Identifying the British Honduras King George V issues watermarked Multiple Crown CA is a matter of first determining the watermark on the 1c issues, and then sorting color, paper and overlay for many of the issues. The keyplate design was new for this issue. The stamps were issued beginning in 1913 and continued to be used until they were replaced by the King George V watermarked Multiple Script CA issues in 1922. All of the issues except for the 1c were printed on paper watermarked Multiple Crown CA. There was one printing of the 1c issues on paper that was watermarked Multiple Script CA. In 1915 an overprint with a moire pattern was applied to the 1c, 2, and 5c issues so the stamps could be invalidated if captured. Although the catalogues list these issues separately, this article deals with the all of these issues together. The stamps are shown with all values together and in order of when they were printed.

If you have trouble determining the watermarks on these stamps, try looking at them face down against black paper. The 1c stamp is the only one that was printed on both types of paper, so you don't actually have to check the watermarks for the rest of the stamps. Since all of the other stamps are watermarked Multiple Crown CA, only the single 1c stamps with the Multiple Script CA is noted as such.

Color shades can be difficult to sort, especially when you only have a couple of stamps to compare. They typically occur when the stamps are printed after the initial printing. Today we have computer color matching, but during this time it was done by hand with components that might differ from the original ink formula. I like to place the stamps against black and then white paper and view them under a strong light. Bluish paper does not appear to me as a correct description. It tends to look more off-white or greyish to me. You really need to look at the back of the stamps to see the paper colors clearly. The backs of the 25c issues were scanned so you can see the relative difference. The images shown attempt to show the colors, but they do not show them as well as viewing the stamps in person. So use the images as relative indicators.

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 30,000 for the higher values during this time period. 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. 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.