The small national coat of arms series (Scott refers to it as Small State Seal) began in 1946 and continues through at least 2010.
There is not a ton of varieties in this issue, but I do note a few interesting things with them.
For starters, these stamps were printed on 2 different paper varieties, and had 2 different basic engravings
The first engraving ran from 1946 through 2002 and was printed on both ordinary paper and fluorescent paper. The fluorescent paper stamps began in 1946 and many of the stamps appeared on both kinds of paper.
The second engraving began in 2004 through 2010.
One of the first things I noticed as that there seem to be two ways in which the numerals are written. Type I has the “kr” to the right of the value, and Type II has the “kr” above the value (or, above the fractional part of the value if it is not a whole number.
The second thing I discovered is differences in the inscription at the bottom of the stamp. This is engravers name. The first design type is engraved with “JGO sc” (J.G. Oppenheuser) on all issues EXCEPT the 1969 printings which have a shortened version of just “GO sc”. The new engraving in 2004 (Martin Morck) has “MORCK sc”
And finally, as with other issues, you will find a number of shade differences in many values of this series. Here are a few in my collection:
