Identifying the Trinidad & Tobago King George V 1935 Pictorial Set issues is a matter of sorting the perforation for most of the stamp values.

The stamps from this set were initially perforated 12 using a Line Perf. A later printing was made of most of the values. These are perforated 12.75 using a Comb Perf. You will need a good gauge like the Stanley Gibbons Instanta Gauge to check the stamps. A line perforated stamp is perforated one line at a time. A comb perforated stamp is perforated on three sides at once. The result is visible on the corners of the stamp. Comb perforated stamps tend to have neatly trimmed corners, while line perforated stamps tend to have more rounded corners. Notice the differences between the corners of the two 1c values below. CW G96 is Perf 12 - Line, while CW G105 is Perf 12.75 - Comb. If you can't determine the perforations accurately, try comparing the perforations on your stamps to the 8c, 48c, or 72c values. These were only issued Perf 12 - Line.

In addition to the stamps listed in the catalogs, there are coil joins of the 1c and 2c values, and booklet panes of the 1c, 2c, and 3c values. Examples of both are shown below. Unfortunately booklets have staples in them, and the staples sometimes rust. So the booklet panes below have rust stains on them from the staples. All of the stamps could be used to pay for either postage or revenue. Apparently a 4c value was needed for Revenue purposes only. An example is shown below.

Unlike modern stamps which are issued in the millions, definitive sets from this time period were issued very conservatively. I do not have the print quantities for these issues. Please feel free to supply the print quantities if you have them.

The catalog numbers are from the 1980 Commonwealth Five Reigns Catalogue (CW), 2013 Stanley Gibbons Stamp Catalogue (SG) and the 2011 Scott catalog (ST). The description and dates 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.

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