Help With Plating #11

Picked up a new batch of 3 cent Washingtons yesterday--plating away.

So I believe this particular stamp is from the top row of Plate 6 but unsure of the position. Definitely top row, 3 dots, relief C. I have compared it to the copies I have access to with no luck. I would like someone who has more images or stamps to check these positions for me--5, 6, and 9L6, as well as 5 and 9R6. Or perhaps I am mistaken, and it's from another plate altogether.



I had to crop off the wide top margin to post this pic. BTW, How are my images looking--clear enough? I could probably use some off thread assistance with the settings on my Epson V370.

Achilles, on my monitor I don't see the 'Gash' of the C relief.

Dr. Chase does mention the entire top row of plate 6 not having a recut top frame line. I don't find mention of extra guide dots specifically.

I'm sure this is an easy plating for those with experience.

Nice stamp, Achilles!

I can confirm 5R6. The Chase plating print clearly shows a gash on 5R6. Yours is just very faint.

Yeah that gash is barely visible. Here's an excerpt from the Chase book, Page 123 about the dots.

It's the missing inner frame lines, extra dots, and faint top line that's got me keyed in on Plate 6. I know someone out there has copies of the Chase Plates and will shoot me a confirmation...or disprove my initial findings.

After further reading I'm going to narrow my educated guess to positions 5L6, 6L6, or 9R6.

Oh! CC, I was typing the above reply to Stampcrow while you were posting.

Thanks for locking that in. I suppose that minute dot near the top and on the left outer frame line doesn't count.

Thanks again. I'm adding it to the album.

I wish there was a way to add some of our images to those incomplete plates on the Ruecker site--and fill the holes. Or is there and I just don't know about it?

Are there other online references with pics? I was also wondering if the Smithsonian is planning to digitize and make publicly available the Chase reconstruction photos. I know they are constantly digitizing collections.

Achilles, your scan looks pretty good. I have an Epson scanner, and can go over recommended scanner settings later this evening.

Mine does not. I don't have the revised edition.

It doesn't appear that Steven (Ruecker) has updated the site in over 10 years. If there is interest, I can setup a site which moves the plating effort forward (and allows frequent updating of images). Does anyone know Steven Ruecker? If so, do you know if he is planning on any updates? If not, does anyone know if he might allow us to use his images to start a new site?
Don

Don, I brought this up in this forum also. A member here thought Steven Ruecker was on this forum. If so, he did not make himself known. I also sent an email to the address listed on the Steven Ruecker site. Again, no response.

I was providing images to Steven Ruecker for his site over 10 years ago, but haven't been in touch with him in at least that long.

I would definitely be interested in supporting a new site to move the plating effort forward. I could provide many high-quality images. It would be good to step the resolution up to 1200 DPI (Steven's are 600 DPI). That may sound big now, but in a short time it won't.

The reason I sent email and inquired about him on this site, was to offer any help I could give in adding to his photos.

Count me in!

Sounds like there is interest. I am currently involved with two other projects for APS, one is nearly wrapped up and the other one has another 50-60 hours of work yet to be done. But I can start to put the foundation for a new 3 Cent 1851-57 plating site.

Since the desire is to use high resolution images, and we have folks who are willing to contribute new images, we do not have to consider using any existing content from the Ruecker site. The new site will have the content in SQL database format. This will position the site to remain viable for decades to come and allow the content to be easily managed by non-technical people. (Authorized folks will be able to add/delete/change any of the content using a browser interface.

Please note that I have expressed concern with APS over the loss of online resources like these. The APS library (APRL) has done a great job on archiving hard copy philatelic resources. (I have been a member of Tara Murray's Google Philatelic Librarians Group for the last few years.) APS and other libraries have begun digitizing man hard copy public domain resources but not as much work has been done for the long term archiving of online resources like web sites. Unfortunately many online resources such as the Ruecker site and the 3cent1861.com site have either fallen dark or simply gone away. Thousands of hours of work went into these kinds of sites, they represent as much work as a book an deserve to be preserved over the decades.

Before anyone brings up the 'WayBack Machine' site please understand that this older effort is slowly becoming obsolete. Take, for example, the 3cent1861.com site. The WayBack archive of this site is virtually worthless, it's value was mostly images and for whatever reason (copyright, storage logistics, or IAWM's claim that the problem is with the some sites using robots.txt file to exclude graphics) they never captured the biggest value of the 3cent1861.com site. Additionally, Wayback has also missed capturing other content such as the code for the Srail tool. In fact the WayBack site cannot capture many other valuable content when web technologies such as PHP, javascript, Flash, and/or any kind of database. Frankly the WayBack site often makes 'The 10 Worse Web Sites' list.

So I have opened a discussion with Roger Brody (APRL President) about developing a file submission and archiving specification which would standardize the methodology for the long term storage of disparate online resources. Frankly I was driven to this when recent health issues caused me to spend time thinking about our mortality. Stamp Smarter has a many, many thousands of man-hours invested in it and although it is current self sustaining (via donations) I was concerned about it 'going dark' if something happened to me. While I originally develop the site to be easily taken over by someone else, I ended up republishing other online resources (like the 1847usa site) which were not done with an eye towards other's inheriting the content. A site like the 1847usa site was 500+ files that was not originally developed using modern web technologies such as style sheets and 'includes'. So making a single design change often requires that someone touches every one of the files. (It took me over 150 hours to just get it republished and working properly.)

So unlike most online resources, anyone making contributions should feel more comfortable that their work will survive into the future. My goal is to get web site content archived with the APRL and SQL database is one of the best formats for this purpose. So if folks want to help on a new 3 Cent 1851-57 plating site, please be assured that our efforts will not end up going to waste. While I get the foundation in place over the next few weeks, anyone interested in helping can begin to organized their images and content contributions. If anyone has any ideas for the site, please post them here of contact me directly and we will get this project rolling.
Don

This statement jumped out at me. Well said Don.

I lack the skills and experience to be trusted with actual plating information. I do have over a thousand imperferate three cent stamps. It's possible I'll have plate position images to offer that others here don't.

Stampcrow, you almost certainly have many positions that others don't. We can plate some of them with high-resolution scans but, as we discussed, some corrections are needed to improve your scanner resolution.

Quick question (I am far from any kind of expert on plating #11)...

1. Are the 26 plates listed on the Ruecker site a complete list?
2. Are all the known positions on the Ruecker site a complete list?
3. Does anyone expect that we will need to display more than one image per plate position?
Thanks,
Don