Plate Number Singles Collection Of Scott #905

I apologize if this is in the wrong section.

I found a lot of these Scott #905 plate number singles. How many plates were used to print these?

74

From what I can find out there was 400 plates and 20,642,793,310 stamps issued.

From http://www.1847usa.com/ByYear/1942.htm

A plate consisted of 400 subjects in four panes of 100. I count 86 different plate numbers in my copy of Durland.

YES! The good old Durland catalog! That's what I was looking for. Thank you for clearing that up tomiseksj.

And assuming that all 86 plate numbers appeared in all 4 positions (not always 100% true, for various reasons), you could have a potential of 344 different plate singles.

Of the 86 total plates, the 2008 prices for blocks from 68 of those plates were listed at $0.50.

Of the 18 remaining plates, prices for blocks from 16 plates ranged between $1.00 and $15.00 with all but 3 being under $10.00.

Blocks from the 2 remaining plates, 23195 and 23196, were listed at $150.00 with the upper left blocks having a price multiple of 2.

Your Honor,

I wish to correct Sir Tomiseski, the correct referance book is Heberts for plate # Singles, the correct book for plate blocks is Durland. Herbert's show the PNS shown @25c each.

I think the Durland served its purpose in answering Jeff's original question regarding the number of plates used to print the Win the War stamp.

What price does the Herberts reflect for PNS from plates 23195 and 23196?

Steve

With all due respects to the Hebert's people, it is something of a derivative of Durland's.
There is so little activity in plate number singles [I know, I have collected them for years], that the Hebert's values are even more vaporous than usual for stamp catalogs.

The Durland info was what I was after. Price doesn't really concern me that much. Thank you everyone for your contributions.

Tomiseksj,

FYI, plates #23195&23196 Herberts has as $40 mint and $12.50 used

86 plates seem very insufficient. Assuming 50,000 impressions from each plate (which is about the most one could hope for from a steel plate), to get 20,642,793,310 stamps one would have needed over 1000 plates. 20,642,793,310 div by 400 div 50,000 = slightly over 1032. 86 plates would mean over 600,000 impressions per plate, which hardly seems likely.

dlawson281,

Thanks. I haven't seen a Herberts catalog before and wasn't sure if it provided prices by plate number, similar to Durland, or if it just gave an average retail price like a Scott catalog.

revcollector,

If you find 86 plates for this issue hard to fathom, the following data from the 1938 Prexies should be equally troubling:

Scott 804, 1c Washington, 25B+ issued, 127 plates
Scott 805, 1.5c Martha W., 21.7B issued, 97 plates
Scott 806, 2c Adams, 25B+ issued, 110 plates
Scott 807, 3c Jefferson, 102B+ issued, 356 plates

(Numbers of plates are from Durland, numbers issued from 1847usa.com)

The rotary press plates were incredibly durable, compared with the flat plates. The complete impressions per plate are available in the BIA checklists available here. I have the books in storage someplace - they are useful for plate specialists.
http://www.usstamps.org/books.html

86 is right - I missed the first column that had 12 in it. Sorry if I had your hopes up a bit.
C.