Points Up Point Down Help?

I just need the answer to one dumb question I should already know the answer to.

When a grill is referenced as ",points up", when looking at the back of the stamp, are the points pointing up at you?

In other words when they say "points up" or "points down" are they looking at the front or back of the stamp?


-IBFS

LOL I'm not touching this one IBFS.

I think the reference is the front of the stamp: meaning "points up" is coming UP through the front of the stamp and "points down" is going DOWN related to the front of the stamp (moving away from the front).

Key words here are "I think". There are many, many smarter grill people out there.

Apparently not, lukusw. Evidently no one here knows more than you do, so you must be right. Makes sense anyway.


-IBFS

You should be looking at the FRONT of the stamp

lukusw....you are CORRECT!

I think this stamp is only "points up" grill U.S. stamp I will ever own and touch in my physical hands. I have a fake C grill (#83) -- see my recent post.

Aren't the rest of A and B grills in museums?

Scott #79 is damn ugly, but strangely fascinating.

If any of you guys have some A grills, please show them.

Here's a copy of my A grill:


I have a C grill, but would need to scan it. Has a rounded corner, so not a great copy. Much tougher stamp than the D grill, even though the Scott CV is similar. You can actually find a D grill out there-- I've found 3 of them, one unused, just by looking at every E grill that is a dull rose color with raggedy perfs (D grills are commonly found with raggedy perfs), and count the columns....if you find one with 15, it's a D grill.

The A grill isn't a bad copy at all. If you find one with all perfs intact, the value is a multiple of the Scott CV. Normal is missing some perfs....

Ray

Ray,

D grill is points down?

Looks like Siegel got themselves into problem last year with an A grill stamp #79.

They sold beautiful one for like 5 grand with PF cert, then buyer must have submitted for current cert with PSE and they read as reperforated. Same stamp realized only about 1000$ few months later.
Someone felt the pain

Just thought I would share . Buyer beware!

Only A, B, C are points up.
All others, incl. D are points down.

Of course, about the time you think you have it all sorted out, along comes a ringer. Scott lists the C-grill as both normal (points up) and inverted (points down). Here again from the Rich Drews collection are examples of both. The one on the right is normal.

Ray.mac, here's my A grill...









.

A closer look from a few pieces in my reference collection:

#83 C-grill points up and points down, both sides:



Because of the way scanner lighting works, and because of the comparatively weak grill impression on this example, it is difficult to see the points down grill on the obverse image. This is a common problem for scans of points-down grills. Angled lighting is preferable.

On the reverses the grills are clearly defined, but looking at the points directly does not make it clear that one is points up and the other is points down. Again, angled lighting would help. But there is a distinguishing feature that does show in this scan. It is not the points themselves which make the difference clear, but rather the ridges between the points.

Here is a closer look at the patterns on the reverses.



The grill on the right is points-down, and it shows prominent ridging around and between the points. The points-up grill on the left does not show that kind of ridge pattern on the stamp's reverse side, but it does on the obverse.

Finally, as the OP requested, here is another example of the all-over type-A grill from my reference collection.




Not much to look at, but it does give a clear indication of the points-up grill characteristics.

Hey Essay, there are two threads going on out there about grills right now and I mentioned this exact variety in the other one.

For the purposes of most of the folks that are in this forum and asking questions about grills, C grills are points up....

Boy I would sure love to run some questions past Rich Drews someday...thanks for the post, Ray

And Mr. Drews' examples are definitely dull rose..

Ray, I did not alter the images from the page in the Drews collection. The examples I show from my reference collection look like his for color, but I have amped up the contrast in order to allow the point shapes to be more easily seen. Nonetheless, your point about stamp shade is well taken.