So Many Questions...

It is amazing how much one forgets in 20 or 30 years.

On the subject of coils again. Do some coils NOT have plate numbers? I have several strips of 11 more or less high value stamps without plate numbers but they do have sort of a printed line (between stamps)at some point in the strip. Horrible centering too. I don't know why I didn't about that and get better quality. Too late now.

Trying to recall, when ordering coils with plate numbers, a minimum of 11 stamps was required for high values and giant long strips for low values.
Fred

Fred, plate numbers started appearing on coil stamps in 1981. Stamps printed on the old Cottrell presses were famous for being poorly centered; even on the same roll the centering sometimes goes crazy! Also, the joint line or Cottrell line was typical on these coils; the line was caused by a minute amount of space between the two plates that were mounted around a cylinder. If there is a plate number on a strip of Cottrell printed coils, it is always found on the stamp immediately to the left of the joint line!

Peter

You got to be kidding. They censor a perfectly good synonym for 'complain' (b*i*t*c*h) on this board? It's in every dictionary and only forbidden as a noun in Kindergarten.

On the subject of coils: I did a little research and it came back to me - Line Pairs. The line between two stamps seems to be in lieu of plate block numbers.
Fred

We do try to be a family friendly forum. Some parents might want to control how and when their children learn certain words. Not everyone here is an adult.

What??? Im trying to act grown-up!
What gave me away!

meh, we're all kids at heart!

Plate numbers appeared on coils long before 1981. Here is a gem, the already-scarce 1939 10c Presidential coil with a 50% print of #22102, as listed by Durland.

The ones like doug pictured were intended to be trimmed off but sometimes on miscut examples from the bottom row they show at the bottom.

The joint lines were not intentionally created - they just printed because ink collected there in the joint between plate segments (they used two plates butted together).

The only coils since 1981 you were able to order a smaller quantity of and still get a plate number that I can recall was the $1 Seaplane (and I think it was a strip of 5 not 11).