Scott #274 But With Vertical Double-Line USPS

hallo, I have stamp and I can not find special stott at http://www.stampsmarter.com/1847usa...entifier.htm


scott #274 but with vertical double-line USPS?





scott #281 but with PHILIPPINES black overprint?

The 5c Grant was overprinted for use in the Philippine Islands and listed under that heading, Scott #216.

thinks @jarnick

Your 15 cent stamp is #274.

I think you may be confused by vertical vs horizontal. Each individual letter in this watermark reads upright (vertical), yet the entire string of 4 letters, USPS, forms a horizontal row or pattern, thus it is classified in the catalog by the orientation of the entire 4-letter pattern as a "horizontal watermark".

>I think you may be confused by vertical vs horizontal



for me is this vertical watermark

No one paid the slightest attention to the direction of the watermark when the paper was loaded in the press. Therefore it exists in every possible configuration of horizontal, vertical, inverted and reversed.

@revcollector,
>No one paid the slightest attention to the direction of the watermark when the paper was
>loaded in the press.
I don't know



this should stamp #283a

That's COLLECTORS paying attention, not the printers. I assure you that when these stamps were printed no one cared in the least about the orientation of the watermark.

this a wrong (fake) stamps?

how to look VERTICAL WATERMARK Double line USPS wmk. - from Scott #283a ?

On the 274, the Scott Specialized is quite clear that the 15 cent denom was printed in sheets of 200 and the watermark is vertical, just as your example shows the lower portion of a U. There is no listing for any horizontal watermark orientation on 274, so the printers DID pay attention to the rectangular paper dimensions in feeding the press for the 200 subject plates, which easily allows for reversed and inverted configurations, but not 90 degree rotations.

For 283/283a, Scott is also clear in the introductory to the 1897-1903 issue about printings of the 10 cent brown from either 200 or 400 subject plates and their watermark orientation.

That was paying attention of necessity, not for any other reason, such as caring. Since that was the only way printing was possible, that's what they did. But as with almost everything relating to stamp production, decisions were usually based on what worked. No one was holding up the paper and saying, "the watermark must be vertical", they simply arranged the paper so it fit and went to work.

thanks @John Becker, what do you do with stamp #274? scrap or check, certificate?

... handycamera, scanner defect

had this stamp a value (Graded < 70)??

Shrinkage across the grain of the paper was very important to the Bureau. Perforation quality suffered because of uneven shrinkage. The Bureau started using special paper, initially with vertical watermarks, and later no watermark, for booklet pane production to minimize the effects of shrinkage on the cutting of booklet panes from press sheets. Except for the 1 and 2 cent First Bureau stamps believed to have been printed in error with paper aligned in the wrong direction, no other unintentional examples of rotated watermark orientation are known. After the production of flat plate booklet panes ended, the remaining special paper was used to print higher value definitive stamps, the Beacon airmail and the E13 qq5 cent special delivery. Perforating machines had to be reset to accommodate the slightly changed dimensions of the stamps. For this reason, I am not convinced the First Bureau printings were errors. There may have been a reason, like a shortage of regular paper.

If the paper orientation is wrong, some of the resulting stamps will be quite far off center. Even 19th century stamps printed on rag paper would have enough shrinkage over the width of the press sheet to require resetting the perforating machines when changing the paper orientation. It is known that the paper orientation was changed by the National Bank Note Company while grills were still being applied. Again, there may have been some production or paper supplier related reason to drive the change.

It may be that when the First Issue revenue stamps were first being printed that the printers did more random than normal just to get stamps out the door, but I haven't seen any mention that any of the stamps come in two sized. It is known that the 1875 reissues of the 1869 issue were printed with the paper grain in the opposite direction. Slight differences in the size of the design is one of the tests used by expertizers.

Clark

Again, this was done of necessity. There was a problem and they found a way to solve it. When there was a problem they paid attention to those details, but it was always a case of need and not of any actual caring otherwise, which is my whole point.
First issue revenues come in 10 different sized stamps, and the perforating machines were from Europe and no one here knew how to calibrate them very well. Add in a major financial emergency due to the war plus 3 different companies providing paper, and looking at the grain was the least of their worries.

thanks @cfrphoto, @revcollector and @John Becker for yours extensive explanation.