Need help identifying specific COGH 4p triangle

Thanks for your post, Chris (cjoprey ).... nice stamp!

I wish I knew more about these to be able to answer you myself, but I will tag fellow member Jon (blaamand ), whom I know has sorted quite a few COGH triangles to see what he can tell us.  He is on home-leave from his maritime work at the moment, so not sure how quickly he will be able to answer, but hopefully he can offer a quick opinion.  Let's see!

Below is a scan of the only such triangle in my collection, which I have identified as a COGH Scott #13.  Clearly the color of mine seems quite different from yours.  The engraving on yours also looks finer than on mine.  My guess is that yours is a COGH Scott #4 (revised from #2 to #4 based on blaamand comment about white paper).  But that's just a guess from someone with no particular expertise.

Thank you for the excellent descriptions blaamand and Beryllium Guy! It's great to know this isn't one of the many forgeries out there.

Based on the explanation from Jon and checking the listings in my SG 2007 Commonwealth guide it would appear to be SG #6.

Thanks again!

I plan to - once I get something to detect watermarks with. My eyes and a light just aren't good enough nowadays...

Yes Blaamand covered most of the key details on the stamp to check for authenticity. I have over 150+ triangles but am still at a loss to definitely separate the blue 4 Pence Perkins & DeLaRue printings. I have read and re-read the Stevenson opus and still remain puzzled. Generally the former have finer prints which points yours toward the Perkins. Another detail is that they were printed in A/B pairs based on differences in die. The principal 4-pence difference is the detail of the lettering in Four Pence. Yours appears to be Die A with an unfaulted F and thicker E's and C in Pence.

Thanks for the extra info rjan55!

Gee, Chris Beryllium Guy, how things have moved since your tentative response back in 2019 to your full on knowledge and confident opinions 3 years later!

Thanks, Alex (vikingeck) and Chris (cjoprey) for your kind replies.  I have learned much in the past 3 years, but I am still learning, as I found out during my recent visit to SG.  More on that intriguing subject in the reasonably near future.

Well, Chris, I am glad to see that you have taken the plunge and acquired a few more Cape triangles over the past three years, too.  I find them to be a fascinating area.

Identifying your latest:
My first comment is that we are definitely going to need scans of the backs of the stamps to be able to arrive at solid opinions on catalogue IDs.  This is most important for determining blued or not blued paper, which can only be determined by looking the back.  Sorry to put you to extra work, but it will pay off in understanding what you actually have.

All of that said, here are some initial, tentative opinions just from looking at the fronts:

Tentative ID of SG4a: Color-wise, this does look like a PB printing, so possibly SG2, SG4, or SG6 varieties.  An SG4 variety would be on paper slightly blued, so no way to know if that is the case without seeing the back.   I should warn you that SG6 varieties are by far the most common, so we shouldn't be too surprised if the back doesn't actually show any blueing.  Paper stained from blue ink is often mistaken as blueing.  It is a mistake that I made in the early going, until noted specialist Richard Debney set me straight.

Tentative ID of SG5b: Color-wise, this does look like a Rose Red variety (SG5a or 5b), but it would be best to see the back just to be sure it is as expected and to check the watermark.  I have been fooled before by scans of fronts that appear to be a Rose Red shade, and then I see that the back shows blueing, so it has to be a Brick Red shade.

Tentative ID of SG19a: If you compare this one to your first example, the colors look the same to me.  My initial thinking is that this is another PB printing, not a DLR one, sorry if that is disappointing news.  The PB printings of these stamps were roughly 10 times as many as the DLR ones, so we must expect that the vast majority of what we will encounter will be PB printings.  But seeing the back will tell the full story, and whether there is any blueing present.

I hope this is a good start, and I look forward to seeing scans of the backs as time permits.

“True blue or not too blue.” ……. that is the question, as we paraphrase Hamlet.


Your three triangles in reverse order ( my opinion)

No3. 4d on lightly blued paper …even bluing with whiter area round Hope ( more or less blued as described for GB)
No2. 1d rose on white or cream paper not blued
No.1. 4d with impression of ink seen on the back … paper not blued

Sorry for my slow response, Chris (cjoprey ).  Today we saw our visitors off, travelled home, and I have still not been feeling my best.

I appreciate that Alex (vikingeck ) has stepped in and replied promptly, and I am happy to say that I agree with all of his opinions.  Great stuff, Alex!  I would just throw in just a couple of small add-ons:

Tentative ID of SG4a: I completely agree with Alex, no blueing here, but the impression of blue ink is probably what led to that original perception.  This shows a little bit of sulphuretting, but nowhere near as much as your very first example, so I would ID this one as SG6a Blue on "white" (i.e., not blued) paper.

Tentative ID of SG5b: This one I would classify as SG5a Rose rather than SG5b Deep Rose Red.  My contact at Gibbons showed me some examples during our meeting, and although there is what he called "a wide band" when it comes to judging some of these colors, which includes the 1d Rose varieties, this one is not as pale as some, but not deep enough in color to qualify as SG5b, at least based on what I saw.  This one is a pretty subjective call, though, so you might get away with calling it an SG5b if you really want to.

Tentative ID of SG19a: Well, I am very glad indeed that one of these 4d blues turned out to be something other than an SG6 variety.  This is your SG4a.

One last point: I could see evidence of normal, upright watermarks on all three of these.  Thanks for sharing these with us, Chris.  It was fun to take a look and see what we could see.

Stay stampy, all!