Plating A SC #25A And Hitting A Brick Wall

This is a stamp recently acquired on a cover and I'm trying to plate it - if possible.
Per the footnotes under the Scott 25A listing these perforated stamps were made using the same plates the imperfs were - Plates 2L, 3 and 5L. I've looked at virtually all of the stamps photos available at the various 3c plating web sites and can't come close to this one. Any hints? (The odd angles of the tops of the two lower diamond blocks should be a dead give away...but...)

Try 22R3.

To plate this, first determine the plate. As you say, it must be 2L, 3 or 5L. Note that the inner line recuts are heavy, so start with 3. It might be 2L, but almost certainly not 5L.

Next, it is clearly a B relief, which eliminates about half of the possibilities. The guide dot, if any, is cut off, so we don't have that to go on.

It appears to have one line recut in the ULT, but it is kind of fuzzy, so maybe 2 lines.

It has inner lines, so note their upward and downward extent. Nothing unusual there, but the upward extent of the RIL varies greatly between stamps, so note that this one goes up to the bottom of the upper right triangle.

The side lines don't have excentic features, but the top frame line drops distinctively from right to left: a smoothe arc like a fastball thrown from right to left (Yay Cubs!).

So, I started looking at 1 line recut B relief plate 3 stamps, looking first at the upper extent of the RIL, then the top frame line and then the side lines, getting 7 candidates from plate 3. Comparing these candidates I was able to eliminate all but 22R3, which looks like a match.

I checked plate 2L and was able to eliminate the few candidates there as well. 5L is, in theory, a possibility and only has a few positions with 1 line recut in the ULT, so I checked them too. I'm convinced this is 22R3.

ttreen - Thank you!

22R3 is a very good match. Where I went astray was in trying to match the lower right corner attributes - both the apparent aggressive recutting of the far right of the lower label block above the 'S' in CENTS (almost flattening the top of the 'S') and the shape of the top of the lower right diamond block on my scan. A closer shot shown below makes the block look a bit more normal.




I enjoyed your sharing your plating thought process. I am still relatively new at this. I too ruled out Plate 5 initially due to the recutting of the inner frame lines. I also limited my review to relief B candidates but not until after wasting considerable time not thinking to do so...sigh. The upper left triangle had me guessing single line recut or none at all and so I never even considered a double line recut. Even with this closer picture I can't tell.




Thanks once again...and on to my next stamp!
"Way to go Cubbies" - great series!

Good job ttreen! This thread epitomizes the value of this community.
Don

I don't think that is a recut above the S. The diagram in Chase shows the top of the bottom label never recut, and Chase is just about always right. There is a bit of missing ink forming a "corner" at the top left of the S.

It is always a pleasure to find one of these perforated inner line stamps. Before the catalog renumbering it felt like finding secret treasure.