A Couple ??'s Concerning Schermack Vending

First, Are these examples of the "perforated control mark" that are listed in Scott?

I've not seen these before an they don't look like regular perfins.

Second, if they are those, are they genuine? Are fakes known?

The first is 13579 assigned to the J. L. Hawthorne Co. of New York City.
The second is 9 assigned to Fidelity-Pheonix Insurance Co. of Chicago.

Russ, thanks a bunch!

Man that's awesome! Russ where do you come up with all this great information?

Its pretty easy to validate the punches. The 9 hole patern should measure 7mm x 7mm with the hole diameter of about .6mm. The Type III control punches are not nearly as rare as the older Mail-O-Meter punches.

The control punch pattern was applied by an attachment that could be added to the affixing machine and was only used by a relatively few users. A drawing of the attachment from the patent is shown below with the punch framed in a red box.



Kind of unusual that it took over 5 years on this patent, File Oct 9, 1909 and granted Feb. 9, 1915.

I thought the perfin on the right might be from the Brunswick Company.

Where do you all find this information? Incredible!

Russ - In your original response, you state that the "9 hole pattern..." should measure 7mm x 7mm. It just dawned on me, the one on the right only has 8 holes. I checked to see if there was a blind perf. or something, but didn't see one. Does it matter 8 or 9 hole pattern?

The info I have is from George Howard and Lester Littlefield from a list compiled about 1950. It is entirely possible that it may have been changed with new info.

The punch is a 9 hole (3x3) and the assignment number comes from which holes aren't punched. On the first example holes 1, 3, 5, 7, 9 were not punched so it is 13579. On the second example only hole 9 isn't punched.

Later Schermach made a 16 hole pattern (4x4).

The US Perfin Society uses a new identifying nomenclature for these, but the old - "specify which of the 9 holes is missing" is still in common practice. It is important to identify the missing hole numbers by looking at the FRONT of the stamps. Rotations and orientations DO MATTER on these. Apparantly the machines always fed stamps corectly, so different orientations mean different machines [and different users].

Ahhhh, that explains it!

The April 21, 1952 issue of "The Perfin Bulletin" has a detailed article on this very subject available at this link:

http://www.perfins.org/Bulletins/19...959/1952.pdf

These are the first Schermack perfins I have seen. Thanks for the post. According to the 1998 Perfin catalogue:

The left stamp perfin is Design 90-65, used by Julian Hawthorne of New York, N. Y.

The one on the right is perfin Design 90-7, used by Fidelity-Phoenix Fire Insurance Co. of Chicago, Il.

A 9 hole punch is be Des. 90-1, and an 8 hole punch with the upper left hole missing is 90-2, both used by Spencer Trask & Co., of New York, N. Y.

The 8 hole punch with the upper right corner missing is Des. 90-3, used by Smith Gray & Co., of New York, N. Y.

The 8 hole punch with lower left cornner missing is Des. 90-6, used by The Brunwick-Balke-Collender Co., of New York, N. Y.

The information on the Schermack 9-hole Control Perf. System is also available in the Guide to United States Vending and Affixing Machine Perforations 1907-1927 by Steven R. Belasco. The Book is available from the United States Stamp Society. Good reference on private perfs.

Russ's comment on 10/21 was actually backwards. The 4x4 pattern, called 12 Hole , was the first experimental perfin tested by Schermack. It made the stamp too fragile and was abandoned for the 9 Hole pattern when the patent was applied for.

It's a very interesting area to collect as I buy, sell and trade these on a regular basis.

kcaramat, thanks for the correction.