Examine this item of U.S. Postal Stationery.
Can you identify it? Scott catalog? Scott Specialized any help? No, no help there.
However, if you have a UPSS 20th/21st Century Catalog of U.S. Stamped Envelopes, you could measure the length and width of the envelope and determine that it is a Size 8.
If you look in the section that defines the knives that were used to cut the envelope blanks, you can see a size 8 that resembles this envelope (in this case, looking at the back of the envelope), Knife 42.
If you hold this envelope up to the light, you can see the watermark is type 20 (an interlocking "US" with 1915 written down the diagonal).
There's no embossing, but there is a very small bit of ink in the area of the indicium. It is either black or dark violet. Though faint, the image of the indicium is either oval or circular.
Indicia that is black or dark violet, oval or circular, would be either U416, U436, or U440.
Ok, with these "facts", if you go into the catalog, and look through the listings, you can narrow your search down. U416 was only produced in large sizes. Same with U440. The U436 types have an entry, 2479-20, that matches all of our "facts". Paper type, size, knife, watermark. And it is the only one that matches all the facts.
Finally, if we look at the section of UPSS numbers in which 2479-20 exists, we see that it is one of the envelopes that Scott calls U436a.
So there you have it. This EFO, a disengaged cylinder kiss (EFO type), has no embossing, almost no color from the inked impression, yet we were able to nail it down to the specific catalog number to which it belongs.
Posted 04/03/2013 8:34 pm
