Identifying the British Guiana watermarked Crown CA Badge of the Colony issues is primarily a matter of determining the watermark and then sorting by color shades for some of the issues. The design was used from 1889 thru 1910 with two different watermarks. This article deals only with the issues watermarked Crown CA, which was printed until 1907.

If you have trouble determining the watermarks on these stamps, try looking at them face down against black paper. The stamps watermarked Crown CA will always be centered fairly well to the stamp, and the design does not repeat, so even if you can not see the entire watermark, the CA will always be toward the bottom. The stamps watermarked Multiple Crown CA will have the CA on the sides as well as the bottom, so it is pretty easy to differentiate between them. See the images below for reference. There are watermark varieties for some of the stamps in this set. These include inverted and reversed watermarks. The images shown below are the way the watermark should look as seen from the back of the stamp. Anything different will be one of the varieties.

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, but typical sets from other Colonies at this time were printed in quantities of less than 10,000. Please feel free to supply the print quantities if you have them.

This set is listed in various arrangements by the three catalogues. Since the design was in use during both Queen Victoria's and King Edward VII's reign; I am listing all of the values together sorted by denomination with the catalogue numbers underneath them. I think it is easier to sort the stamps this way.

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. I am not sure I agree with every color description, but it is a relative thing. You really need to see a number of stamps to really sort by color. 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.