Copies of both values exist overprinted SPECIMEN, and we have seen similar copies of all the regular issues of this Colony.
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.
Major Evans, writing in the _Philatelic Record_ for January, 1883, says:--
"Most collectors are probably aware that the stamps of the British Colonies printed in England are, as a rule, in sheets of 240, divided into four panes of 60, each pane consisting of ten horizontal rows of six stamps. The Crown and C.C. watermarks are arranged in the same manner upon the sheet of paper; each pane is enclosed in a single-lined frame. 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.
"Some of my readers may have noticed that the watermark is not always very clearly shown in the Gambia stamps. This is due partly to the fact of their being embossed, and partly to [page 21] their being arranged in small blocks of fifteen--three horizontal rows of five--so that a row of five stamps is printed on a row of six watermarks, and in most cases a complete watermark is not found on any one of the stamps in a block. Very frequently the upper and lower blocks on a sheet encroach on the margins, and consequently some of the stamps show portions of the words CROWN COLONIES in watermark; and I have seen a block which had been printed in the centre of one side of a sheet, and the middle row of which was watermarked COLONIES, while the upper and lower rows bore the Crown and C.C. Recent printings of some of the values of Gambia show the blocks printed sideways on the sheet, in which case each stamp will not show a complete watermark; and of these again I have seen a block with the vertical division of the sheet running across the central row."
In addition the stamps have been found with the watermark reversed, indicating that occasionally a sheet has been fed into the press the wrong side up. Inverted watermarks of this Crown and C.C. type are also to be found.