Identifying the St. Kitts-Nevis King George V issues watermarked Multiple Crown CA is primarily a matter of determining the watermark, and then sorting sorting the color on the 1-1/2d, 2d, and 1/ issues. If that is not enough of a challenge, you can also look for the watermark varieties of which there are many. The design was used from 1920 until it was replaced with the same design on paper watermarked Multiple Script CA beginning in 1921.

If you have trouble determining the watermarks, try looking at them face down against black paper. The stamps watermarked Multiple Crown CA will have sans serif letters with a crown that is narrow and straight edged. The Multiple Script CA watermark has cursive letters and a crown that is more rounded. See the images of the two watermarks below for reference. They are shown as normally seen from the back. All of the stamps in this article are on paper watermarked Multiple Crown CA. The stamps watermarked Multiple Crown CA were printed with the watermark sideways. When viewed from the back, the CA will be at either the right or the left side of the paper compared to the crown. The Stanley Gibbons catalogue indicates that most of the issues were printed with the watermark showing the Crown to the left of CA. There are also inverted and reversed watermarks. The three images below shows the way the watermark should appear when viewed with the stamp placed face down. There was no stamp printed on paper with the watermark upright, but it is shown so you can see how the image shifts as it is placed with the sideways to the right and to the left.

You probably need a few copies of the stamps to accurately sort the colors. I typically compare them against both white and black paper. Look for differences that are not too subtle. There was always variation during this time period, but typically the color changes result from mixing new ink for a second or later printing. They did not have computer color analysis during this time period, so things are just not exact.

Unlike modern stamps which are issued in the millions, definitive sets in the early 1900's were issued very conservatively. I do not have the print quantities for the higher values, but I would expect that about 15,000 to 20,000 pound values were printed. Please feel free to add this information if you have it.

The catalog numbers are from the 1980 Commonwealth Five Reigns Catalogue (CW), 2013 Stanley Gibbons Stamp Catalogue (SG) and the 2011 Scott catalog (ST). Some of the catalogues show these issues in different order than you will see them here. The description and print quantities are from the Commonwealth Catalogue. Please contact Bridger & Kay to obtain a copy of this publication. You can access the other publishers using the "Links to British Colonial Stamp Sites" at the bottom of this page.

The images were saved in a larger size and at a higher resolution so you can more easily see the details used in sorting them. Please be patient if it takes a few minutes for this page to load.

This article was written to help you identify your stamps.
Please feel free to ask a question, or include a correction.