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I love the 1847USA site, the description for the type 1A and type II are exactly the same so how is one supposed to tell the difference between the two ?
Aside from some significant differences like the lock of hair above George Washington's ear, type Ia stamps are from flat plate printings and type II are rotary press coils or coil waste (rare). Visually, rotary press printings look quite different than flat plate. Lines are thinner and more sharply defined. Rotary press stamps are taller or wider than flat plate examples. While nominally, gauging at 10, coil perforations were applied with a bar perforator and must be aligned side to side on a horizontal coil or top to bottom on a vertical coil. Perforations are 10-80 compared to the flat plate 10-79.
An effective way to understand Washington/Franklins is to study the business problem facing the Bureau of Engraving and Printing. Business demand for stamps was increasing at a rapid rate. Quality control was a major problem. Private vending coil producers were starting to compete and required coils suitable for high speed affixing machines. The Bureau started selling imperforate sheets to allow vending machine companies to prepare their own coils with private perforations.
The Bureau experimented with higher rag content paper in an attempt to reduce shrinkage creating the "bluish paper" varieties. Next the Bureau changed from double line to single line watermark paper in the hope that it would be less fragile. In response to private vending machine companies, the Bureau started producing coils hand assembled from strips of 20 perforated in one direction and cut in the other by a specially equipped perforating machine. The process was very labor intensive.
A project to produce coil stamps more efficiently ultimately resulted in the Stickney rotary press. initially, only the coiling equipment was available. Production of single line watermark flat plate coils was switched to the new coilers. Sheets perforated in one direction were cut in half and pasted up in rolls ten stamps wide. The new coilers proved to be more efficient, but perf 8 1/2 replace perf 12 when the rolls were found to be too fragile. Quality of sheet stamps continued to be an issue.
Design changes in 1912 were intended to reduce confusion between look-alike stamps and to comply with UPU requirements for numeric denominations. Plate layout changes were made to attempt to reduce waste. Uneven vertical plate spacing (3 mm and 2 mm) was replaced with slightly wider uniform spacing. Perforations of sheet stamps were changed from 12-66 to 10-79 to improve durability and flat plate coils were changed from 8 1/2 to 10-79 at the same time.
Finally, when rotary presses were ready, coil stamp production was switched over. Some issues with printing quality of 2 and 3 cent coils resulted some strengthening of design elements and new type II and finally type III for 2 cent dies were produced. Meanwhile, the Bureau continued to experiment with sheet stamp perforations. A perforator was equipped with perf 11-72 wheels and a short run of 2 cent stamps was produced while single line watermark paper was still in use. While deemed successful, perf 10 stamps continued to be produced until the pins wore out. Meanwhile, use of watermarked paper was abandoned, resulting in some perf 10 unwatermarked stamps before perf 11 became the norm.
The World War I period was a time of desperation. Supplies of ink were disrupted causing significant plate wear and other quality problems. The type II die was applied to 3 cent flat plate stamps in 1918. The type Ia 2 cent experiment was related to an attempt to use a five or ten subject transfer roll. As an interim step to increase stamp production, 3 cent, 1 cent and later 2 cent stamps were printed using offset presses. In order to have a satisfactory product, design elements were strengthened resulting in types III and IV for the 3 cent and types IV, V, Va, VI and VII for the 2 cent.
After the end of the wartime disruption, stamp production at the Bureau returned more or less to normal, but producing enough stamps remained a problem. A larger Stickney rotary press for sheet stamps was placed into production resulting in the perf 10 x 11 Scott 542 and later the perf 10 x 10 Scott 543. While plates were made for 2 cent rotary sheet stamps, they were not placed in use. While the rotary presses were more efficient, they created a lot of waste that could not be effectively stripped into coils. A decision was made to cut up coil waste into perforated sheets. Sheets perforated in one direction by the bar perforator were perforated in the other direction using flat plate perforators. Imperforate sheets were perforated in both directions. This process continued through the transition from the Third Bureau Washington/Franklin designs into the beginning of the Fourth Bureau issue period.
Some imperforate waste from printing sheet stamps were also processed through flat plate perforators resulting in the rare Scott 544, 596 and 613. For many years, Scott misattributed these stamps as vertical coil waste, clearly impossible for the 2 cent Harding. Another odd variety was the perf 10 on one side resulting from replacing a section of pins on a perf 11 wheel with some nominally perf 10 pins.
An eye trained by experience can spot the differences between flat plate and rotary stamps without using a magnifier.
Clark
Posted 10/16/2014 9:13 pm
