11A Plate 5 Late? Engravers Slip?

The poorly cut inner frame lines, lead me to plate 5L. There is a line, left of the left frame line. I marked the area in the second image below. The line looks like an engravers slip, or a scratch. I thought this would make plating the stamp easy. I cannot find this line mentioned for plate 5...
I'm sorry that these are the best images I could capture.

Stampcrow,

That's a plate 4 impression. Plate 4 stamps typically have a left frame line that is faint and too close to the design, especially near the top. Slips in the left frame line are also common.

It seems as though one engraver cut the top, bottom and right frame lines, and left an amateur to engrave the left frame line on most of the positions on plate 4. The left frame line seemed more or less scratched into the plate rather than cut.

Ugh. I thought I was seeing areas of inner lines cut. The areas near the upper right Rosette and lower left rosette, specifically, seem to show inner lines.

Took a quick look at some of the pics of plate 4 stamps. No surprise, It's like you said.

In my defense..., I thought the stamp was type II. But it was bothering me that there was no mention of the extra lines of slips. So, I figured something was amiss.
Thanks, I should be able to plate it correctly now. Although on the Ruecker site, plate 4 is not complete. There's about 30% chance I won't find it.

Here's a 39L4 showing the typical plate 4 characteristics. Had to crank this up to 1200 DPI to pick up the faint left frame line, which has "slips."

In addition to the left frame line traits I described above, the upper and lower label blocks were recut by one line, and the bottom frame line is normally heavy. The color is brownish claret.

I'm re visiting some of these threads.

I have a question based on my limited observations. Most stamps with a re-cut upper label have the upper right diamond block re-cut as well. I'm always look out for slightly more unique characteristics that can help narrow a plate position search.
Would upper an label re-cut, without right diamond block re-cut, be "slightly more unique"?

In general terms, each of the imperforate 3-cent plates has its own recutting traits. On plate 4 for example, the top label block was always recut with one line at top, but the upper right diamond block was rarely recut. The most recent image in this thread is a great example.

On plate 2L, on the other hand, both of these areas were always recut.

The "3-cent plates" page on the USPCS site summarizes the general characteristics of each plate really well.

Yes, it's an excellent reference. My problem is in recognizing the definitions on a stamp.
As an example the stamp below, to me, has faint lines. I've looked through the 5L plate photos twice. Cannot find a match. The guide dot and the engravers slip should make it easy...

Go to Plate 2 or 3. The inner lines may look faint but they are equal in weight to the outside lines. Look on Plate 3 first and then Plate 2L.

Holy moly, It's a good thing I can laugh at myself. Sure enough plate 3. AND... it's from a 'Row Of Three' row. It's 48L3.

Even better, I have identified 58-98L3, in my collection. I've completed the 9th vertical row. Four more to go now for the 8th.

On the subject at hand though, is this an example of 'thin lines' as apposed to 'faint lines'?

It is a case plate wear rather than thin or faint lines.

Oh well, why not add another variable to the equations. Thick or thin, heavy or faint and now spacetime err plate wear...

You can throw another variable into the mix; over-inking and under-inking. My post linked below shows under-inking and somewhat normal inking on the same stamp:

https://goscf.com/t/46147&whichpage=2#393910

Perhaps over-wiped and under-wiped also?

I should have taken up Euclidean Geometry instead.