The Queen Elizabeth Castles are identifiable as 5 separate Versions.
1955 Waterlow Sg. 536-539, Watermark St Edwards Crown
1958 De La Rue 1st printing Sg. 536a-539a, Watermark St Edwards Crown
1959 De La Rue 2nd printing Sg. 595-598, Watermark Multiple Crowns
1963 Bradbury Wilkinson printing Sg. 595a-598a, Watermark Multiple Crowns
1967 Bradbury Wilkinson Sg. 759-762, No Watermark
Hints on Sorting:
Firstly determine the Watermark
St Edwards Crown (St Edward’s Crown & Royal Cypher E2R) is either 1955 Waterlow printing or 1958 DLR 1st printing
Multiple Crowns Watermark is either 1959 DLR 2nd printing or 1963 BW printing.
No Watermark is 1967 BW issue
Hints on Separating the Printers:
St Edwards Crowns Watermark:
Simple Way: Make a Template from a sacrificed stamp, say 2/6d of this Watermark, Cut off the Left and/or right 5mm into the design Vertically. Identify the Template by laying the template over another stamp in the exact location that the cut is made, line up the bottom of the frame and check at the top to see if it is the same, smaller or larger.
If it is the same, try again. If the Template is larger than the underlying stamp, then the Template is DLR 1st print, if the Template is smaller than the underlying stamp, then the Template is Waterlow and the underlying stamp is DLR.
Visual Differences St Edwards Crowns Watermark Printings
Waterlow issues tend to be darker shade and have small feathers of colour particularly noticeable from the engraving lines to the left of the queen’s Head.
De La Rue printings are usually lighter and sharper, again compare to the left of the Queen’s head.
Also colour shades can help, 2/6d value is warmer and less black. 5/- is a lighter shade of red. 10/- is more true blue, whilst Waterlow is Ultramarine. The £1 DLR is less intense black than the Waterlow.
Waterlow Left image, DLR Right Image
Also reported is a difference in the top side perforations, on the DLR print it is thinner than on the Waterlow print, but I have not found this to be conclusive every time.
Lastly, if you have vertical Pairs, then the spacing between the designs is SMALLER for the DLR, you will find the difference below 0.5 mm
Watermark Multiple Crowns
There are Colour and saturation differences.
DLR 2/6 Warm Black Brown. Bradbury Wilkinson 2/6 Black Brown.
DLD 5/- Scatlet vermillion. Bradbury Wilkinson 5/- Red (Queens face more saturated.)
DLR 10/- Dull Blue. Bradbury Wilkinson 10/- Bright Ultramarine.
DLR £1 Warm Black. Bradbury Wilkinson £1 Cold darker black. These Colour differences are more pronounced when viewing larger multiples.
Simple way: Check by the “Heat curl” test.
The De La Rue printings curl horizontally, i.e. From top to bottom
The Bradbury Wilkinson issues curl Vertically i.e. From left and right edges.
Both these printings curl when gentle heat is applied. Even the heat from a hand can get a result.
I have had success with batch checking by placing 10 or so stamps in a shoebox, either way up, then using a hair dryer applied to the bottom of the box. Curling takes 2-3 seconds, easy and quick, so far I have not had to doubt the results.
Other ways are measuring the Perforations. Measure a VERTICAL perforation.
DLR are Perf. 11.8, BW are Perf 11.9 to 12.
( Small difference and almost impossible to scan to show here, but if you use the Stanley Gibbons Instanta perf guage, they can be picked out) (Go with the Heat Curl test !)
No Watermark Printing.
Not much to see here, if it is No Watermark it is by Bradbury Wilkinson
