Frimindeks 2010: The web catalogue for stamps from Denmark and Greenland
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Watermarks and perforations
Watermarks
All Danish stamps issued before 1930 have watermarks. All issues after 1930 do not have watermarks.
There are four types of watermarks. The first three are crowns in different sizes and other variations in the figures. They are described as vm 1, vm 2 and vm 3. When the watermark is correct placed on the sheet, you see one crown on each stamp, but variations do exist and are not rare. The last watermark is vm 4. This watermark has crosses placed in a pattern over the entire sheet. All types of watermarks can be found inverted on some stamps, and they are not rare on some issues.
Frimindeks. dk does not include stamps with inverted watermark or other types of variation in the orientation of the watermark on the stamp.
Below you see an illustration of the 4 types of watermarks found on Danish stamps.
Illustration of the 4 types of watermarks. From left to right watermark 1 - watermark 4 (vm1, vm2, vm3 og vm4).
Perforations
Perforations are described as the number of teeth on 2 cm. This is the same distance as the width of the daily used Danish stamps. It means that you can count the perforation by counting the number of teeth on the top or the bottom of nearly all the early issues.
Perforations are described by tk followed by one or two numbers. If there is only one number all sides of the stamp have the same types of perforation. When there are two numbers the first number is for top and bottom. The second number is for the sides of the stamp.
There are not many different types of perforation on Danish stamps. The most common are tk 14*13,5, tk 12,75 and tk 14*14,5.