Lighthouse Issue Colours

At the UPU meeting in Washington in 1898, it was recommended that stamps of all member countries should be partially standardized as regards colours of the three most-used values in use for international services, as follows:

• Green for the international single printed matter rate, ½d in sterling countries.

• Red for international postal card rate,  1d. sterling.

• Dark blue for international single letter rate, 2½d sterling.

The New Zealand pictorials were re-issued in 1900 in new colours. The ½d and 1d colours were aligned to this standard. Because the 2d pictorial  was already red it was reissued in purple.

The insurance stamps followed the definitive issues - but with a lag. The ½d 'no VR issue' when it arrived in 1913 finally had the correct green.

It didn't matter from the point of international alignment for the stamps were rarely used internationally, but some internal consistency was obviously sought. 

Year	Definitive			Insurance
	1d	1½d	2d	1d	1½d	2d
1905			The 1900 pictorial 2d was purple			Continued the colour of the VR stamp
1906	The current 1d 'Universal' was red.			Continued the colour of the VR stamp
1909		There was no 1½d in the 1909 set
1913	Four years later the re-issue of life insurance stamps follow the 1900 colours.
1915		Recess	Recess
1916		Local plate typo  Perkins typo	Recess Typo
1917	The grey 1½d follows two years after the definitive.
1918
1919	The brown 1½d follows a year after the definitive.
1920	The yellow 2d follows four years after the definitive.

The ½d green, the 3d chocolate and the 6d pink were consistent with the definitive colours at issue and did not change.