Question About Martha Washington 4 Cent Coil #601

Hello Forum and Experts,

I have this coil of Martha Washington stamps. I would like to know the year of the stamps. Also I I would like to know the approximate price range of this roll.

And how many joint line pair could be int here.

Thank your for your advice,

LTran, welcome to the forum!

Since your stamps are coil stamps, the only possibility is Scott #601.

Your roll should have many joint line pairs. I don't remember offhand how many joint line pairs you should have versus the number of stamps in your roll. Hopefully someone else will provide that information. The earliest date used that is known is 9/14/1923. It is assumed that they were first issued approximately 8/5/1923.

I cannot give you a price estimate on the roll. Others may be able to help you with that.

Thank you for your info. I guess if I roll the stamps out and find out the distance between the two joint-line sets, I would know the circumference of the print drum (?)
But since this type of printing is not unique for just this one 4c Martha Washington stamp but generally use for all of this class of stamps, someone would know and then provide the forum with the answer.

That math would only work if that was a complete roll. Is that a complete roll?

For this horizontal Stickney rotary press coil stamp (# 610), two 170 (17 x 10) subject printing plates were used so that the joint line would occur after every 17th coil stamp. For vertical Stickney rotary press coil stamps, two 150 (10 x 15) subject printing plates were used and the joint line would occur after every 15th coil stamp.

Great Information! Learn something new everyday. Thank you.

Let me ask a practical question: When you have a quantity coil roll such as this, is there any real premium in keeping the roll intact as opposed to just retaining pairs or line pairs or strips of stamps for ease of storage?

Obviously there are some stamps at the beginning and end of the roll that are quite damaged and beyond collectible value, so I guess my question is that if one were to selectively remove the damaged stamps and retain only the MNH pairs, line pairs or possibly strips of 6 or 8 or 10 stamps, would there be any diminished value in doing so?

It seems to me that for a collection one would only need a select few specimens. Likewise, it seems there would be more secondary market value in selling multiple strips and/or line pairs as opposed to an entire roll of coil stamps.

wt1,

Is this even a complete roll? If not, then the answers to your questions are easy. Break it out into line pairs and strips of MNH. It doesn't look like a full roll to me, but I only have experience with more modern rolls of coiled stamps.

I am not a stamp collector so this is my 4-cent worth of idea:
Jogil indicated that the joint line would appear 17th of stamps. So I would like two joint lines + two extra at each end. So that would be
17 x 2 + 2 = 34 stamps. Any more than that is just a repeat set.

I am a coin/paper money collector, and have the same dilemma with consecutive currency serial numbers.

In general I would be very reluctant to break up a set. I would rather let someone else to do that. :-)