Indentify Stamp The Scott - 1 Cent Washington

Chasa is WRONG on this....
Stamp is clearly perf 10 @ top and bottom....
which would eliminate #498.

Even from the bad picture....if you have seen thousands
of W/Fs you can tell the difference from a perf 10 - 11 -12.

If you go to my website, then click on "Articles" look for the Washington/Franklin information and interactive matrix. It may help a lot.
http://www.stampexpertizing.com/

The picture of the suspect is skewed by not being taken from directly above, but it is good enough to make a photoshop comparison. The stamp is perf 11 all around.

Thanks for posting the comparison Ryan.

Anytime Dave. This thread reminds me of a few others that were needlessly drawn out. I just want everyone to get along.

I'm completely in agreement with you in that regard.

Assuming this is what is meant as "between the lines " If so, can this be used on all W/F's ?

stallzer, this can be used for any stamp with a nominal design measurement of 19 x 22mm. "...what is meant as "between the lines" is exactly what matters. Margins vary greatly so the reference is to the frame of the design. When the design is wider or taller (i.e. coil waste) it still holds true but the design will be about 5% more in either direction. This doesn't negate the test, it just slightly skews the results. Any particular perf (i.e. 10-80) will always be the same regardless of rotary or flat plate prints.

Apparently not.


Thanks HDNA.

When dealing with identifying stamp perfs without a guage, there are many pitfalls. The most significant one that our vision makes a very significant difference based on an image's size. In essence, counting perfs is very useful, don't worry about overall size.

I have gone through a few thousand 1908-on series 2c Washies. I still don't trust my eyeballs' perf gauge. With much more time I believe that I could no longer need a physical guage. However, there are many valuable rarities of this series. I personally check ever stamp that comes my way. If you aren't looking for rarities, then you probably will never find them.

What I was trying to say is that "gauging" your eyes depends on whether or not you are looking at a scan or at a stamp in person with no magnification. Both situations require an "attenuation" to the perspective at hand. Overall, I prefer scanning my stamps. We would be able to much more easily help if everyone who posted here would do so with a large and detailed scan.

Time to start over. The 1 cent stamp is perf 11. Any size comparison would be faulty because both 2 cent stamps are offset printings. Please read the Scott Catalog very carefully and report back.

Clark

If it's perf 11, it's most likely...

US #498 if it's flat plate

US #525 if it's offset printing.

If it's made from coil waste, or sheet waste it isn't, and congratulations on your gem!


-IBFS

Since the suspect stamp is not rotary, it is one of the below possible perforations:

405 12-66
424 10-79
462 10-79
498 11-72
525 11-72

I do acknowledge that offset prints are different in size compared to flat plate and rotary printings. Offset printings are noticeably smaller.

The three perforations work out to be:
12 * .066" = 0.792"
11 * .072" = 0.792"
10 * .079 "= 0.790"

The part that matters is how many perforations exist inside of that ~0.79" measurement. The difference equates to nearly 10% difference in spacing above and below perf 11-72.

The % difference of of design size for rotary vs. flat vs. offset prints is around 5% that I base upon measuring many of each type with calipers accurate to 0.001"

These values lead me to believe that an offset stamp can be used as a comparison tool with a flat plate printing when the design sizes are matched in an image manipulation program (e.g. photoshop). It isn't without error, but is such a low error that I believe that it is applicable in the vast majority of comparisons. In this particular situation, my "photoshop" comparison is actually accurate.




I did reread the introductory information in the beginning of my 9 year old Scott specialized catalogue. I cannot find anything that is particularly relevant to this discussion. However, that could mean that I overlooked something that you wanted me to understand in particular.




From my observations, the perforation differences are nearly twice the actual design measurement differences between the types.

I do not discount that I could be missing a point that you are trying to make. I just don't "see" what you are trying to point out. Regardless, I welcome your questioning manner which seems to be prompting me to think harder about my statements.

Once again, I'll say that I absolutely enjoy the interaction on this forum between experts and all others with varying skill levels.

Simply put, Clark, I truly value your input. Please elaborate if I am not "getting" the point that you are trying to make.

My health issues and strong medications lead me to be dimwitted at times. I appreciate the logic in your replies and the manner in which you try to educate.

The note in the Scott catalog under the type Va description opens Pandora's box: "The overall height is 1/3 mm shorter than the other types." Scott doesn't seem to mention that some of the offset stamps suffer from keystone effects caused to slight misalignments of the sheet being photographed and the camera used to make the negative for the offset printing process.

When resizing stamp images to allow perforation matching, is difficult enough without attempting to randomize the result by using offset stamps of uncertain size. After many experiments, I found that resizing the "patient" was preferable to resizing the stamp used to make a comparison. Resizing the known stamp trashes some of the metadata making measurements within the image useless. Since the "patient" generally has no useful metadata, resizing it won't matter.

In any case, one look at the stamp despite the bad image rules out any possibility of being an offset or rotary press printing.

Try this rule: Observe first before measuring. Sometimes measuring won't be necessary after all.

One final note. When examining perf 10 top or bottom Third and Fourth Bureau stamps, the number of perforations involved is small. Careful reading of the USSS article (on line) is recommended. I don't have it in front of me, but the observations about the offsets at the start and end of the perf 10 row when transitioning from and to perf 11 are very useful, except of course, the 6 cent exception where the sheets may have been fed upside down. In any case, the row of perforations has a distinctive pattern and any candidate perf 10 on one side stamp would have to exactly match one of the transitions or somewhere along the row. Also, unlike normally perforated stamps, if the perf 10 part of the row measures 10-79, it is fake because the perf 10 on one side spacing would be closer to 10-81, unlike anything from normal production.

After the observe step, if measurement leads to anomalous results, try some on-line searches for source articles before jumping to an untenable conclusion.

Clark