Trying To Figure Out Stanley Gibbons Catalogue

So I've been familiarizing myself with the latest SG India catalogue and for the life of me I can't figure out the watermarks. The catalogue shows about 11 watermarks but none match the stamp I have and its listing shows w69 - not sure what that means as the description in the cat. does not make sense to me. Am I suppose to go to SG69 and use that wmk? Im confused - can anyone explain the methodology to me? Read the watermarks section but I dont get it.

If you're looking at the front part of the catalog, those are only for the watermarks used throughout the Commonwealth. The other watermarks are numbered in sequence with all the other images in each country.

ok, just reading it again for the 5th time and realized what you mention - w69 is actually image no. 69, which is the watermark. tks for confirming

I have been using Gibbons catalogues for nearly 20 years and I've only realised in the last few years that to get the most of the catalogue I need to read all the first section, as well as the lists of stamps. Because I'm not familiar with it a Scott catalogue does my head in.

Neither the Scott nor Gibbons introductory sections are fun reading, but they do give you a tremendous amount of good info. Plus they need to be read and re-read to understand things while hopefully having example of stamps in hand. It's just too easy to skip to the "good stuff", the country listings. Working through just one subsection at one sitting might be the way to do it.

Noocassel, a tip of the cap to you for persevering. And as Noocassel notes, Scott and Gibbons are two different worlds, even in color names.

All good points. Tks all! I havent been at this long and have used Scott catalogues and needless to say, they still confuse me but only im sure because im a novice. As for SG, I like the catalogue but as noocassel mentioned, I feelk that way towards SG :) Sometimes, english is not english ;). A comfort thing im sure.

I had read the front, more than once but probably not slowly enough and when I went to try and locate the stamp in question I did not understand the watermarks methodology. Still trying to figure some of the other stuff out too. But as mentioned, will have to read more carefully and more thoroughly and im sure the more I use it the better it will be - hopefully.

I have every confidence that you will figure it all out with your own efforts and a little help from SCF. Trying to understand things can be a battle with stamps and catalogs often enough.

If you don't have one already, you might consider buying the Stanley Gibbons Colour Key which does match the color names they use in most but not all cases. Some classic color names haven't been changed to match and the always confusing color shades of Rhodesia in the King George V period are not used at all by specialists. A color guide was made for Scott ages ago but wasn't available for very long, and is long out of print. Probably because countries were often handled separately, color names are not consistent there.