Another Shining Example Of 1870-S Quality Control

The perforation consistency on 2nd and 3rd issue revenues isn't as bad as it is on 1st issue... but that's not saying much. There are still oddball stamps you run across that are incredibly large, small, or skewed due to the perforation inconsistency. The stamp below is just such an example.

One margin away from being an absolutely huge jumbo, still a neat oddity.

You talking about bad centering?

Not just "bad centering" in the routine sense, but three HUGE oversized margins, combined with diagonal perforation on the right side. Depending on where this stamp was vertically in the sheet, there may have been examples with either even bigger right margins, or exceedingly narrow stamps.

This stamp was probably a margin example from the right side of the sheet. Actually the second and third issues were generally perforated pretty well, especially in comparison to the first issue. There are plenty of fine to very fine examples of most values. The real problem with the second and third issues was the paper, it is terrible. Very uneven, thick, soft and very porous. Plus the silk threads were not always mixed well.

Using the black mount as a guide, it appears that both the right and left side perfs are angled. Although it would seem that it should be impossible for both side perferations to been narrowing to the bottom. But the stamp is definatly narrower at the bottom that it is at the top.




Are all of those black threads the silk threads mentioned?

Was this a case of 1870s quality control? Were the 1870s stamps of Great Britain & Germany shoddily perforated?

Ok, how about "shoddy 1870s quality control in the U.S.".

Unlike the stamps of most other countries, US revenue stamps of the 1862-1871 period came in several different sizes. The first issue was 10 different, and the second and third was 8 different plus the two rugs which were printed in sheets of one. This led to frequent changes in the perf wheel arrangements, which led to many of the problems often seen in these issues.