Plating 1d/Penny Reds

I am the proud owner of about 1,000 penny reds. Most of them are stars and pre-date the numerical plate numbers so I am now in the realm of plating! I've bought the first volume of "Stanley Gibbons - Specialised Stamp Catalogue - Queen Victoria" but it's clearly not for the beginner. There's also an application called e-gauge which is supposed to help measure discrepancies in the letter blocks but I can't get it to work. Where do I start? Is there something I'm missing out on here? help!

First off from what I understand it is a very difficult task as literature is not readily available and what is available is expensive. There were 107+ Plates used for the imperforate Reds alone. To start you can download free, the plating book by "Litchfield" that describes the varieties of each plate but I think it's for the Blacks, but many of the Reds came from Plates used for the Blacks.

A couple to get you started.

http://www.pennystars.com/Tips-for-platers

http://home.earthlink.net/~pennyred/Lit.html

Hi robomule and welcome to the forum

Oddly enough, I posted this url to another member of the SCF and it was also for the study of the Penny Reds.

If you are really serious about these stamps, you might want to try this url:

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/mulready/

There are well informed members in there and they do have a comprehensive database on the Penny Reds. (Maybe you are already a member?)

Chimo

Bujutsu