Rare Z Grill Discovered!

1¢ Z Grill #85A Discovered! I bought a $40 lot of US stamps in glassiness tucked inside envelopes. I spent the past several months sorting the stamps at night when I got home from work. I did find some great stamps in the lot but never did I think I would actually find the rarest stamp the world.......






*** Edited by Staff - Post Restored. ***

Don't quit your day job. It is an E grill.

Count the points. Don't try to measure the dimensions.

Of all the dreamers who come here with THE discovery, it's the best one, we should give him a price

Don't even have to count anything. Grill point ridges are vertical, not horizontal, hence no Z grill.

That is correct but it is more important that the OP learn that it is a waste of time to identify grills with a ruler.

Ben, those are not the ridges. The ridges are at the peak of the grill points, which are not literally points at all. They are like a roofline, which runs E-W (horizontally) in the case of Z grills and N-S (vertically) in the case of D, E and F grills (which is what you have here; see below).

It's the ridges Ben.
http://www.jamesdire.net/grill.html

Show us a closer look of the 14mm measurement you made, you probably do it wrong. Make also sure the caliper is reset to 0 betwen each measurement

Just curios, why is the z-grill so rare? I assume fewer z-grills were produced then the others, but why?

The row at the top of the grill is a row of "half-points" about which we have written here before. It is a common characteristic of E-grills to display these.

So in addition to the vertical point direction, add that the point count is 14x16 1/2.

My hunch is that these are all unknown matters to the OP.

Why did the original poster remove all the images and change the thread title. Now it's a complete mess for anyone new looking at the thread.

Below is the paragraph on the production of the Z grill from MICHAEL C. MCCLUNG's Chronicle article THE 1867 - 68 GRILLS: WHAT WE KNOW AND WHAT WE DON'T KNOW Link below.

"Late December 1867 or early January 1868: about 3,000 sheets of stamps were impressed with the Z grill. They were mostly 2¢ with several hundred sheets of the 12¢, a couple hundred of the 3¢ and only a few sheets each of the 1¢, 1O¢ and 15¢. This operation could have been completed in a day. Although the Z grill appears to have been superior to its predecessors, it was not put into full production."

http://chronicle.uspcs.org/PDF/Chro...87/18018.pdf

We have had some posters who make a mistake and then want the original post deleted. Instead of waiting for a Mod to help, they jump in and try to delete it themselves and make a mess of it. This is especially true when you start a new thread, other community members spend their time replying, and then you go back and screw up the thread (this thread as an example).

Think carefully before posting and make sure it reads as you intended. Ask yourself how you might feel if your post is incorrect.

Everyone here has made mistakes and a mistaken post can still have educational value for others. If we tried to purge every mistake the forum would be full of holes, broken threads and make little sense to others.

If you feel strongly a post/thread should be removed then please give the Mods a few hours to get it done.
Don

BenFranklin, don't be discouraged. Lord knows I've struggle with ID'ing stamps and many times right here on this forum.
Folks here keep answering my questions and commenting on my threads.

If I may...It's all good.

BenFranklin,

Welcome to the forum!
Don't hesitate to ask new questions or show us more of your stuff, you will get a lot of good advise from a helpful community,