New 1c 1857 Type Va, Confirmed As 8l5

Hi-- I've been lurking but not very active on SCF lately-- just really busy, but have still been very active in my philatelic hunting.

Here is another Type Va, 1c 1857 I bought on ebay, that had a plater's initials and date showing 8L5, and I did confirm this with my Neinken book. A beautiful stamp, a little short on the perfs on the left and lower right, but just a great impression, and the first Type Va that I've gotten that is an "A" relief (top row of the plate):


And if anyone is interested, here is the diagram for 8L5 found in Neinken. The stamp is on photobucket, and is a 1200dpi image, so you can zoom in, and you'll be able to see the plate markings on the diagram. The tell-tale sign on this one is the double line at the end of the bottom curve on the right side, and it's just like in the diagram. (FYI, "F" in the diagram stands for "faint", so the lines are there, but are not as dark as in the diagram.



Enjoy, and to all dads out there, Happy Father's Day tomorrow!
Ray

Wow that is a beautifully crisp impression!

Agreed Jeff- the type Va are all from plate 5 which was the first perfd printings- white, harder paper and a fresh clean plate. They dont know what happened to the plate 5, but it wasn't used for long, thus the rarity of the type Va