Holiday Stamps 2011 - Christmas Is Coming!

Okay, let's see how many picked up the new Christmas/Holiday Stamps at the post office today. Here are mine:




And these scans are for those interested in the location of the USPS microprint:



For those more inclined to be interested in Hanukkah or Kwanzaa, those stamps will be out tomorrow (11/14/2011)!

I can't end this thread without this piece of humor. (I'm thinking about making it a cachet on my first day covers!)

Ok, I have to go get some for my collection. If they can bail out banks and car companies, Congress had better bail out a Constitutionally guaranteed service.

For those of you who haven't checked your e-mail lately, the latest issue of Beyond the Perf is posted, featuring the Holiday Baubles stamps as shown earlier in this thread.

The USPS is posting the image of the stamps like this:



Since these stamps are only available in booklet form, it would be impossible to have a block of 4 example as shown with perforations on all four sides.

Is it just me, or do fellow stamp collectors feel a sense of frustration when the USPS posts images of the stamps in an impossible to obtain format?

I know there are more important things to worry about, but the USPS has done this several times in recent months in their printed material when they publicize a stamp showing perforation varieties that simply do not exist.

Now that Holiday Bauble stamps are starting to come into use, does anyone know how to easily tell an Ashton-Potter (APU) from a Sennett (SSP) variety when only one used stamp is provided, as in this example, shown side-by-side to the example posted above:



It seems to me the perforations (especially) at the top right side of the first stamp is different; the third gold row of ornamentation seems as if the left side is into the white area of the stamp a bit longer than the second variety; and the USPS microprinting (circled on the mint stamp) seems to be in a slightly different position.

Would these features distinguish the APU from the SSP variety?

wt1, I don't have these US stamps but from your scan
I would say the one on the left is printed by Ashton-Potter mainly
going by the sharper image which would indicate offset/lithography

The one on the right looks like it's printed photogravure which
would make it Sennett since AP does not have photogravure printing
presses and prints the majority offset and probably contracts
out the few engraved issues it produces.

Thanks for the comment, however, the stamp on the right (white background) is definitely the Ashton Potter (APU) variety as it was scanned from the booklet shown above with the plate number beginning with "P", which identifies that printer.

My problem is that when you get a single stamp on a piece of mail, is there a way to tell the two different varieties apart?

Thanks wt1, I stand corrected.

It appears that Banknote Corporation of America was the
printer for Sennett (SSP).

So Senett gets the contact from USPS and then sub contracts
it out but doesnt actually print anything.
Strange set up.

Edited for spelling

With all the different printers being used for US stamps and the number of re-issues, who tries to get a complete set of these stamps? It almost seems like an impossible task. Just look back at the past twenty or thirty years and tell me that it can be done.

It can be done, but it takes a great deal of time and effort and perseverance to do so. There are some collectors who take this on as a specialty. Not that the varieties have any particular extra value, it's just the challenge of the hunt.

I think I probably do as most collectors and gather all of the used specimens of one stamp type and place into a stockbook pouch or glassine envelope and then when I get interested in doing so, I can take them and "flyspeck" the details to determine which printer made the stamp. Usually there are intentionally made tell-tale signs of the microprinting or perforation sizes, etc., that differentiates the stamp being produced by one printer from another.

Back to my earlier question, I have not yet found an easy way to differentiate the 2011 Holiday Baubles stamps, as the perforations are the same from both printers. I think it may have to do with the detail of the exact location of the microprinting, but I'm just not sure.

Great stamps wt1

Thanks for sharing. I picked up a couple of this year's Canadian xmas stamps. I'll post them in the proper forum.

Dianne