Flyspecking The New Invert Jenny Scott 4806

This is a new thread on the recent Jenny souvenir sheet issue dealing specifically with flyspecking varieties. Jay Bigalke recently wrote an interesting article posted in this month's Linns you can see here.

http://linns.com/news/us-stamps/598...ities-abound

Please post and comment on any varieties for this stamp that you have seen in this thread.

One thing that has never been clearly explained -- even in the Linn's article -- is why these varieties came to exist in the first place. There have been no other issue in recent memory that has had as many issues with printing problems that make flyspecking them such an interesting endeavor.

If the stamps had been printed by a new printer, I could understand it, but these Inverted Jenny reprints were all printed by a long established printer of US postage stamps -- Sennett Security Products -- and there should have been no excuse for such poor printing anomalies.

My personal opinion is that quality control was lacking in the printing process for this particular issue and the USPS should have rejected a printing job with such poor results. But then again I suppose there was too much at stake: (a) The heavily touted (but poorly sold) overpriced proof sets; and (b) the intentionally hidden 100 sheets of Jennys with the plane depicted right side up, all of which may have been reason enough not to further complicate an already complex issue.

I don't think the Linn's article even comes close to listing all the known print anomalies of this stamp.




I wonder what incentive the USPS would have to exercise good quality control on any stamp issue. All poor print quality does is producing a bunch of varieties. A poorly printed stamp does not affect its usability. Why should the USPS care?

That's just the point. The USPS apparently doesn't care.

Then again, what other modern stamp issue is subject to so many printing problems and poor centering? There must have been some reason for it and the USPS was probably not going to challenge it given the reasons recited earlier.

It still doesn't exactly give one confidence about the future printing of stamps by this vendor if this is an example of their work. But then again, modern stamps are really nothing more than printed labels with a few security measures added in, so they will never equal or exceed the quality of stamps from yesteryear. Sure the earliest of US issues had printing and centering problems, but as printing methods improved, so did the quality of the stamps they produced. With all the improvements that have come into place with modern printing methods, that should no longer be an excuse for less than perfection in stamp printing methods.

Wasn't this issues done 'the old fashion way'?? I mean that the plates were hand inked, hand cleaned, sheets were hand input, the press as 'hand pressed? to generate the historic feel of how the original 'Jenny Invert' was created/ (by inserting a sheet into the press incorrectly?? Maybe I lost something in the stories of the printing but I believe (maybe wrongly) that this issue was very labor intensive and the number of sheets was extremely limited. Thus the Collectors package of proofs and stage of printing sheets sold at premium??