Revenue Stamps On Silk Paper

Are revenue stamps on silk paper difficult to distinguish from old paper? What is the easiest way to tell them apart?

dang,

I thought it was easy (https://goscf.com/t/10328&SearchTerms=silk,paper) but then reality set in (https://goscf.com/t/10891&SearchTerms=silk).

Here is a good reference site: http://www.revenue-collector.com/index.shtml

Steve

Silk papers on the first issue revenues can be VERY difficult to distinguish. In many cases there's only one silk thread per stamp.

Also, the paper is a thicker, brighter and has a different surface texture than the old papers. You will see 1870 and later dated singles that appear to be silk papers due to the color and consistency of the paper, but you cannot definitively call them such because there are no fibers present. I contend that they are in reality silk papers but you cannot prove them so. Why? Because I have several silk paper blocks where only 1 or 2 of the 4 stamps show the threads; the individual stamps without the silk threads are STILL silk paper, but if removed from the block could never be verified as such.

Many silk papers in dealer inventories and offered in online auctions, in fact are not.

It has to be a blue (or in rarer cases red) thread. If it's black, grey, or brown, it is in all likelihood either something stuck to the back of the stamp or naturally-occuring wood pulp.

On my site I've tried to highlight the threads with red arrows, so people can see them clearly.

-Dan