1926 2 Cent Liberty Bell Stamp

Was the 2 Cent Liberty Bell Stamp ever released with at least one side imperforated? I have one and I've tried to decide if someone just cut off the perforations or if this is really an imperforate on one side. I've compared this to another one I have with perforations all around, and this one is the same exact size, so it doesn't seem like it was trimmed. There is a line from top to bottom of the stamp on the left side that looks like a margin or cutting line. Is it possible that this stamp was issued in a booklet? Any comments are really welcome.

Called a "straight edge"...
sheet format...no booklet.

The red line you see on the straight edge is called a cut line. It is where the sheet was divided into panes.

Sheet layouts are described in the Scott United States Specialized Catalog. Flat plate stamps were printed in sheets and slit along guidelines into smaller panes. Large format commemoratives were generally printed in sheets of 200 and split into panes of 50. Small format regular issues were printed in sheets of 200 or 400 and split into panes of 100. A few low volume bicolored stamps were printed in panes of 100 on the Spider Press. See http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DDTuIu8PWkw

Clark

Does anyone know if this is a separate collectible specimen, or just another example of Scott's 627? Seems to me that if there is a deviation from a "normal" perforated stamp, that Scott would list it somewhere with a different number?? Appreciate and additional comments.

No it's not a separate variety. It's a less desirable, some would say flawed, example of the regular issue.

Natural straight edges are quite common. It may take a bit of reflection on this, but from what people have already posted, you can perhaps grasp that for every sheet of 400 or 200 stamps, quite a number of stamps would have a "natural" straight edge--where the sheets were cut into 2 or 4 panes one or two sides of each pane ended up with no perforations, just a straight edge. So the percentage of straight-edged stamps is actually quite high:

For US flat plate commemoratives, 10 out of 100 had a straight edge. For flat-plate definitives, 19 out of 100. One of the 19 had two sides straight-edged. That's from the Philatelic Foundation article I link to below.

In the general stamp market, you don't see as many examples as actually were produced, because many have been altered by fakers who punched perforations on the "straight" edge side, turning them into (fake) 4-side-perforated stamps. But these are considered "reperfs" and treated as frauds. Natural straight edged stamps have usually been considered less desirable than regular 4-sided perforated stamps. So your example here is worth less than a "normal" example of the same issue. You can see in your scan the red cutting line along which its pane was separated from the other panes on the sheet.

On the other hand, the good news is that yours is not a fraud/reperf. The guideline and straight edge are interesting reminders of how these little bits of colored paper were produced. Not all straight edge stamps have the cutting guideline visible. Still they were/are so common that once you have an illustration or two, you don't need any more.

Well, except that they can be useful as references for detecting reperfs--see the PF article in the link below for that tip.


http://www.philatelicfoundation.org...perforation/

Thanks ILS, I learned something today.