Can Someone Help Idenfity - 1914 Washington 2c

My wife and I have been knocking our heads together trying to figure out this stamp. It appears to be a 10X12 1914 2c. Unused (hinged) in excellent condition. Any help you guys can provide would be so very helpful. We belive it's a type 1.

Welcome to the forum.

That series confuses the heck out of me...
Sorry, I don't have your answer, but someone will.

I just wanted to say 'welcome' and comment about
what a great example that stamp is. Gorgeous shape.

Thanks and I would appreciate any help.

Okay, first off, recheck your perfs. Counting perfs on the scan I get 11x10 (TopxSide). If you still get 10x12, then gently peel it out of the book, put it in a good mount and then in a safety deposit box. It would be 425c, which my old Scott specialized won't even hazard a price guess at.

If it's 11x10, I'm thinking it's 539 or 540. Check the design size. If it's one of these, then the design should be 19x22.5mm, which would say it is the rotary press version. 539 is type II, and 540 is type III. I'd say it's not type II, but I can't tell with this scan.

Anyway, that's my best guess.

We are SO newbies! I put a few more pics with a black background so I hope they are showing up better. How exactly do you count the perfs? do you also count the corners and do you count the spaces or the teeth?

Thanks so much for your imput!

If you look at the last picture dosent it look like 12 on the right side? Maybe I should take a closeup of that and post it, so you can see it better

:>O

K I posted a pic of the right side too - THANKS!

I see, it's perfs per 2cm. You need a perf gauge to measure it, usually. You can also get a known perf stamp and line the perfs up to each other. Google Perforation Gauge for pictures.

rbiz,

Welcome to SCF! The easiest way to measure the perforations is with a perforation gauge. If you don't have one, simply use a ruler with a millimeter scale and count the number of perf holes or teeth within a 20mm space.

Steve

Curios now

This stamp looks like it's a perf 10-- US 425 if it has a single line watermark and 463 if unwatermarked. Either way, they're both very common stamps if used.

It can't be 540 or 539, because it's not a rotary stamp-- the image isn't sharp in the places where you'd expect it to be, with a rotary stamp (toga rope, button, etc.)

When you've looked at several hundred or thousands of these, you can tell the perfs just by looking at them....it's not a compound perf stamp, it's a perf 10--- hope this helps....Ray

Welcome to the hardest series of us stamps approx 300 different no's and most of them are below 5c and at first glance they all look the same, good luck.......
I use to count , on this size stamp as a rule there are 2 more perfs up the side than there is across and if it's an odd no then look for half perfs or over size stamp or under size which is common on the flat plate ones.
looking at your stamp it looks to me like a 10 perf flat plat type 1
The reason I say it's a type one Toga lines are incomplete, toga button has full design inside it, and only one dash line on the return of the bottom ribbon.
Flat plate because the deign looks small on stamp, the 2s don't look recut but measuring will tell
Water mark will decide the Scott no

I appreciate all your responses and this is tricky to say the least! These stamps are from my late farthers collection and my lord he has so many! He worked for the post office in Manhattan for 35 years and loved collecting stamps. My hope is we find something of somewhat good value and I hope we don't loose our minds in the process - lol. I think I now know how to measure/count the perfs however if I do find something interesting, I will be sure to post it here.

I am 99% positive that it is a 10 x 10 perf. Unfortunately none of the photos are sharp enough to see details for a better ID. Go to www.1847usa.com On the home page there is a Washington Franklin Worksheets section on the right side. Click on the "2" (not "TWO CENTS") under Washintons and you will enter a world of ID information for Red Washingtons.

There is another website that might help you I'd the stamps, it has a picture Id system and it shows pictures of each variation of each stamp, which helps when your trying to get your head the differences between them, any way here is the link
http://www.theswedishtiger.com/ID.html

Tough set of stamps to identify the washington-franklin series has had beaucoup articles and books written about them. The best I have found for helpful identification that is priced top buy is a book by Micarelli. - jeff