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In the British Commonwealth, the pictorial stamps of the late 1930-ies were printed in photogravure by Harrison & Sons! They bore the portrait of the King George VI first and after his death in 1952, the new definitives bore the portrait of Queen Elisabeth II.

The paper was watermarked and apart from the Royal Crown, it had the script initials of the Crown Agents [CA].

Just like the watermarks of Argentina stamps, we can await to find both parallel watermarks and orthogonal watermarks where the line of CA is parallel to the direction of paper or orthogonal / perpendicular!!!

Collectors of the British Commonwealth have never though about it - again Argentina Philately showed her avant-garde here !!! - but once you start looking for it you will find it!!!

to be continued

....One of the British Commonwealth definitives sets in photogravure by Harrison and Sons belonged to the stamps of the island of Mauritius!

The 1953 Queen EII set was issued in counter sheets of 6x10 [landscape] or 10x6 [portrait], but already in 1954 when the 60c was issued, the sheet-size changed into 10x10! Later on this eventually changed into 5x10 [landscape] or 10x5 [portrait]..... The last stamps with this script CA watermark were printed in 1962.

The script CA may remind us of the Argentina script AR watermark of the 1864 Rivadavias, also on British paper:



During 1963-1965 a few values were issued with a block CA watermark [10c, 60c, 2R50].

We can expect to find differences in paper to go with the changes!




The landscape stamps have an asymmetrical paper wire and would have been called "rayado" or striped in Argentina Philately! The paper comes from Wiggins Teape probably but who knows it was Samuel Jones or Portals???

The portrait stamps have the same type of paper but with the direction of paper turned 90 degrees in relation to the shape of the stamp. What counted here was to have the Crown upright! And not upside down!!!











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The 35c had the same watermark! But this time the paper wire got mirrored!! The steep diagonals at the right are at he left now!!

This also goes for the 60c stamp! But here we have the expected parallel watermark! The line of CA is running parallel to the long side of the stamp!










Not only a parallel watermark, but also the densities have changed - a much more tighter wire resulting in a less steep diagonal!!! 24 horizontal lines per cm instead of 20/cm!

The preliminary results of this study: 3 [three] types of paper!!!!!

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Who may have thought that all this was completely irrelevant for Argentina collectors should see the variation:

The "rayado" - asymmetrical paper wire and orthogonal watermark of the QEII definitives:




and the variation also in the 1950 King George VI definitives!

Asymmetrical paper wire plus orthogonal watermark:




Symmetrical paper wire plus orthogonal watermark AND a lower density: 24/22 horizontal/vertical, called in Argentina: "TELA"!




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P.S.

Note the bilingual text [English/French] in the cancellation!

The 5c exist with both orthogonal and parallel watermark! The orthogonal has an asymmetrical paper wire!!









The orthogonal watermark has a symmetrical paper wire!! Like Tela:





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The 1 Rupee stamp has a very clear asymmetrical paper wire with an orthogonal watermark!









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Some more symmetrical paper wires for King George VI!





Tela - 24/22 horizontal /vertical:





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And even brown fibers!!!!

20c:







25c:





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The script Crown Agents watermark started in 1921...

We can see the Harrison & Sons printings of Gold Coast in 1928 with the orthogonal version and a symmetrical paper wire:





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The pictorials of the British Commonwealth printed by Harrison and Sons are a much wider spread phenomenon.

The Seychelles had a similar series in 1954 as Mauritius had, but the second part of that pictorials was issued in 1962 with a Block CA watemark!

And here too we see both an orthogonal and a parallel watermark!

Parallel:









Orthogonal:





to be continued ...