This item is a good illustration of why the Scott catalog alone is insufficient to ensure proper identification of the one-cent 1851-57 types. The top frame line here looks recut because it is dark and sharp, as the catalog shows. But it cannot be recut, and here's the reasoning process: The configuration of the top ornaments shows that this stamp is from Relief T, which was used to impress the images for the top rows on Plates 1E, 1L, 2 and 3. Plate 1L is the only plate that produced the recut Type IV stamps (Scott #9 imperforate, Scott #23 perforated), but the top row stamps on Plate 1L were recut at bottom only. Therefore the top frame line on the stamp illustrated here cannot be recut. And since it seems too sharp and dark to be an unrecut frame line from Plate 1E or 1L, this is most likely from Plate 2 or 3. And since Plate 3 did not produce perforated stamps, it must be from the top row of Plate 2 (Type II, Scott #20). In fact, this stamp can be plated as 5R2 (see attached image from the Doporto Plating Archive; the cancel on our stamp camouflages but does not completely obscure the plating mark above the P of POSTAGE as well as the guide dot at upper right). The key to plating these stamps is to know the reliefs.
Posted 10/01/2016 12:06 pm
