Great Britain KGV Sg 373A Shade Question

I was going through some gb kgv but not the best at shades does the 373a look like Prussian blue and if so what would be the water mark (if there is a water mark) I should be looking for, I only have a Scott's which is not the best for this time to get a sg.

Doesn't look anything like the Prussian Blue on the Gibbons Colour Key.

The watermark would be the Royal Cypher (#100).

Here is the correct color .

Thanks guys, well now thanks to floortrader I now know what Prussian blue looks like

If you are working on the shades of that series of KGV, you don't know the can of worms you have opened. Just look at the Stanley Gibbons "Specialised" and you will see more shades than you can ever imagine from the half penny to the high values. Just the half penny and the one penny have so many that you can't ever hope to sort through them.

The best test for a Prussian Blue shade is a distinct greenish tinge when seen in natural light

The frustration felt by trying to pick a single shade/colour,
is repaid when one can collect examples alongside each other,
the difference looks cool, and you can relax knowing
you have a palette for identifying future examples.

IrishJack needs to find a true GB prussian blue to keep
as an example.

With my early romanian engraved, I have to find
Yellow Green
Moss Green
Bright Green
Emerald Green
Pale green

One can only do that by saving examples then
swapping them around like jigsaw pieces, till they fit.

In the early days, I used to think my Romanian were "light damaged"
but it's cool to know these are now established colour shades.

rod, just like the paranoid person who is actually being stalked, you might have 'light damaged' examples and not actual shades...

I should scan the pages of GB KGV ½d green shades from one of the Collector's Guides, that'll make your brain hurt......

When the term (dull) Prussian blue is used to refer to a shade of the 2 1/2d definitive, I can't say I've ever seen one that looks like the Gibbons Key colour illustrated in this thread. For what it's worth, the examples sold by Grosvenor Philatelic Auctions look like this:









The other examples I've seen were all reasonably similar to these, except for one or two that in my opinion look more like milky blue.

Interestingly, David Brandon states on his website that he no longer expertises KGV shades - clearly, there's a problem if he's not willing to take 55 pounds (his usual fee) to identify a shade.

It's all very perplexing!

You can gauge the color of Prussian Blue from other existing stamps probably in your collection...assuming you have QE2 Wildings.




S.G.#527, 552, 583 are all Prussian Blue

ah... having posted a Prussian Blue example, Stanley Gibbons says the Dull Prussian Blue and Dull Prussian Blue (toned paper) of that particular GV stamp "both are unlike the rare Prussian Blue shade of the 2.5d Jubillee issue".

Jimjamtwo has posted a genuine shade of the Prussian Blue of that stamp and it is confirmed by control R 21

Jubilee raises a good point which scares the loving daylights out of most of us. In British Empire definitives there are often many unlisted shades of green (1/2d), reds (1d) and blues (2 1/2d). Postally used examples are often subject to colour loss due to light damage and "washing" but the difference is often attributable to different print runs. In the case of the Southern Rhodesia Admirals I have 13 distinct shades of the 1d red. Likewise 52 shades of green for the first printing (perf. 14) of the British South Africa 1/2d green "Double Heads" most of which are distinct printings.

I'm really struggling with this issue at the moment because I've been trying to sort my 2 1/2 blues. However, almost every one of them seems to be a different shade, so I actually haven't been able to create any shade groups at all! With the cost of expertisation being so ridiculously high (it seems you'd have to pay 80 or 90 pounds per stamp) it seems I'm never going to know what I've actually got.

I posted this one several years ago...



...a certificate of a plain vanilla block of four. Not sure why I bought it, other than the fact that it was cheap and a curiosity.

Back then, jubilee guessed that someone might have assembled a set of the recognized shades with certificates, to show that he had them all.

I haven't heard anything since that makes more sense than that. (To the extent it makes sense in the first place.)