Crossword-Solution: WATERMARKED 11 letters, 1 clue 🏆 scrabble score: 21

Howes states, "It happens sometimes that it is quite difficult to distinguish the laid paper, a very careful scrutiny or even the extreme resort to the benzine cup being necessary to bring out the watermarked lines, and perhaps then only in a half suspicious way." Writing in the _Canada Stamp Sheet_ (Vol.

The watermarked letters found in these stamps were known at least as early as 1870 and much speculation was rife as to their meaning.

Howes seems to concur by his statement that "the watermarked paper must therefore have been used sometime during the course of the year 1868, probably the middle, when supplies of all values except the 1/2c were printed." But we fail to find from any evidence so far adduced that this watermarked paper was in use only during some well defined period.

The introduction of watermarked paper for these stamps occurred in 1874, the paper being that familiar to collectors of British Colonial stamps as watermarked "Crown C.C." The paper was not readily adaptable for the small sheets of the Gambia stamps, and the method of cutting it to suitable sizes for these sheets has produced some varieties for the specialist.

Down the centre of the sheet is a blank space of about half an inch wide; across the centre is a wider space, watermarked with the words CROWN COLONIES, which are also repeated twice along each side of the sheet.