Identifying the Cayman Islands King George V 1921 issues is a matter of sorting the watermark, the color, and the paper color for many of the issues. The keyplate design was new for this issue. The stamps were issued beginning in 1921 and continued to be used until they were replaced by the Centenary set in 1932. A few of the stamps were printed on paper watermarked Multiple Crown CA, and then paper watermarked Multiple Script CA was used for all of the values except for the 4d value, The stamps are shown with the values together 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 3d, 1/, 5/ and 10/ stamps were the only ones that were printed on both types of paper, so the examples for these stamps are marked with the watermark. You don't actually have to check the watermarks for the rest of the stamps, so they are not marked with the watermark.

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. You really need to look at the back of the stamps to see the paper colors clearly. The 3d and 5/ values have both the front and backs displayed so you can see the 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.

There is one 5/ value that does not appear in any of the catalogs. It is on Orange-Buff paper, but the watermark is Multiple Script CA, not Multiple Crown CA. I am not sure if there is a mistake in the catalogs, or if this is an unlisted color shade. It is shown below. You can clearly see the color of the back of the stamp, and the MSCA watermark.

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. 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.

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This article was written to help you identify your stamps.
Please feel free to ask a question, or include a correction.