Another Hopeful A10, 3 Cent , On Cover

Well, I told myself (and others) I would concentrating on Zeppelin covers. Recently I bought a A10 on cover being sold as a Scott #11. It is instead, most likely a 10a.
But now I've made the Cardinal sin of buying from ebay a cover with a stamp advertised as a "10 or 10a". Kinda got caught up.

I liked the extra line outside the right frame line. But, the only thing I've read mentioning it, states it only appears on plate 3...

I was just looking through Chases 3 cent 1851-57 yesterday, and do remember something about adding an extra frame line on plate 3 to make a spacing error less conspicuous.

I believe he also said plate 3 was made in early 1852, which would preclude any 10s from this plate. I just took another look to be certain, and Chase mentioned it is possible that this plate may have been used briefly late in the year 1851 and might have produced some orange browns. I'm not sure if that's been confirmed since.

Hi, stampcrow... I admire your enthusiasm with zep covers...

Personally, I'm not a cover collector, I have maybe between
5-10 total... but, with all the talk about zep covers on SCF
I decided to dabble a little and picked this one up recently,
all the way from the UK...

Randall

I saw that cover. The stamp is a #11 from Plate 6. Look it up in the Chase book.

Darn it. I wonder, since it was listed as "#10 or 10a" if I can return it?

You can return it as not as described, I'm sure. Most sellers are easy to work with.

Sinclair, are you saying this is 11L6 based on the dot upper left? At first I thought this was an example of the faint guideline, but that wouldn't be #11. What is the extra line?

On the subject of 10 and 10a, Chase says they are only found from plates 1 (all states), 2e, 0, and 5e. Every stamp from these plates, with the exception of 1L, would have to be orange brown. Has there been any new information about possible orange browns from an earlier use of plate 3?

Ray

It is an #11 from the eight vertical row of the right pane of Plate 6. Chase called it a faint guide line but it isn't actually a guide line as we use the term. Why it is there is a mystery.

You can actually find stamps from all of the imperf plates in an orange brown shade, whether it is Plate 1L experimental orange brown, Plate 2L/3 orange brown, mid '52 orange brown or 1856 orange brown. They are all rare with the experimental OB being quite a bit more common than the other OB shades.

A Scott #11. Lol, sometimes the easiest things are hardest for my brain to grasp. Thought you meant plate position.

I also should have said #10 rather than orange brown. It seems it would be easiest for me to positively tell a 10 from an 11 if I could plate it to one of the plates that were only in use in 1851.

I guess I didn't answer your question very well either. Plate 2L and 3 were put into use very early in 1852. The Plate 2L/3 OB stamps are probably the very earliest of impressions from the new plates. IMO, that doesn't mean you should assume that the move away from an OB to a brownish carmine pigment happened after the new plates were put into use. I have personally examined what was supposed to be one of the best Plate 3 OB's but it looked nothing like a typical OB stamp...