Sc# 205 Keeps Popping Up...

Poking through my unsorted stamps this weekend
I had one stamp that kept popping up. Sc 205,
a brown over white, soft paper 5c stamp from
1882, with a portrait of Prez Garfield.

This stamp looks odd to me. Almost looks like
it was printed on regular paper you'd find in
your printer. The 'brown' of this design is a
dark color that looks like faded black ink.

It was the only (Sc205) single stamp in this
design, which is interesting. It doesn't have
any other Scott numbers, no variations in the
album, just one single hole, which is fairly
uncommon for a stamp design of this period.

Anyway, I pulled about 4 from my loose, unsorted
group of stamps this weekend. Space fillers to
be sure, but an interesting stamp to catch one's
attention. Being the only single hole in one's
entire album will keep it under the radar if
you don't stop and think about it for a second.

Just some thoughts I pondered by running across
this design a few times this weekend.

Dave
(sorry no scans!)

Here's a sample of the stamp:
(Not one of mine)


The stamp has a distinct 'old west' flavor.
Everything from the dark brown ink, to the
beads around the portait, and most significantly
the old west sheriff's badge style star around
the 5c denonination. It smacks of 1882 poker
games in the saloon to me. Probably the only
contemporary stamp that does so IMO.

Nice commentary, obviously you love stamps.

With the background shading, I often how boring
it must have been when the engraver was completing the
short vertical lines between the long horizontals
of the shading.
Unless he passed it off to a lesser study, perhaps the "shading" man.

I never considered this before. The next time I complain about my job, I'll think how bad it must have been to be an engraver's apprentice!

You may or may not be aware, but this also came in blue (Scott 216)

This design was issued with 3 cat numbers. 205 (yekkow brown, brown, gray brown), 216 (indigo, deep blue) and 205C the special printing in gray brown with 21 certified copies.

Here's my 216 in indigo blue. Not the greatest example with such a heavy cancel, but the best I have come up with so far:

Well, I stand corrected. I didn't know it came in blue.
Like I said, few stamps of this era have only one Sc#
per design. The brown looks the part of the old west
flavored stamp. Looks like it should have boots and spurs.

None of the ones I found were blue. I guess I need to
look harder and come up with a 216...