"Collectors are soon struck, when beginning to specialise in the Bermuda high value stamps with Script watermark, by the number of uncatalogued but very distinctive shades t o be found of all values. of the four denominations, the 2/6d is the most. interesting, five different coloured papers having been used and each printing resulting in distinct shades of the design. The description of the shades is a very difficult subject so that it should be borne in mind that the terms used in these notes are only comparative, that is, in relation to each other. The original printing of April 1927 was, for want of a better description, in black and red on blue. This is the commonest shade, represented in the catalogue by S.G.89. A printing, believed to have appeared in 1928, is also in black and red but is on much brighter blue paper. Between 1929 and 1931 the printers, Messrs. De La Rue & Co. must have been experimenting with various inks and their effect on different coloured papers, for during this period there appeared at least six distinctive shades on three different papers. Three printings appeared (during 1929?) on a pale blue paper with a greenish tinge, which might be described as a washed-out Prussian blue. The design was printed in (i) black and deep red, (ii) grey-black, (a dull shade) and vermilion red and (iii) black and vermilion. These last two are sometimes offered as S. G. 89a but though just as rare they are not the shade meant by Stanley Gibbons Ltd. In about June 1930 the genuine S.G.89a appeared, the colours being a rather dull black and a pale but definitely orange shade of vermilion. This was shortly followed by a new printing in intense black and pale vermilion, without the orange tinge, which was also sold, by Stanley Gibbons as S. G. 89a in 1932. Both these printings are on a distinctive deep, dullish blue paper, an intermediate shade between the original blue and final dark blue papers. From 1931 onwards all printings were on dark blue paper with only slight variations in the colour of the head plate. The frame plate, however, is found in bright vermilion (c.1931), deep vermilion which at times is almost brownish vermilion (c. 1932 ), and bright carmine-red (1934). These three shades are represented in the catalogue by S.G.89b, These brief notes will., I hope, show that there is as much interest in the colour variations of some of the George V high value stamps as in the more well .known and more fully documented high values of George VI."
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