In February 1893, all values appeared with adverts on the back and are known as adson stamps. This has been used in the re-construction of complete sheets and is a useful aid in identifying positional flaws.
The advertising contract was given to Truebridge, Miller and Reich and the example on the right is advertising their service.
The settings
There were three settings. The adverts in the first setting differs from the others as they were inverted with respect to the stamp and some adverts had white lettering on a coloured background. The difference between the second and third settings is that adverts for Cadbury Bros were replaced by Poneke.
First setting
Advert inverted,
example with
coloured background
Second / third setting
Second setting
Cadbury advert
Third setting
Poneke advert
The colours
There is a range of colours and shades with reddish and purple shades being the most common. They exist on all values and examples are shown below.
The second setting also had adverts in green, blue, black and brown, but each of these colours did not appear on all values. Only the 1d has blue adverts, the 1d, 2d and 2½d green, the 3d and 1/- sepia or black while the 2d, 3d, 4d, 6d and 1/- exist in brown.
The great majority of the stamps with adverts are perf 10 although perf 12 x 11½ is also known. All copies of the 8d perf 10 have adverts.
The adverts were not popular with the public and their production had ceased by the end of 1893.
back
The above information is taken from The Postage Stamps of New Zealand Vol 1, published by the Royal Philatelic Society of New Zealand in 1938. All scans were made by the author.