Production Of Coil Stamps

I came across this picture in a publication of 1959, Good Stamp Collecting, by Kenneth F. Chapman.

Having wondered how fiddly coils were put together, this photograph explains it all. I thought others may be interested as well.

And before that, they would actually paste sheets/strips together to make the coils longer. There's a whole specialty area in US philately known as "paste-pairs" which collects the coil pairs at the joining.

Something many US collectors don't know is that BEP also did this relatively recently. The 1992 29c eagle/shield self-adhesive coil was sold as strips of 17. But the coils were not originally 17 stamps wide -- they were cut to 17 stamps wide to match the 17 stamps in the self-adhesive pane.

Some observant collectors noticed various shifting printer markings on the backside of the backing paper, and the occasional appearance of a splicing tape. When I called USPS about this, it turns out they would allow you to request your cut 17 stamp strip to INCLUDE the splice! Much to my surprise, I also ended up getting 2 different colors of splicing tape -- a yellow version and a burgundy version. Unfortunately, none of this is listed in the Scott US Specialized. The existence of the coils only receives a footnote in the Scott catalog even though the coils had a completely separate order number from USPS.

Great information,
and fantastic pic,
Yes, we are interested,
never be shy in posting history like that! :)



Australia :
Gravity fed coil vending machine :

Thank you guys. Always learn with SCF.