Christmas Van Ecyk

Hi to all
I found these two stamps in an accumulation lot my wife got from a opp shop.
If you notice the stamp on the right the van Ecyk is thinner, the I from National is missing and the word United States has differences as well.

I have look at them with a gemmological microscope 10x X4 and they are not skinned, the postmarks are not encroaching on any of the words.
Any Ideas?
Sorry about the scan the best I could do.
Regards
Horamakhet

Speaking as a USA stamp dunce, here are my observations.

The stamp on the right looks like it is a bit colourless. There is a missing Yellow error but as the yellow appears to the left of the figure that cannot be it. However, there are many differences on the robe between the two stamps.
I cannot comment on the missing 'I' because I cannot see close-up nor about the thinner Van Eyck. [this I cannot see].

However, there was more than one printing as there is both Tagging and No tagging. Differences will occur and be seen between them.

But I'll let the USA experts put your mind at rest.

Londonbus1....mine has been resting for years !

Don't know if this helps, but there is a variety of Scott #1363 (known as #1363c) wherein the light yellow color is omitted. Apparently this is not applicable to your example, as there is some yellow color shown, but just know that some varieties do exist.

As mentioned previously, there are also tagged and untagged varieties that could account for some differences in appearance.

Also, these stamps were printed on the Huck Press and there are known to be a few "mis-registrations" in the printing of the lettering below the design, but again, I don't think this applies to your examples either.

My best guess is to chalk it up to poor inking. Of course, I'm no expert, but I don't think there is a significant enough departure from the normal printing to expect that it would have a premium value because of these irregularities, but they are certainly collectible as an oddity.

Of course, I'd be interested to hear the opinions of others.

P.S. Just went to my stockbook and took five examples of this stamp and highlighted the subtle changes that often occur with this issue, none of which are considered a variety:


Stamp #1: Red Color starts too far left of design;
Stamp #2: Red Color starts too far right of design;
Stamp #3: Word "NATIONAL" is not completely inked in red;
Stamp #4: "VAN EYCK" in normal position;
Stamp #5: "VAN EYCK" in raised position.

This issue had a large number of inking anomalies. Numerous copies have red vertical bars and thin red centerlines are known.


blue to red centerline


"Mail Early" smudged offset over gold plate number