I D George V Halfpenny Stamp ?

Going through some inherited stamps and wondering about this particular George V

It is called a 'MacKennal' or 'Profile Head' and was used between 1912 and 1936.
This particular stamp exists with three watermarks. One, normally, shows a single vertical column of crowns over a script cipher 'GvR' placed centrally. It may be offset. If the paper was not fed into the press correctly, you may see parts at top and bottom or on each side of the stamp.

The second watermark has the same type of watermark, but alternate rows are offset. So, you will see more watermarks. This is called 'Multiple Cipher, ' whereas the other is called 'Simple Cipher.'

The 'Multiple Cipher' watermark was used to print sheets for the production of rolls of stamps and is rare.

The third watermark used from ca. 1924 is similar to the one with the alternate 'offset' rows of watermarks, i.e., 'Multiple Cipher.' It differs in that GvR is not in script but in print as you see it in this post. This watermark is known as 'Block Cypher.'

Other than the 'Multiple Cipher' watermarks, the stamps are extremely common. However, many printings took place resulting in slight variations in the colour. Some can be expensive to specialist collectors. Most are not.

Unfortunately, this stamp was printed in a (yellowish) green colour. Unless your camera does not work well, your stamp has a colour that, likely, was contaminated when the stamp was soaked off a coloured entire. If this pinkish colour is what it shows, the stamp is very much destroyed.

Edit: The pinkish line may have been a fiscal cancellation with a pen and the ink may have run when the stamp was soaked from a document (as an alternative to being attached to a coloured entire).

Sc# 159 1912 Halfpenny Green. King George V

Someone has employed a coloured pen, crayon, or paintbrush.

To add:
This stamp is a so-called surface-printed stamp. The ink was on the raised surface of the printing plate and transferred onto the paper.
A similar stamp exists with the background to the portrait in a solid colour, rather than made up from horizontal coloured lines. That stamp was printed from 1934/5 until 1937. The solid background would identify it as having been printed with cylinders or plates produced by photogravure. If you want to know what 'Multiple' or 'Block' in the watermark mean, such stamps with solid background always have the 'Block Cipher' watermark. This 'Block Cipher' watermark is a 'Multiple' type of watermark that differs from the 'Multiple Cipher' by the way 'GvR' in the watermark looks.

rod




I am not sure how Scott lists these, but there are three watermarks.
Also, this 1/2d value was not issued until 16 January 1913. the year 1912 was that in which the first stamp from this series was issued.

Thank you both, I'm not sure about the coloured pen/ paintbrush but either way you have been very informative.

Well, I have never seen a Brit stamp of this date, on a coloured envelope.

But as NSK suggests, it could have been in a bowl of water soaking a variety of
stamps, some on red envelopes, and the stain migrated.

Most Coloured envelopes have VERY fugitive ink

NSK
I was referring to just "type" as I had no ref to watermarking.
The rest was covered very eloquently by yourself.

Agreed that the stamp was probably soaked with others including one or more of those red holiday envelopes ...


Don

Rod,
Retrieved from a box containing many of that era but the only one this colour, it's not unlikely that an experiment took place that resulted in this colour but despite my pitiful efforts at photography the colour is solid both front and back. It is More a reddish brown in colour and after reading up on the difficulty in procurement of dyes at this time it had me wondering.

It is helpful to make scans rather than take pictures.

This is without a shadow of a doubt some type of colour transfer, either ink running from that reddish mark or from a reddish piece of paper.

The white unprinted patches and perforation tips are clearly visible showing that the paper was the ordinary off-white paper and not a coloured paper that may have been used for a trial. Also, that would have had a uniform colour, if at all used.

The stamp only exists in (yellowish) green colours.

As long as the watermark has not been identified, I am not sure which stamp it was. The pigments for the green dyes were in plentiful supply, except for the 1914 - 1918 period (Simple Cipher) when pigments produced by German manufactures could no longer be obtained. However, green stamps continued to be printed in large quantities.