Position Number Questions

I see a lot of early U.S. stamps for sale with a position number noted. 1.How is this determined ? 2. Who cares what position an individual stamp is from ? I apologize if this question has been asked before. I did do a search and found nothing on this subject. Thanks

1. The position of each stamp in a sheet/plate is often differentiated by the minutest details of the stamp, and by referring to whole or partial sheets of stamps to determine where each stamp went.
2. It is a fun way to give depth to your stamp collecting, and develope a greater understanding of a particular stamp you like. Many advanced collectors collect by position.

You will need a specialized book to determine which plate and position your stamps come from. Some specialized books deal only with a certain time period (such as the reign of a king or queen). Others devote themselves entirely to a particular stamp (such at the 1851 3-cent George Washington stamp).

STAMPOCD,

Here's an article I wrote on plating the US 3-cent stamp of 1851 to 1857 (Scott numbers 10 and 11). There are links in the table so you can see the recutting examples. While I never tried to reconstruct a plate by stamp position number, collecting the varieties of recutting can add a lot of interest to the early issues. "Cherrypicking" the varieties at stamp shows can be fun and profitable, as some varieties can increase the value of a stamp tenfold or more:

http://www.uspcs.org/the-1851-1860-...amp-plating/

Very impressive article! Their excellent website is one of the reasons I just joined the USPCS.

STAMPOCD,

To answer your other question about how position numbers are determined, US 19th-Century stamps were generally printed in sheets of 200 - a left and right pane of 100 each, with a gutter or margin between the panes. The stamps on each pane are simply numbered from 1 to 100 starting from the top left corner, counting across, and ending at the bottom right corner at position 100. So a stamp from the bottom right corner of the left pane of plate number 3 would be plate position 100L3.

Here is a Scott #10 from the upper left corner of the right pane of plate 1e (the early state of plate 1, before re-entering and touch-up). Its plate position is 1R1e. Since it is from the left side of the right pane, the centerline between the left and right pane can be seen at left:

Thanks smauggie and classic coins. Very interesting and great link. And I thought Washington-Franklins were intense . This takes stamp collecting to a whole new level. Wow !

Thanks, smauggie. I maintained that article and the others linked at top of the page on my own web site for over 10 years, and turned it over to the USPCS a couple of years ago. Most of the color samples on the "3c Colors" page are still in my collection.

Here's another interesting #11 plate variety. It is plate position 99L3. If you click on the Variety 6 link on the above web page, you'll see a smaller image of this same stamp. When the impressions were rolled onto plate 3, three of the rows were out of alignment, leaving increasingly wider margins further down the plate between adjacent stamps of two colums. To correct the wide gap between the 8th and 9th vertical rows, extra lines were engraved on the left side of the stamps in the 9th vertical row. In this case there are two extra lines on the left side of this stamp (a total of four where there should be two). Likewise, the margin to the right was too narrow, so the second frame line that would normally appear, does not.

To make this stamp even more interesting, it is a "plate wiped too clean" variety. While wiping some excess ink from the bottom edge of the plate before applying it to the paper, the press worker ran the towel over the bottom part of this stamp position, resulting in too little ink on approximately the bottom third of the stamp:

Fascinating about the "wiped down" variety. You can really see the engraving in the lower area around Washington's head.

Due to plate wear or the way a stamp was trimmed, sometimes its pretty hard to distinguish between types. But, if you can determine the plate position you may find something special. For example, check out the difference between 98R2 & 99R2 of the 1851 One cent issue. Plate 2, Bottom Row, 8th & 9th position in the row. Perhaps you'll see what I mean.

The difference is a Type II (7) and the Type III (8). I don't have an image of my cover on this computer but its a strip of 3, positions 97R2,98R2 & 99R2 and I believe that the positions were identified by position 97R2 which was a full image. Position 99R2 was trimmed too close on the bottom to see all the markings.

Art

Edited for content

Were all 99L3 items of the wipe down variety? My copy of 99L3 in the Any examples of Double Transfers/Cracked Plate? thread is a bit oxidized and I can't tell if there is any "wipe down."

The wipe-down effect is a single occurrence issue, since new ink would have to be applied before the next sheet is printed, and presumably the press operator wouldn't over-wipe the next time.