1926-27 Pretoria Typo's 6d COLOUR TRIAL/PLATE PROOF: VF horizontal pair in unissued colours of deep grey & orange-red on Springbuck wmk paper, perf 14½x14. "USED" on piece with Johannesburg Registered cds 24 JAN 28. Rare "used". A small quantity of the Trials were removed from the Printers and some of these used on mail to give an appearance of legitimacy to the Trials. The detail is: On 28 August 1931 the Pretoria Daily Dispatch reported that one Philip Thomas Callard, retired manager of the postage stamp printing department at the Government Printer, had pleaded guilty to stealing a full sheet of 240 "faked" 6d stamps. He had used six pairs as postage but sold the rest to collectors and two dealers, Robson Lowe and Alex Bronks, both in London, who re-offered them at £20 per pair as "Errors of Colour". These were in fact the 1927 Colour Trials. Callard was imprisoned for four months at hard labour. The allegedly six known colour trial pairs used by Callard were posted on different days between 24th January 1928 and 29th January 1929.
