Scott 157 Plate Mark

Here is an item I just bought on cover. Please can anyone say what the straight line is? Does this add to the value? Is it common?

3193zd, it is not easy to see since the picture is fairly small, but it could be a guideline in a strange place! It is not a crack, and does not appear to be a plate scratch. Maybe you can post a larger scan?
And yes, to a specialist collector it would increase the value somewhat.

Peter

Yes, one would need a far better image.

How is this? It took me a while how to use the image optimizer!

I'm perplexed by this mark. To add to it, there doesn't seem to be even a hint of the secret mark. What am I missing?

When I look at it I see a faint secret mark. From the almost the apex of the crescent a line goes across to the frame. It starts on the left side of the mark we are trying to identify.

You could convince me, I'm sure.

Incidentally, the quality of printing looks pretty darn high from what little we see of the stamp.

here is the full stamp and the cover it was on.

Is the secret mark a little more clear on the second stamp?

The stamps are Scott 157 (by color). The "secret mark" is an urban legend. A gap exists between the two lines under the left scroll if the stamp is the red brown Scott 135 or 146. The gap is closed with some blur if the stamp is a 157 brown or 178 or 183 vermillion. The line appears to be a significant plate scratch or crack. Search the on-line archive of the US Classics Society may yield an article about 2 cent plate varieties. In any case, I would recommend joining the US Classics Society if you are interested in US classic stamps.

Clark

Thanks Clark! Great info. I was just happy to find it on cover.

Mike

I added more images of the "secret mark" from both stamps. Also any one can decipher the date from the back?

I have to demur on this a bit. It is true that the secret mark often does not show well on regular stamp paper, but there is a secret mark that was intentionally added to the die for the 2c.


These pics are for the 2c signed die proofs of the National and Continental Bank Note Companies.




Both bear the imprint of the National Bank Note Company. However, the signed proofs are unique for each denomination of each company, so we can be sure that both types are represented. Based on color we may say the National is on the left and the Continental on the right.

Now let's take a close look at the region of the secret mark:



The sequence of the closeup images is the same as the full size proof images, but I have added a closeup from a die proof of the 2c vermilion. Looking at the curve and ball above the letter "U" in "U.S." you can see here that there is a diagonal dash of color in the dark brown and vermilion proofs that is not present in the red brown example. This dash of color is the secret mark that John Luff illustrated and described back in 1902 (having done so previously in his Journal) which was picked up by the editors of the Scott catalog.

Luff made the observation, "This line can only be seen on very clearly printed copies." That is almost an understatement, but let us make no mistake that Continental had indeed added a mark to the die in order to distinguish their work from the work of National. It is not urban legend to say that the 2c denomination was given a secret mark.

In order to allow you to see the mark in these shots I took them with a Nikon 5x microscope objective attached to an extended Olympus bellows into a Canon camera body. I hope they are clear enough.

The closeup you gave us last November 21 (a year ago) of the extra line is clear enough to reveal what you have. Notice that this line is entirely parallel to the edge of the design. It is not a haphazard scratch, but rather a layout line that was supposed to intersect with the position dot that normally appears on the vignette frame roughly at the level of Jackson's mouth. It is not always present and sometimes it is hidden by the deep vignette background shading. Here is an example which shows the dot well (but not the line):



The line on your example appears to be heading into the vignette background shading, so you might look for a dot in there.

Thanks for the clarification! I understand better now what I am to be looking for. Now I just need someone to tell me what this date is and if these are horse head cancels.

The one on the right could be the padlock cancel?