Cut Square Mystery!

I have tons of cut squares and have them separated and put away. The other day WT1 displayed some with slogan cancels. I thought that looked interesting and pulled them out again. There is something I noticed a long time back about some of them. The cut squares shown are of different dies but of the same design. The back of some of them have a severe bleed through of the inks. Most of the others don't. Does anyone have any ideas or answers on why this happens?

I haven't seen any of those bleed through ones before. Interesting.

Type of paper perhaps?

The paper stock feels about the same. If anything the one with the bleeding is a little thicker. This design was used from 1917-1932. From 1920-1925 they surcharged the indincia. After 1925 it went back to without surcharge. Most of the postmarks I find on these are dated late 30' to mid 40's, which is well after the design was changed. I'm wondering if they used experimental inks on some of these? Maybe different printers used others inks. The color shades look identical to me.

Likely something with the ink dexterity which could change from actual temperatures or even as press runs speed up and viscocity thins. What you are likely seeing is transfer from the sheet below rather than bleed through. Could be fine for most of the run but gradually stay wetter and as weight of the stack builds the pressure will cause the offset. However for the ones I've seen on here before they are almost always full impressions where you would assume alot would be seen with just partials or faint offsets as well. Not sure how the process was with embossing and printing and if they were all done at same time or seperatly.

What the OP is observing is called offset. The press cycled without an envelope blank being moved into position and the ink was therefore imparted onto the platen. The next blank to successfully move into the print position then received an ink image from the die (normal) as well as from the platen (abnormal - a mirror image on the back of the blank).

If the ink were to come from wet ink on the already printed envelope blank below it in a stack, it would be called setoff (similar sounding to "offset"). Setoff images are much less clear. Most often you cannot tell the type of image from a setoff image alone.

That makes perfect sense! I was thinking it may be bleeding but the ink didn't migrate outwards. I didn't think it was rare because I have a couple of dozen out of hundreds. It is interesting.

The circular dies, and their forerunner, the Mercantile dies, were at the forefront of mechanization and attempts to improve productivity speed, which resulted in a large variety of EFO's. Unfortunately, it also resulted in a large quantity of EFO's so EFO's from these series have little additional value. The EFO's were so common that collectors, for many years, either trashed them or treated them as trash.

"EFO's from these series have little additional value"

Hmmmmphh! Well if you've got a particularly nice one, let me know before you flip it in the trash.

Some of us do collect those little fellas.

What is nice about coming to a new blog, is all the old posts you get to add your 2¢ to.
I first met Thomas on a different blog, we seem to share a fondness for embossed eccentrics. Had not shared this one before.

Nice deep green, maybe a fresh batch?


Nice clear detail on the reverse.


I too will accept and care for any unwanted orphans of the above.
Pat

This one is a lot messier, both inside and outside.






Pat

Multicolored offset: