Australia Error - What Caused This?

This is an early States Issue that was posted by me in a "Cancels" thread earlier this week. There is a missing frame line and a small part of the design at the bottom.

It is not listed in any of the few books on the subject that I have.

I am certainly not an expert in the field of printing errors but this appears like that bottom portion of the die were cut from the impression though it did not affect the stamp below. You can see the beginning of the next stamp because of the off centre perforations.

Can anyone suggest how this might have been caused? I did wonder about a stray piece of paper on the die itself but it sees so regular - almost deliberate.

Not sure of printing method but seems as if there would be a seem either from plate or roller that just cuts the design . very interesting especially with the top of the next stamp for reference.

Hi Backroads

This would come under the 'oddity' category of the EFO terminology (Errors, Freaks & Oddities)

The printing technology was not as refined back when this stamps was produced compared to newer counterparts. It is possible that the sheet of stamps was not accurately fed in properly during the perforating process after the sheet was printed.

Chimo

Bujutsu

The idea that a seam might result from a roller being created is an interesting one, nitrolures, but like you I don't know enough about the process of creating dies to know if that was even a possibility. My guess would have had any seam occurring at the top/bottom of the sheet which would be the logical place for it. I have also seen errors produced by a cracked plate and these have not been missing ink but an added line as well as never being ruler straight. Besides which, I also don't know if this issue is from a rotary or a flat bed press. Scott's, of course, doesn't offer any printing information and that is the only book I have a home at the moment.

Is there a printer in the audience? Someone who might know if this is possible? And is it likely to be something that would have escaped the attention of whatever was done for quality control at that point?

And Bujutsu, I agree that the vertical shift in perforations was the result of poorly fed sheets. It was very common and does actually work to my advantage in this case because it allows me to see the top frame line of the stamp below.

Backroads, never dismiss the very remote possibility that the stamp has been 'fiddled with'. I'm still looking at it on 400% Mag, especially the width and edge ink runs of the cancellation in the void area, so I can convince myself it's genuine.

Finches - the scan you are working with is at 300 dpm. Would it help if I rescanned at 600 and sent you the result directly via email? This is getting to be quite curious.

One possibility: The ink would have been applied to the plate by roller. If the printer stopped the roller short before completely inking that row, then restarted on the next row, it might produce that sort of effect.

Backroads - please allow me to point out I would love to own this 2d stamp, I'm 99.999% sure it's genuine. A 600 scan would be lovely providing it doesn't put you to any trouble.

Do you know the ownership history of this stamp? Thank you.

Well done Tony!
I had no idea, but your makes sense.

I shall email that scan to you shortly, Finches. Any ideas of your own on the possible origins? Tony's idea does sound like a very good possibility though the inking would have had to be bang on accurate in terms of direction in order to be correct. Thank you Tony. Would have been nice to have a pair to the East or West to see that it did extend to the neighbouring stamp but that would be too much to ask for.

As to history of ownership, not much help there. It would have been in a fairly inexpensive worldwide collection or a mixed lot of some sort, purchased within the last 4 or 5 years on ebay, as that is where most of my material comes from. From there it went to a stockbook and it was not something that I noticed until I started doing the scan of Australian States cancels prior to reorganizing that material a week or so ago.

Still rather an exciting find even if it remains a bit of a mystery.

Sorry it's taken me so long to get back to you on this, working 12 hour shifts with an hour each way travel doesn't leave much time for stamps or SCF

The answer is a bit simpler than most suggestions - this is actually a plateable variety that would have occurred in the same position on each sheet. You may be thinking surely they wouldn't leave such a poorly made electro in place... but the answer is yes they did!

One of the reasons Victoria has never become popular with philatelists is its complexity, and the laureate series is perhaps the most complex of all, mainly due to the poor production quality of the time. Not to mention their inability to estimate how many stamps would be needed and constantly running out of paper, resulting in emergency printings on all kinds of paper, either from stock that was for another denomination or borrowed from Tasmania. So watermarks are a nightmare.

