Malaya-1940's-A Page of Stamps from the Japanese Occupation of Malaya-Illustrated

Shown above are some of the stamps issued during the Japanese occupation of Malaya during the Second World War. The issues are a fairly complicated area with the many states of Malaya and the varieties of overprint used by the Japanese. Some overprints are in Japanese characters, others in English with the added variation of altered values, double overprints, colour varieties of overprint and inverted overprints. A specialist catalogue is necessary to really identify all of the stamp varieties.

The first stamp on the page is the 5 Cent stamp of Perak re-issued in 1942 with the "Dai Nippon" overprint and new value of 2 Cents.

Two of the more readily identifiable stamps are at the bottom of the page, the 1943 15 Cent (scarlet) "Ploughman" and the 1944 15 Cent (magenta) "Rebirth of Malaya"

In the middle of the page is a short set issued in 1943. The set was issued in ten values from 1 Cent to 70 Cents with the values from 1 to 30 Cents illustrated here. The legends are in Japanese with illustrations of Malayan scenes.

Also illustrated are the set of postage due stamps issued between 1943-45. The postage dues show some of the overprint varieties with one example of the 10 Cent and 15 Cent postage due overprinted in English and one example of the overprint in Japanese characters.

Below is a detail of some of the stamps