Brookman To The Rescue

In the past I was pretty well-read on US classic issues (forgotten much of it since I took a several-years hiatus from the hobby, only recently returned), but I recall some literature on the grills with the thinking that by the time the large banknote issues came into being the reason for grilling stamps in the first place (preventing their reuse) was no longer as high on the list of USPOD's concerns as it once was. So, while the National Bank Note Co. was contractually bound to provide grilled stamps, they did not put great energy into meeting this requirement in a quality manner because the POD did not really care.

The conjecture about stacking multiple sheets in the grilling apparatus is unlikely for a number of reasons. The roller had to be close enough to the underlying mat, possibly leather, in order to make an impression. It seems more likely that as the equipment became worn, the ability to apply pressure declined and was no longer strong enough to make consistent strong grill impressions. Recall that the stamps were gummed before grilling. Applying the grilling apparatus to stacked sheets of stamps could potentially stick the sheets together, especially in the summer. Also, it is hard to imagine laying out sheets of different denominations together. Accounting for every sheet of paper was complicated enough with only one denomination in each production batch. Also, higher denominations were printed in exceedingly small quantities compared to lower value stamps. Another hypothesis would be that the grilling apparatus was used to produce lower denominations first to meet immediate needs. It may be that by the time the higher denominations were being printed and processed that the grilling equipment was barely working and subsequently decommissioned before additional batches of lower denomination stamps were ready to be processed.

No one really knows for sure what happened. It is clear however, that impressing multiple sheets of paper with any type of embossing process would likely to leave detectable traces. If the sheets of paper did not stick together, not having uniform pressure on both sides of each sheet of paper would be more likely to result in distorted grill impressions or even tearing and ripping of the paper.

Clark

Clark, I appreciate your comments. I'd like to note, however, that Brookman believed that sheets were grilled in multiples, at least as far as the male grills are concerned. Here's a portion of vol. 2, page 96 of his The United Stated Postage Stamps of the 19th Century, where he discusses this:



(the full text is available via the USPCS library at http://www.uspcs.org/resource-cente...ic-library/)

I should add that I do agree that my conjecture about combining denominations during the grilling process is pretty farfetched.

And you make an excellent point, Clark, about the likely order of production. They almost certainly produced many millions of the lower denominations, particularly the 3 cent, before they got around to printing the higher denominations. And as with any machine after heavy use, the grilling apparatus likely would have shown signs of wear - loose bolts, weaker tolerances, etc. And National would have had little incentive to repair/maintain the apparatus, since everybody knew that grilling wasn't really doing any good, and they probably expected that the requirement would be dropped in subsequent contracts.

Even if the sheets were fed into the grilling machine one at a time, we're still left with the puzzle of why the grill roll skipped the one stamp in this strip. From the description, I'n not sure if it is one or two 148s in the strip of 137's. This description skips the fourth stamp from the right.

For it to be totally omitted suggests grill wear, I think. Only other possibility is a foreign body accidently landing right on the intended grill area. But I vote for wear. And the fact that an adjoining stamp ALSO shows a very weak (or partial(?) grill sort of proves it.

When I found out that Ron Burns was not going to be at Chicagopex this year, I called him up and we chatted for a couple of hours on the phone. Grills on the Banknote issues was a major part of our conversation. Ron has researched the grills more carefully than perhaps anyone since Stevenson, and has reflected deeply on what shreds of evidence he is able to notice in handling them. Ron has observed distinctive patterns in the irregularities of the grills. He has proposed that two factors resulted in what we are seeing in them.

Ron is convinced that the sheets were grilled one at a time, and that it was necessary to push them into the apparatus until the grilling teeth took hold and then the sheet could advance as it was pulled through the machine by the action of the hand-cranked roller. In all of that movement there was lots of opportunity for a bit of rippling of the paper to occur, so that the sheet did not always lie uniformly flat. How much creasing of the paper might have accompanied that is hard to say, since the sheets were pressed flat under great pressure subsequent to the act of grilling (he can tell you how much pressure they applied). But even a slight ripple would cause the sheet to lie on the bed unevenly. All that was in keeping with Steel's original patent proposal, which he was in a good position to monitor since he himself was subcontracted by National as an employee with specific oversight of the grilling process.

By itself this was not the whole picture. Ron does not agree with Brookman's image of how the bed of the grilling device was constructed and related to the roller. He believes that a hard metallic bed had an array of squares corresponding to the placement of the teeth in the grill roller. He gets that in part from the appearance of what he calls "reverse embossing" in the late state I-grills. However, this array of squares was covered with a lattice of tight squares made of hard leather (like shoe sole leather) which was readily available in large bands to workshops for driving their machines. As this leather lattice wore down the grilling became increasingly irregular, even resulting in grills with missing centers. To replace it meant taking the machine out of commission for a comparatively long period. But there was only the one machine in use for the purpose, so the leather lattice had to make do for an entire run of a denomination.

Because National had subcontracted the responsibility of oversight to the patent holder of the grilling device, the responsibility for the final quality of grilling lay with Steel, who was being paid a royalty based on the number of stamps passing through the machine. National leased but did not own the patent for grilling. That remained with Steel and went with him to the Continental BNCo when the change in stamp contractor took place. Since the contract of 1873 did not require embossing the stamps, Steel was paid a retainer salary, but the only use of the embossing machine was when the late experimental grilling was done sometime around 1876.

Certain details have been omitted here, but I believe this gives you the overall picture as it stands today.

WOW that is an amazing snippet of information that I am going to take note of. Thank you for that in-depth look essayk -Jeff

I agree - very interesting stuff. Thanks for the insight, essayk.

Thank you essayk. Ron is amazing. I just hope he publishes this stuff someday. Practically his whole adult life has been dedicated to the 3c Banknotes as a specialty and to the Banknotes in general. He is a walking encyclodepia and listening to him is quite an experience.

In fairness to Ron Burns I want to correct any wrong impression I may have given in my last post. What I wrote was a digest of a two way conversation and does not represent a pure statement of Ron's thinking, or my own for that matter. I need to say this so that if there were places my version of the story deviates from Ron's recollection or thinking no one will lay it at Ron's doorstep, particularly where he might strongly disagree. These are notes of what I recalled, reconstructed, blended, and put before you. They are not the gospel according to Ron Burns. Didn't mean to overstate anything.

Has Ron Burns published any of his encyclodepiac knowledge?

Ron has published in many places. He has an article or two in the old Essay-Proof Journal, in the USPCS Chronicle, in the US Specialist of the USSS, in at least one volume of the PF Opinions series (VII) , and even a special feature in the 2013 US Specialized Scott catalog. He is also a regular consultant and contributor to Scott for the Specialized cat. He has also published postal history studies in places I dare not go.

BUT

You will not find him online. Ron does not own or use computers. He is a Luddite of the first water, and I think proud to be so. But he does do word processing and color printing from another vintage word processing device, and he does a lot with photography. He just sent me two large folders of material all in color and marked up with lines and notes he adds in pen. He is a devotee of snail mail, having had a career with the POD cum Postal Service, from which he retired a few years ago.