Lot 257 Lagos SG#21 (SC#13) 1/2d Green, Queen Victoria, 1884-1886 Second Crown CA Watermarked Issue, A Mint Group of 7 Different Printings, Likely Between 1894 and 1898, 2022 Scott Classic Cat. $15.75 USD For the Commonest Printings

A group of 7 fine and very fine mint examples of the 1/2d pale dull green, dull green and dull green & deep green Queen Victoria De La Rue Keyplate stamp from the 1884-1886 second Crown CA watermarked issue, printed in the new colours. According to J.F Ince in his definitive work, there were a total of 24,300 stamps issued in 6 printings from November 1885 to December 1886, 805,980 stamps issued across 34 printings between March 1887 and October 1900, and finally 219,780 stamps across the last 2 printings from plate 2, between August 1901 and August 1902. Consequently, the majority of the mint stamps on the market today will be the later printings made from about 1897 to 1902. The early printings - those made prior to 1894 are much scarcer than the later ones and are on a par with other stamps from the early crown CA period, and should be valued accordingly.

The stamps in this group are all middle printings made between approximately 1894 and most likely before 1898. They are all different with respect to head and duty plate shade, and are different from all the other lots of printings offered in this sale. This is the first period where we start to see marked differences between the head plate and duty plate colours.

Stanley Gibbons values VF-75 mint OG examples of the common printings at 14 pounds = $28.

I have written a blog post which explains the differences between the printings, which you can access here.

The stamps offered here grade between 65 and 84 as follows:

Margins/centering: 35/70, 40/70, 45/70, 50/70 and 54/70

Paper freshness: 5/5 and 2/5

Colour: 5/5

Impression: 5/5

Absence of visible paper flaws: 5/5

Perforations: 10/10