ID Please Great Britain

This is an awesome design, but I cannot find it in Scott. Would like to know Catalog# or year of issue and value. It's a photo, so not as good as I would like it.
Thanks!

I just looked up a similar stamp I have in vermillion. Mine is a Scott #111; the one you have, I believe, is Scott #125 (blue green) dated to 1900. Sorry I can't help with value, but my catalogs are 25+ years old. At that time, a used copy was only worth mininum value of 10 cents.

In the 2010 Scott, the stamp is GB #125(17Apr1900) and has an italicized used value of $2.10.

It is supposed to be blue green. The light/bright blue is a color changeling.

It is more green in person. You guys are great, thanks!

So italicized means that people tried to falsify used versions of this stamp?

What do you mean by color changeling?

No. The stamp was issued on Apr 17, 1900. King Edward VII was crowned on Jan 22, 1901. So this stamp had a relatively short "correct" period of use. If I am not mistaken, the italicized used price is for stamps showing genuine postal use during that brief period -- but don't hold me to that.



During a few months of 1900, one of the components used for the ink resulting the color changing from blue-green to light/bright blue over time. So it is considered a color changeling and not given a catalog number in Scott nor Stanley Gibbons. Technically, the ink was different during those couple of months, so I don't really understand why it was never assigned a minor catalog number.

Sniped by wt1 - yup, you got the ID right!

k

K . . . the master at work. Thanks!

Your stamp is also known to exist with watermark inverted (i.e., upside-down). Since it is not on cover, it may be worth your effort to hold it up to a light and check.

By the way, if I read the postmark on your stamp correctly, it was used in 1900 -- so that would be "correct" period of use.

I checked. Watermark is not inverted.

Found on an Argentine cover.
Postmark : Printed Matter

Any members able to suggest what the "W.l" stands for, on Figure #86? and indeed, the "12" if you happen to know.

Thanks.

What do you mean by color changeling?

Three different mixtures of ink were used to print the blue-green ½d stamp. Mixture one contained lead chromate (poisonous ) so it was replaced with a mixture containing Prussian Blue and zinc chromate (a yellow pigment). This yellow was easily soluble so any "color changelings" come from this second mixture of ink and are due to the yellow being washed out leaving the various shades of blue.
The third mixture of inks contained non-soluble pigment.

These stamps were valid up to 1st January 1902 when the new Edward VII ½d stamp was issued.

Edit: color changelings only occur after contact with moisture so that is why there are no catalog listings.

Thanks for the more detailed explanation of the ink changes, scotzm!