Papua New Guinea

(British New Guinea)

1st July 1901

↓ - Changes of Administration, see Guinea disambiguation

British Colony

Oceania


	1901 Sc1 SG1	xxx

perf 14, wmk multiple rosettes, engraved

Description	Date	Scott	SG ‡
½ penny yellow-green		1	1
1d carmine		2	2
2d violet		3	3
2½ d ultra		4	4
4d black-brown		5	5
6d dark green		6	6
1 shilling orange		7	7
2/6 brown	1905	8	8

† Year of issue, where other than 1901.
‡ Scott notes that the paper thickness and watermark position varies. Gibbons lists SG1-8 as thick paper, horizontal watermark, line perf; and the same stamps in medium to thick paper, vertical watermark, line or comb perf as SG9-16.

Wikipedia describes the state as,

Papua New Guinea , officially the Independent State of Papua New Guinea, is an Oceanian country that occupies the eastern half of the island of New Guinea and its offshore islands in Melanesia, a region of the southwestern Pacific Ocean north of Australia. Its capital, located along its southeastern coast, is Port Moresby. The western half of New Guinea forms the Indonesian provinces of Papua and West Papua. …
After being ruled by three external powers since 1884, Papua New Guinea established its sovereignty in 1975. This followed nearly 60 years of Australian administration, which started during World War I. It became an independent Commonwealth realm in 1975 with Queen Elizabeth II as its head of state and became a member of the Commonwealth of Nations in its own right."

Changes of Name and Administration


Papua	Papua & New Guinea	Papua New Guinea	Independence
1906 Sc11 SG21	1952 Sc122 SG1	1972 Sc340 SG213	1975 Sc423 SG294

The late Floyd Walker (FICC #14) addressed the philatelic history in the Journal in 1999, quoted at length below,

"Papua New Guina consists of the eastern half of the island of New Guinea and about 600 small offshore islands just about 100 miles north of Australia…
The island of New Guinea has a checkered political and philatelic history. The Dutch, Germans, and British have shared the island at various times. Today, the eastern half of the Guinea is known island is Papua New Guinea; the western half is Indonesian.
The first issue collector needs to include several stamps to cover this small nation:
Scott #1 (British New Guinea), the first stamp;
Scott #11, the first stamp overprinted Papua after the name change to the Territory of Papua;
Scott #122, the first stamp issued after the name was changed to Papua & New Guinea;
Scott [#340] issued when the “&” was dropped and the name was changed to to Papua New Guinea;
and for good measure, Scott #423, issued when Papua New Guinea became independent on September 16, 1975."

Independence miniature sheet

1975 Sc423a SG-MS296