The laureate series are so named due to the laureated head of the queen in the design. The plates for the laureate series (and the preceding beaded oval designs they replaced) were prepared using very crude techniques by the stamp printer of the time, F.W. Robinson. He prepared the plates for the 4 pence stamp first, followed by the 2 pence, and these two plates show many more flaws than those produced later, as he did get better (well slightly ) with practice.

The die was engraved by a Mr Frederick Grosse and supplied to Robinson. However no steel collar to fit the die was supplied, and it seems that Robinson proceeded to stamp his moulds by hand using a hammer & punch. Without a restraining collar and stamping press, the results were poor. He stamped 120 moulds plus some spares for each denomination. There are two most prevalent varieties caused by this method -- the double strike & the partial strike. On the early plates, up to 50% of the stamps show prominent double strikes.

Your stamp is an example of a partial strike. I've noticed that most partial strikes seem to effect the bottom frame, it seems far more prevalent for the bottom frame to be missing in part or wholly than the top. That's just my own observation though - perhaps it was the way he stamped them that led to less pressure at the bottom. There is one 4d variety with the whole of Victoria missing. They did correct that one after one printing, so it's very rare.

After stamping the moulds in soft lead, they were placed in an electrolytic bath and coated with copper. The copper shell was detached and backed with metal, then clamped together to form the plate. The plate was made of 8 groups of 15 electros - 5 rows of 3 in each group. They were separated by a gutter with a wooden strip called a reglet. The reglet was below type height, but would sometimes move down during the printing process and lead to another type of flaw. If the reglet reached type height, it would result in a solid bar of colour being printed in the gutter next to the outer frame of the stamp. They would then hammer the reglet back down, leading to yet another flaw! They'd use a chisel to hammer it back down, but it seems they were none too careful, and would often hit the electro in the process, damaging the frame - these are called dentation flaws.

The varieties in the Laureate series are many and varied. Almost no 2 stamps are the same from the earlier printings. You can see in your previous Vic cancel thread you have another 2d laureate that also has a damaged bottom frame. That doesn't look like a partial strike, more likely it was damaged. It does have the gutter (or bottom margin) below it, so possibly the frame was squashed in when they hammered back the reglet sometime. Just a guess. The 1d green between the 2 shows how the bottom frame should look. In 1869, 5 years after Robinson made plate 1, two new plates were produced by Atkinson, and these were much better. Even though they were only in use for one year till the 2d laureate was replaced, the fact that they were double the size (240 stamps per plate) and improved printing presses meant that this is the most common stamp pre 1870.

I must say yours is a great example of a partial strike. I'd like to know the watermark and perforation if it's not too much to ask. It's a great stamp.

Balf

Here's another example of the same thing. I picked this image off ebay (too lazy to scan, haha) - it's a poor copy but shows the same sort of partial strike.



Balf

That is great Balf. SCF comes through in spades once more and thank you for that information. I will look at the stamp more closely today and post that information for you.

I have rescanned that stamp at 600 dpi and sent a full copy by email to finches this morning. Would be happy to do the same for you if you want a copy for reference. I shall most likely rescan the others that you referred to for my own information and would be glad to forward those as well. Just send me your email address if you want them.

Thanks again.

Here is the perf info - Using a Stanley Gibbons Instanta Guage, the perfs fall between 12.5 and 12.6 on all four sides.

Watermark is Scott 139 - "double barred 1" - found in lower left of the stamp and it is upside down.

Once you pointed out that errors abound, I took a look at other stamps in the series and I think found at least three more minor ones.





Left Frame two thirds of the way up and U.L. corner.



Ignoring what is most likely scuffed paper, lower frame below EN of PENCE




Right Frame Line

It must be a fascinating area to do specialized work with.

Backroads, I'm at work on nightshift

The double lined 1 watermark was from an emergency printing in 1868 using paper obtained from Tasmania - the "correct" watermark was of course a single lined 4. Inverted watermarks are common in Victorian stamps, they didn't worry too much which way they put the paper in.

I don't have the SG number here at work, it's in the 150's I think. I'll check it when I get home.

You seem to have a nice collection of early Victoria - you should invest in an SG catalogue, as Scott is very basic and doesn't include all the watermarks and perfs.

The top stamp of the 3 images above is a nice example of a dentation variety.

Balf