Category: Southern Rhodesia

The cluster of oranges was a black-and-white magazine picture, and the artwork’s original deep bluish green leaves and background was changed to a shade of bottlegreen at the request of the “client”. A panel of this colour was added to the artwork as a guide. The actual colour of the…

View More Southern Rhodesia Philately: 1964 Definitive Series – 4d Citrus

Two transparencies provided this charming subject, one being used for the pose of the animal, evidently on the alert in a forest of young trees, the other for detail of head and horns. The studio team decided to emphasize these aspects of the kudu as its most attractive and distinctive…

View More Southern Rhodesia Philately: 1964 Definitive Series – 3d Kudu

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…

View More Southern Rhodesia Philately: 1964 Definitive Series – 2d Tobacco 

Details Subject: Buffalo Designer: Victor Whitely Printer: Harrison & Sons Ltd, London Process: Photogravure Paper: White paper Watermark: None Perf: 14.5 (comb) Cylinders: 1A (Violet), 1A (Bistre) Sheet: R20 x 12 Quantity: 51,000,000 (ordered) 24,500,640 (sold) Cylinder Numbers Sheet Numbers Maximum Card (Unofficial) References Rhodesian Study Circle: Memoir 38 The Encyclopaedia of Rhodesian and Zimbabwean Postage Stamps Since…

View More Southern Rhodesia Philately: 1964 Definitive Series – 1d Buffalo

In the corner window of Rhodesia House, looking out on the Strand with contemptuous eyes, is an enormous carved head of a buffalo, probably the only one that can be faced at close quarters without fear of reprisals! The sullen beast shown on the stamp was the subject of a…

View More Southern Rhodesia Philately: 1964 Definitive Series – ½d Maize

Details Date of Issue: 19 February 1964 (Notice No 2 or 1964) Reprints: 1965 (2d, 4d, 6d, 9d, 1s, 1/3d, 2/6d) Date Withdrawn: 10 November 1966 (Notice No 2 of 1966) Date Invalidated: 1 December 1969 Designer: Victor Whitely Printer: Harrison & Sons Ltd, London Process: Photogravure Paper: White paper Watermark: None Perf: Comb 14.5…

View More Southern Rhodesia Philately: 1964 Definitive Series

“Another four-colour stamp, the second in the series, and its source was an official coloured plate of the Arms. Here the small format necessitated some thickening of parts of the design and the overall outline for reproduction in stamp size. The vignette technique has enabled two of the four colours…

View More Southern Rhodesia Philately: 1964 Definitive Series – £1 Coat of Arms

Kodachrome transparencies and a coloured picture from a tourist brochure, Aloes and Cycads, provided a guide to this formalized interpretation of the extraordinary Aloe excelsa, which in some districts grows tree-like to a height of 20 feet, but usually to 10 or 12 feet. The brown-red “pinnacles”, not unlike the…

View More Southern Rhodesia Philately: 1964 Definitive Series – 1/3d Aloe

“Out of Africa, always something new” is an axiom attributed to the Romans. The discovery of emeralds by two prospectors, Contat and Oosthuizen, in the Belingwe area of Southern Rhodesia certainly attracted worldwide interest. The main source of the design was a coloured magazine picture of rock ore in its…

View More Southern Rhodesia Philately: 1964 Definitive Series – 1/- Emeralds

Again, the original artwork was executed in two colours, with a third colour added by request as for the 6d. As it transpired the extra expense was fully justified for the third colour—the green “leaf motif” background—improved the design enormously. The source was a Kodachrome transparency depicting the plant without…

View More Southern Rhodesia Philately: 1964 Definitive Series – 9d Ansellia Orchid