1c Washington - Rotary Press?

New to the forum and posting for the first time.

I just spent hours and hours sorting through hundreds of 1c Washingtons to clear some space in my stock books. I use a horizontal and vertical cut Scott 498 as a template to distingush Flat Plate from Rottary Press. I have had these templates for years and they work quite well.

Rotary stamps will have a slightly wider or slightly taller frame than the standard Sc 498.

Today, I came across two stamps that were both slightly shorter. Never seen this before. I measured horizontally and they were ever so slightly wider than the standard. Could these be the coil waste SC# 545?
Both stamps are margin copies, one has two straight edges. Both have 11x 11 perfs.
Would coil waste stamps actually be shorter as well as wider than flat plate?

Vic

First, welcome to SCF. With practice you will be able to sort the flat and rotary by the print characteristics rather than size. The coil waste can never have 2 straight edges. What you have is flat plate stamps. The paper shrinkage is greatest in the cross direction (perpendicular to the direcion of rolling). Occasionally the edges of the paper became damaged not allowing for the pape to be split into 2 sheets and the edges would be trimmed and flipped to maximize the number of sheets. When this happens the shrinkage is changed.

If the design is slightly wider did you check to see if it is slightly shorter too?.

Thanks Russ!

Yes, the image is slightly shorter..this is what first triggered my curiosity.

Vic

This measurement difference is also found on stanps that were printed from both 200 and 400 subject plates. The 200 subject is cross cut and will be shorter and wider. For the early booklet panes that were printed from both 180 and 360 subject plates the 180 plates will also be wider and shorter. On watermaked paper they will also show the vertical watermark.

Found 3 more pairs with the same frame dimensions:
22 mm x 19.5 mm. But all three have straight edges on opposite sides.
In the first image, you can see the right edge of the next stamp design at the very far left side.

What are these??
Just wanted to add that the iamges are not scans, but photos I took. I think that is way they images are somewhat distorted. I think scanning them may have yielded better iamges.

Thanks,

Vic

They are horizontal pairs from booklet panes of 6.

Edit. Here is a full pane



They were printed from 360 subject plate thate consisted of 60 panes of 6. The plate layout is shown below

Thanks Russ.

with an 11 x 11 perf and no watermark, what Scott number would they be?

Vic

The full pane would be Scott 498e

Thanks Russ.

Great info!

Vic