Is Thia A Z Grill ?

Fortunately, worrying about half rows at top and bottom is a waste of time because all of the 1867-68 grills can be positively ID by two things - counting the number of full vertical rows and checking the orientation of the points on a grill that has 14 vertical rows to establish if it is a "Z" grill (the only one with horizontal grill points. And to "double-check" whether the "Z" is genuine, it MUST have 18 horizontal rows.

So by a simple process of elimination we can do the following;

1. Only an "F" grill will normally have 12 or 13 vertical rows. All others have 14 or more;

2. If 14 vertical rows are present and 18 horizontal rows and the grill points are horizontal, it MUST be a "Z" grill;

3. If 14 vertical rows and points are oriented vertically, it MUST be an "E" grill;

4. If it has 15 vertical rows, it MUST be a "D" grill;

5. And so on, up through the larger grills which are all unique in construction and really can't be confused with any other grill.

And of course, all of the above is only valid if the grill in question is GENUINE! I seriously find the ID of the grilled stamps to be very simple. Always have. Reading the Brookman Books was a fantastic "basic education" and I highly recommend that set of books to anyone seriously interested in the Classic United States stamps. I have always believed that the 3-volume set of the Brookman books is the most important set for any serious collector of US stamps to buy and read.

Sometimes, as hopeful collectors, we see things that aren't there. (well, at least I do) A few dimples become a line of grill points, Red becomes Brown Red etc, etc, etc.....

Thank you for that, Bill! Since you brought it up, I have been on a crusade to link people to the digital copies of the aforementioned Brookman books. The United States Philatelic Classics Society (USPCS) owns the rights to these books and have digitized them. They are free for anyone to download. Get your free education here ... http://www.uspcs.org/resource-cente...nic-library/

Brian

Bill,

A partial row top or bottom is a good quick E or F grill indicator making a close up look for horizontal Z grill points unnecessary. Often, E and F grills can be separated by looking at the size and aspect ratio. An F grill should appear to be narrow compared to an E grill. Counting vertical rows is advisable if the grill looks wide. The difference between a D grill and an E grill is only one vertical row.

Clark

APS received the stamp today,here is their picture of the front,it's small but way better quality than my camera can do.

stamp96... have you heard back from the APS yet?

My experience says they take weeks, not days !

It's been weeks now.

Indeed, APEX takes weeks, often many weeks, because of 1. the time required to send the item to several different examiners; 2. the relative slowness of Registered Mail (which is what APEX uses) and 3. the fact that some examiners can take a long time to do the work. I personally examine APEX submissions within a few days of receiving them, often the same day, but I was away last week, so the latest batch I received had to wait about 5 days this time. And I honestly do not recall if that stamp was in the group I did (28 items as I recall), but it might have been.

edit: oops posted in wrong thread.