US Scott # 136 Grill Types

I ran across these a while back for cheap and grabbed them. Started looking into finally and I'm a tad confused on the types of Grills Scott catalog has listed for these.

Double Grill
Split Grill
Quadruple split Grill
End roller Grill
Grill with points up

Scott makes mention of an "H" Grill on these Banknote issues but James Dire's site makes reference to H & I Grills for the BN's

Which are these ?

According to Scott, the "H" grill is about 10 x 12 mm (11 to 13 by 14 to 16 points), and the "I" grill is about 8 1/2 by 10 mm (10 to 11 by 10 to 13 points). Whereas the "I" grill is smaller than the "H" grill, only if the points are clear/sharp enough to determine whether it is an "I" grill can it be considered an "I" grill. This is because the "I" grill is the more expensive variety, so if not clear grill, even if appearing smaller, must assume to be the cheaper "H" grill.

Hard to tell if yours are the smaller "I" grill or the larger "H" grill. Need a larger scan or with oblique lighting to see some shading effects.

Double grill is where you see two grills either partially overlaid or close enough to be clearly a duplicate impression, and not just offset regular grills.

Split grill is where you see parts of two grills somewhere on the stamp, where the grill impressions weren't well-aligned to the individual stamps, typically part of one on the left side and another on the right side, or part of one on the top and part of one on the bottom edge of the stamp.

Quadruple split grill shows parts of 4 different grill impressions on the stamp, typically near the 4 corners.

End roller grill is where the end of the grill roller is offset to be on a stamp, which is apparent by a much wider grill than the "H" or "I" is specified to be.

The standard "H" and "I" grill is with points down (meaning the grill impressions point down into the stamp paper from the front side), so points up means pointing from the back side up into the paper.

I unfortunately don't have examples to illustrate this - surely some of our other stamp community members do.

Stalzer - the I grills are listed as 134A-144A AFTER 144, instead of 134, 134A, 135, 135A etc.

From what I recall reading the H and I grills came on the same sheets. I grills are MUCH scarcer than H grills. Not all grilled banknotes are known with I grills either, the 24c comes to mind although one may have survived... Basically, a few positions of the grill press contained I grills.

Wait. Why did I even say that.. Now the usual suspects are going to claim they have a 24c I grill and no logic will cure them of thinking that.. Oh well, I digress.

They've only been Scott listed of late but there's been a decent amount of discussion about them over the years, I can't recall if Brookman got into them or not.

I referred back to Scott Vol. 1 and saw the note pertaining to the grills. I tend to get stuck on Scott specialized and use no other reference for US Stamps and specialized only shows a 136a as a pair with only one of the stamps having a grill. I looked through Vol.1 & Specialized and still not seeing a 136A, am I just having a bad case of catalog blindness ?

For the record, I use Scott 2009.

stallzer, that's the problem. The I-grills didn't get listed as major numbers until after 2009. You're going to need to upgrade your catalog :-) In the 2014 Specialized, Scott 134A starts on page 32.

BTW, I think 2013 was the first year the I-grills were separately listed. You could probably pick up a used 2013 fairly inexpensively if you don't want to splurge for the 2015 when it comes out (or if you're the patient type, I'll give you a great deal on my used 2014 Specialized in late October :-)

Oh yeah, to answer your original question, I can't tell from your scan, but it's possible those are I-grill stamps. For used stamps, the easiest thing to do is just lightly rub a little charcoal (or graphite, from a pencil) over the grill points so they can be counted easily then re-scan (I "color" my fingertip with a pencil, then lightly drag it over the points on back.)

You could also get a better image with different lighting techniques (e.g. if you're the finicky type and don't want to put graphite on the back of your stamp,) but I find graphite much quicker/easier (and far more definitive for counting rows.) BTW, if done properly, graphite can also be easily (and completely) removed with a drafting eraser after you've determined the grill type...

Somebody asked for images to use for comparisons. Here are some of the basics for 136. (click image to supersize)

136 with H-grill:







136 with I-grill:





136 with end roller grill:



Note that it is common among the end roller grill stamps that where the paper is roughened by the presence of the grill on the edge, the perforations are often of poor appearance.

Do you still want to see the splits? Not sure how they will help with recognition of the H and I grills, but I can show them if you need them.

I posted this stamp a year or two ago and didn't get a definitive "fake" answer so I stuck it in the 136 spot in my album anyway.

Any new opinions on this?

Mike33, looks genuine to me (and possibly/probably an I-grill too.) Partially impressed grills like that are pretty common; in fact, it's not too unusual to see only a few points on some grilled banknotes.

I agree with Ken, and the truncated pyramids do look like the I-grill. But until the research of Ron Burns on the characteristics of the I-grill are accepted as definitive, it will probably be classed as an H-grill. That has less to do with value, IMO than with the fact that H-grills are notoriously light and incomplete most of the time. So when a grill is only partial, the scale tips toward H.

Thanks guys. Guess it stays put where it is :)

I've been waiting for that Shoe to drop, I've been putting it off for a couple of years now.....