Stamps of the British Empire: A World Tour

A handwritten note records the British League of Nations mandate from 2 March 1921, the kingdom from 23 August 1921, and the republic from 14 July 1958; Turkish stamps with surcharges served the territory as early as 1918. A single Republic of Iraq commemorative — a stylised sun-and-flame design — is mounted here.

Vasco da Gama discovered the sea route to India in 1498. A British India Universal Postal Union postcard from Bombay sits above a long run of Victoria, Edward VII and George V definitives, official "On H.M.S." overprints, and "SERVICE" officials.

The Portuguese settled the coast from 1517. This page runs twelve classic Victoria and George V definitives plus War Stamp overprints, with a further page of Silver Jubilee, New Constitution and Independence commemoratives.

A treaty state of India from 1826, Burma was fully absorbed into British India in 1886 and became an independent republic on 4 January 1948. Six stamps include Japanese-occupation overprints and Union of Burma pictorials.

The Sultan of Sulu transferred his rights to the North Borneo Company in 1881. Three stamps run from an 1883 half-cent issue through a tapir pictorial to a protectorate three-cent design.

The Sultan of Brunei ceded Sarawak to Sir James Brooke in 1842. Its first stamps date to 1869; two Sultan-portrait stamps from Brunei and a monkey pictorial from Labuan are shown.

Seven stamps run Queen Victoria through George V, with a modern Singapore shellfish pair. Six Federated Malay States stamps here include a Johore issue.

Five pictorial stamps show a white tern, coral formations, a fish and a tropicbird.

A British crown colony from 1843, Hong Kong issued its own stamps from 1862; fourteen stamps here run Victoria through modern QEII and Lunar-calendar issues.

British New Guinea became a protectorate in 1883/84. Stamps trace a German colonial ship issue through Papua & New Guinea pictorials of huts, war canoes and birds of paradise.