Sierra Leone

Sierra Leone Wing Margins
The 1884 issue comes with or without wing margins. During the later 19th century, De La Rue printings of small format stamps for Great Britain and the colonies often showed one side with an abnormally large margin, which came from the stamp gutter where stamps were printed in two panes or more. Early collectors disliked wing margins as the stamp was too large for the space provided in printed albums; a pair of scissors often did the trick to make them fit! Consequently, wing margin stamps often sold for a discount. Today, wing margins are seen as a feature explaining the sheet layout and a nice gutter pair will command a premium.
For the Sierra Leone issue, from isolated examples seen, it was suggested that wing margins amounted to about one in three of the stamps in existence.
Now a complete sheet has been offered by Christoph Gaertner Auctions (part of a larger accumulation of this issue, 31st Auction of 15-20 June 2015, Lot 19314A). This shows that the sheet composition was three panes of 20, with the wing margins in the two gutters that separate the three panes. This meant 40 normal stamps and 20 stamps with wing margin - a ratio of exactly 2:1.