This is a survey of the

postage stamps A postage stamp is a small piece of paper issued by a post office, postal administration, or other authorized vendors to customers who pay postage (the cost involved in moving, insuring, or registering mail), who then affix the stamp to the f ...

and postal history of

Sierra Leone Sierra Leone,)]. officially the Republic of Sierra Leone, is a country on the southwest coast of West Africa. It is bordered by Liberia to the southeast and Guinea surrounds the northern half of the nation. Covering a total area of , Sierr ...

. Sierra Leone is a country in

West Africa West Africa or Western Africa is the westernmost region of Africa. The United Nations defines Western Africa as the 16 countries of Benin, Burkina Faso, Cape Verde, The Gambia, Ghana, Guinea, Guinea-Bissau, Ivory Coast, Liberia, Mali, M ...

bordered by Guinea to the north and east, Liberia to the southeast, and the Atlantic Ocean to the west and southwest. It has a population estimated at 6.5 million and is a former British Colony.

Early days

Unlike other British colonies, stamps of Great Britain were never officially used in Sierra Leone although examples from ships of the anti-slavery West Africa Squadron exist with local cancellations.

First stamps

The first stamp of Sierra Leone was a 6d issued on 21 September 1859. Rossiter, Stuart & John Flower. ''The Stamp Atlas''. London: Macdonald, 1986, p. 309.

Queen Victoria to King George V (1859–1935)

A new set portraying Queen Victoria was issued in 1872, and this design continued in use until 1896. In 1896–97, a Victorian key type set of thirteen was issued. In 1897, 1d, 3d, 6d, 1s and 2s fiscal stamps were overprinted "POSTAGE AND REVENUE" and additionally surcharged 2½d (the 1d was never surcharged). All King Edward VII stamps are key types. In 1912–16, a King George V set was issued. All values up to 10d (except for the 3d) were key types. The 3d and 1s-£5 showed the King and the badge of the colony – an elephant. In 1932 a new definitive was issued portraying The King and a rice field (½d to 1s) or palm and cola trees (2s to £1). This was followed by a set of 13 issued in 1933 commemorating the centenary of abolition of slavery and the death of

William Wilberforce William Wilberforce (24 August 175929 July 1833) was a British politician, philanthropist and leader of the movement to abolish the slave trade. A native of Kingston upon Hull, Yorkshire, he began his political career in 1780, eventually becom ...

. In 1935, the Crown Agents omnibus issue commemorating The King's Silver Jubilee was issued.

King George VI and Queen Elizabeth II (1937–1961)

Like many British colonies, the first King George VI set was the CA omnibus issue of the 1937 Coronation. A definitive was issued between 1938 and 1944, and was followed by the

omnibus issue In philately, an omnibus issue is an issue of stamps by several countries with a common subject and which may share a uniform design. Omnibus issues have often been made by countries under common political control or groups of colonies due to the cl ...

s of Victory (1 October 1946), Royal Silver Wedding (1 December 1948) and 75th anniversary of the UPU (10 October 1949). The first stamp issue of Queen Elizabeth II was the coronation omnibus, followed by a definitive issued between 1956 and 1961.

Independent and Republic (1961– )

The first stamps of independent Sierra Leone were a definitive issue with the coat of arms instead of the Queen. In 1964, the new currency of cents and leones replaced the old British currency. This resulted in a large number of stamps overprinted with the new currency. Many stamps issued between 1964 and 1971 were in strange shapes, as those of Tonga. The country became a Republic in 1971, and although the republic's first issue was in the shape of a lion's head, later stamps were rectangular. Sierra Leone regularly issues both thematic and

commemorative stamps A commemorative stamp is a postage stamp, often issued on a significant date such as an anniversary, to honor or commemorate a place, event, person, or object. The ''subject'' of the commemorative stamp is usually spelled out in print, unlike defi ...

Self-adhesive stamps

Sierra Leone issued the first self-adhesive stamp in February 1964, made by British printer Walsall.Richard West, "Sticky issue", '' Stamp Magazine'', Vol. 83 No. 3, March 2014, pages 84–89.

References

External links

The West Africa Study CircleThe Sierra Leone Stamp Collector.The Die Cut Postage Stamps of Sierra Leone.Archived here.
{{PostalhistoryAfrica Philately of Sierra Leone