was first submitted to the Rhodesian authorities it was returned with the comments: “Leaf to be brighter. The colour is almost the shade of a lesser-grown variety known as Burley. We would like a shade . . . similar to that of the original design”.

Another query was: “Is the background too dark and is it killing the leaf?” In fact, the gold colour of the leaf was the same as the original, and it was the deep violet background which caused an optical illusion in the shade of the leaf. The two colours contrast effectively. Tobacco is by far Southern Rhodesia’s biggest export, 55 per cent, being exported to the United Kingdom in 1963.