Kenya, Uganda, Tanganyika - AbsoluteAstronomy.com

Kenya, Uganda, Tanganyika (KUT) is the name on British

United Kingdom

The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...

postage stamp

Postage stamp

A postage stamp is a small piece of paper that is purchased and displayed on an item of mail as evidence of payment of postage. Typically, stamps are made from special paper, with a national designation and denomination on the face, and a gum adhesive on the reverse side...

s made for use in the royal colonies of Kenya

Kenya

Kenya , officially known as the Republic of Kenya, is a country in East Africa that lies on the equator, with the Indian Ocean to its south-east...

, Uganda

Uganda

Uganda , officially the Republic of Uganda, is a landlocked country in East Africa. Uganda is also known as the "Pearl of Africa". It is bordered on the east by Kenya, on the north by South Sudan, on the west by the Democratic Republic of the Congo, on the southwest by Rwanda, and on the south by...

, and Tanganyika

Tanganyika

Tanganyika , later formally the Republic of Tanganyika, was a sovereign state in East Africa from 1961 to 1964. It was situated between the Indian Ocean and the African Great Lakes of Lake Victoria, Lake Malawi and Lake Tanganyika...

. The stamps were circulated between 1935 and 1963 by the joint postal service of the three colonies, the East African Posts and Telecommunications Administration. Even after independence, the new separate nations continued to use the KUT stamps, and they remained valid for postage until 1977.

Philatelist

Philately

Philately is the study of stamps and postal history and other related items. Philately involves more than just stamp collecting, which does not necessarily involve the study of stamps. It is possible to be a philatelist without owning any stamps...

s usually classify the 1921-1927 postal issues of "Kenya and Uganda" and "East Africa and Uganda Protectorates

East Africa and Uganda Protectorates

East Africa and Uganda Protectorates was the name used by the combined postal service of the protectorates of British East Africa and Uganda between 1 April 1903 and 22 July 1920....

" under the KUT rubric, but the first issues spelling out all the names of the colonies came in 1935, in the form of common design commemorative

Commemorative

Commemorative may refer to:*Commemorative coin*United States Commemorative Coin*Commemorative issue - a special edition of a book, magazine, or other item released around, or in memory of, a special event or occurrence.*Commemorative stamp...

s for the Silver Jubilee

Silver Jubilee

A Silver Jubilee is a celebration held to mark a 25th anniversary. The anniversary celebrations can be of a wedding anniversary, ruling anniversary or anything that has completed a 25 year mark...

of King George V

George V of the United Kingdom

George V was King of the United Kingdom and the British Dominions, and Emperor of India, from 6 May 1910 through the First World War until his death in 1936....

as well as a definitive series featuring a profile of the king and local scenes. The definitives included a dramatic departure from the usual engraved

Engraving

Engraving is the practice of incising a design on to a hard, usually flat surface, by cutting grooves into it. The result may be a decorated object in itself, as when silver, gold, steel, or glass are engraved, or may provide an intaglio printing plate, of copper or another metal, for printing...

stamps of the period; the 10c and £1 stamp were typographed

Typography

Typography is the art and technique of arranging type in order to make language visible. The arrangement of type involves the selection of typefaces, point size, line length, leading , adjusting the spaces between groups of letters and adjusting the space between pairs of letters...

and had a silhouette of a lion

Lion

The lion is one of the four big cats in the genus Panthera, and a member of the family Felidae. With some males exceeding 250 kg in weight, it is the second-largest living cat after the tiger...

, with color combinations of black/yellow and black/red, respectively.

The same designs were reissued in 1938 with a profile of George VI

George VI of the United Kingdom

George VI was King of the United Kingdom and the Dominions of the British Commonwealth from 11 December 1936 until his death...

. Wartime exigencies forced the use of surcharge

Overprint

An overprint is an additional layer of text or graphics added to the face of a postage stamp or banknote after it has been printed. Post offices most often use overprints for internal administrative purposes such as accounting but they are also employed in public mail...

s on four South Africa

South Africa

The Republic of South Africa is a country in southern Africa. Located at the southern tip of Africa, it is divided into nine provinces, with of coastline on the Atlantic and Indian oceans...

n stamps in 1941 and 1942, but after the war the usual common types (Peace Issue, Silver Wedding Issue, etc.) resumed. A definitive series, with new designs, was issued in 1954 for Queen Elizabeth

Elizabeth II of the United Kingdom

Elizabeth II is the constitutional monarch of 16 sovereign states known as the Commonwealth realms: the United Kingdom, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Jamaica, Barbados, the Bahamas, Grenada, Papua New Guinea, the Solomon Islands, Tuvalu, Saint Lucia, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, Belize,...

, and in 1958 a pair of commemoratives marked the 100th anniversary of the discovery of the Great Lakes of Africa by Burton and Speke.

A new definitive series in 1960 used simpler and more symbolic designs, and was followed in 1963 by three sets of commemoratives. At this point postal service was taken over by the East African Common Services Organization, which issued commemoratives for the 1964 Summer Olympics

1964 Summer Olympics

The 1964 Summer Olympics, officially known as the Games of the XVIII Olympiad, was an international multi-sport event held in Tokyo, Japan in 1964. Tokyo had been awarded with the organization of the 1940 Summer Olympics, but this honor was subsequently passed to Helsinki because of Japan's...

inscribed "Uganda, Kenya, Tanganyika, Zanzibar", even though they were never actually used in Zanzibar

Zanzibar

Zanzibar ,Persian: زنگبار, from suffix bār: "coast" and Zangi: "bruin" ; is a semi-autonomous part of Tanzania, in East Africa. It comprises the Zanzibar Archipelago in the Indian Ocean, off the coast of the mainland, and consists of numerous small islands and two large ones: Unguja , and Pemba...

. After Tanganyika merged with Zanzibar to form Tanzania

Tanzania

The United Republic of Tanzania is a country in East Africa bordered by Kenya and Uganda to the north, Rwanda, Burundi, and the Democratic Republic of the Congo to the west, and Zambia, Malawi, and Mozambique to the south. The country's eastern borders lie on the Indian Ocean.Tanzania is a state...

, subsequent stamps were inscribed "Uganda, Kenya, Tanzania", with the three names being listed in randomly varying orders.

These stamps were issued in parallel with stamps from each of the newly-independent nations. The Common Services Organization continued to issue various commemoratives, at the rate of about 10-12 per year, until early in 1976.

See also