.46 Seed Packet Flower Issue - Error?

Hello all

I was just about to use some of my first book of the new .46 seed packet flower stamps, when I noticed something. One side has stamps that look normal. But on the other side, I notice some have the text doubled.

If you look at the scans here, you can compare the text to stamps from the "normal" side. What I don't quite understand is looking at the plate numbers, they aren't really out of line. I suppose the "V" is sort of, if you squint.

I am curious what people think about these stamps, and if I have something interesting, like an error or variety, or just some badly printed stamps.

JD

Which side is which that is the side that is doubled? Can we get a close-up of a doubling? Thanks!

As you suggested, it appears to be simply poor color registration as can be seen in the poor line-up of the plate letter/digits. It does make some of the lettering appear fuzzy, but the misregistration is not sufficient to increase the value of the pane (my opinion).

smauggie - the side with the bar code is the effected one. I can get a close-up scan for you... but in the meantime, you should be able to click on the image above and see it. I left the scan large so it will be visible...

I think JD is referring to the side with the UPC. The "PINKS", "COSMOS", "ASTER" appears fuzzy (doubled) whereas the "DIGITALIS" looks sharp. I would guess the fuzziness is caused by the misregistration of the two colors used to form those words, while the colors used to print "DIGITALIS" were well registered.

[EDIT: OK, JD already replied while I was typing...]

Yet another color mis-registration. I also find it curious as to why the "Digitalis" stamp doesn't have a similar doubled look about it.

In fact, on a recent Lydia Mendoza stamp I received it has a similar mis-registration as you can tell from the lettering:



Although some may find these collectible, neither of these examples qualify as "errors" as the mis-registrations are not severe enough to make them particularly valuable.

I think we may be able to chalk this up to poor quality control on the part of the USPS vendors who produce these stamps. In fact, it may even have something to do with the USPS financial problems that they don't give the quality control the close attention that they used to.

It's a different color from the other names. It may be a single color (the last 1 in the plate number), or possibly just happen to be a combination of colors that were well registered relative to each other. Since I don't have the actual color breakdowns/definitions, that's just my guess.

I grew up with those old Jung (and others) seed packets. I think it is a cool idea for a stamp. Apparently the printing quality leaves something to be desired.

Funny... if these stamps were engraved, I could get away with saying I found a major double impression!!

;-)

Left and right side of the front of the booklet, from Nells250's original scan. I do not have one myself.

The 2013's are doubled also. I did not notice a doubling with the bar code or with the plate number. Maybe a higher resolution scan would show this to my non-mint eyes.

The USA Forever lettering at the bottom of the stamps do not seem to be as doubled or at all dooubled.

Puzzler makes an excellent point. If there was a genuine double printing of something, it should show up in one of the letter/digits of the plate number as well. A good pic of that area should show it.

Definitely a registration problem and probably occurred near the beginning of the press run. The letter and digits of the plate number are single colors, as is the bar code, so would not exhibit any registration issue in and of themselves.

The Brown 1, the first-down color (furthest from the V) and the Yellow 1, the fifth-down color, appear to be in register; the Gray 1, the Purple 1, the second-down and fourth-down colors, respectively, and the V appear to be in register with each other, but not with the Black 1 and the Yellow 1; the Blue 1, the third-down color, appears to not be in register with any other color.

The second-down color looks purple, to me, in the above scan, but is decidedly magenta on the booklet that I have. All the colors in my booklet are in register. I'm sure the press operators corrected the initial registration problem.

The Gray 1, the second-down color, the V and the bar code are all the same color, so I conclude they were engraved on the same cylinder.

Re quality control, I can assure you it is impossible at 300-500 feet-per-minute, even with optical scanners, to inspect every image, so an occasional registration problem is disappointing, but understandable.

A good catch, Nels. Thanks for sharing.

Nells - it is a color misregistration in the vertical direction. The spacing of the digits in the plate number is not perfectly uniform - the highest one (brownish one) is somewhat higher than it should be - not by much, but enought to affect the names of the flowers (I don't see any doubling of the 2013 year that Puzzler sees)

Great picture! Place a straight edge across the letter V and the digits and it will become more obvious that registration of the gravure cylinders is the problem.

It's not possible to know how long the problem persisted before the operator made the appropriate corrections. If the operator saw the problem and reacted immediately and took five minutes to get all five cylinders in register, at 300 fpm, then 1500 feet of web would have passed. At about 36 inch web width, then 4500 square feet equals a lot of stamps! Any delay by the operator would, of course, increase the magnitude of the problem.