War Tax Stamps

This page is dedicated to the stamps & postal history of British Empire "War Tax" stamp issues.

"War Tax" stamps were issued by various entities within the British Empire (see list below) during World War I (and in the case of North Borneo, during World War II) to help fund the war effort. Generally these stamps were regular stamp issues that were overprinted with the words "WAR", "WAR TAX" or "WAR STAMP".


The War Tax Acts in most colonies and countries stated that the War Tax stamps were to be used in addition to whatever postage & registration fees were due on the item being mailed (postcards, letters & parcels in some cases). While the stamps were supposed to be used just to pay for the War Tax, many times they were also used to pay part of the postage and registration fees (as long as the total amount with the war tax was correct, it appears that most countries did not seem to mind).


Finding mint (unused) War Tax stamps is easy, collectors and dealers bought them in large quantities. Finding War Tax stamps used on cover is a bit more difficult. While on-cover examples from places like Canada and many of the Caribbean islands is easy, finding them on-cover from Bermuda, Fiji, Gibraltar, Gilbert & Ellice Islands and the Gold Coast is extremely difficult.


If you want to read more about War Tax stamps and their usages, you may want to consider ordering my electronic book on CD (see below).


The countries & colonies that issued War Tax stamps during World War I were:

 

  1. Antigua
  2. Bahamas
  3. Barbados
  4. Bermuda
  5. British Guiana
  6. British Honduras
  7. Canada
  8. Cayman Islands
  9. Ceylon
  10. Dominica
  11. Falkland Islands
  12. Fiji
  13. Gibraltar
  14. Gilbert & Ellice Islands
  15. Gold Coast
  16. Grenada
  17. Jamaica
  18. Malta
  19. Montserrat
  20. New Zealand
  21. St. Helena
  22. St. Kitts / Nevis
  23. St. Lucia
  24. St. Vincent
  25. Trinidad & Tobago
  26. Turks & Caicos Islands
  27. (British) Virgin Islands

 

 

   Above: St. Vincent War Tax stamp on a St. Vincent picture postcard mailed to Seto, France, postmarked in Kingstown on July 8, 1917. A nice item that is difficult to find.   Note: Kingstown is spelled incorrectly as "Kingston" (since it was occasionally confused with Kingston, Jamaica by some people).

"Usage of British Empire War Tax Issues" CD-ROM eBook  $19.95 + sales tax + shipping

If you are interested in learning more about the Usages of British Empire War Tax stamps, I have made my entire exhibit (plus some auxiliary pages) available on an easy-to-use self-running CD-ROM.


The electronic book on CD-ROM contains all the pages that I have ever exhibited about British Empire War Tax stamps at some point.  All items have generally been scanned at 300 dpi.


There are about 200 pages, all presented in a electronic "FlipBook" format. The CD will run on Windows PC's with Windows 7, 8 & 10. 


Information from approx. 50 different sources has been compiled in the various pages, making this probably the most information published about the British Empire War Tax stamps and their postal history all in one place!



"Usage of British Empire War Tax Issues" CD-ROM eBook - Download Option. 

-->This is the same version as the CD-ROM and still requires a device running Windows Vista, 7, 8 or 10.   After purchase, I will email you a link to the Dropbox folder where the files are located.  The software consists of about 771 files stored in 19 folders with a total size of approximately 273 MB (downloading these may take a while depending your internet speed).   You will need to download all files & folders as you see them in Dropbox into a folder (of your choosing) on your local device.  Then, to run the ebook, you will need to run the "STARTCD.EXE" file.


Price = $14.90 + shipping + sales tax

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