Identifying Argentina 889 (Or Is It 889A?)

I've measured the perfs for this stamp and they are 13.5 square, so I'm pretty sure the choice is between these two options, not the several other iterations of the image.

However, I'm stuck on identifying the watermark as 90 or 315 (47.50 vs .20 value!). I've seen some clear examples of watermark 90 before but not 315 as of yet. However, the watermark I see doesn't really look like either. At best it looks like a mess of little lines with maybe some little circle centers that I can only really see well in the white areas of the stamp. It is more reminiscent of watermark 88, though not clearly like that one either. I'm looking at it through strong light, not using watermark fluid.

I did notice that the image for watermark 90 mentions that "several types of this watermark" exist; could this be one or am I misunderstanding what the catalog means?

This watermark business is annoyingly frustrating!

Clark

Hello Clark....

....and welcome to the club.


I think the next step is get some watermark fliud.......it should answer your questions. And your right, some watermarks can be difficult to identify. Here's one source I've used often.

http://www.subwaystamp.com/

I'm confused. My guess is you have WM #90 but I don't know where you're getting the notion of this WM 315. 'Strong' light is not agood instrumentalty for watermark revelation. Using a window pane with good natural light by holding the stamp directly on the glass pane is better. Sometimes just using a water soak is quite good ('watermark' surprise...surprise) but nothing beats watermark detector fluid or "Ronsonol" (with requisite care, of course).

I need to be more careful! I found that I made a couple of mistakes in my post. First is watermark '315'; I meant 365. Second mistake is not noticing 'Unwmk.' just above Argentina 889.

Since I am seeing a watermark of some kind, this means that the possibilities for an A278 image, 13.5 square perf stamp are: 889a with WM 90 or 989 with WM 365. Hope I got it right this time! :P

What I meant by strong light is that I've been looking at the stamp by holding it up to the window and skylight. Glad I was on the right track!

I thought I read somewhere that watermark fluid is reusable. Is this the case and if so, is there a limit to how much it can be used? The non-toxic nature of the Clarity WM fluid makes it the right kind for me! I assume it's safe for all stamps?

Thanks for your replies, you two. I'll post an update once I get some WM fluid.

Clark

The varieties for watermark 90 are minor, and they basically look like what is shown in Scott. The variations relate to the angles of the rays and some minor dimension differences.

If you are interested, I can give you some VERY DETAILED links for watermark/paper/printing. But be prepared for a pretty massive download, and also be prepared to be deluged with all sorts of printing variations and flyspeck philately. It's not organized according to Scott, so you will have do to quite a lot of hunting around, but the info will be in there. The guy doing this ongoing research is quite amazing. Meanwhile, most of my Argentina is sitting a dozens of glassines.

k

This reminds me of my first experience (only a couple of months ago!) of identifying Argentinian definitives from the '30s and '40s. I ran across an online text by Antonio Rubiera, titled, "The 1935-1951 Argentina Definitives", that detailed different papers among other things. Is this the source you are referring to? I remember being thoroughly confused having had no experience in identifying paper types, watermarks, etc. I still think full identification of all the varieties of stamps like these would be difficult without some kind of class or hands-on session with all the different varieties available to examine!

Clark

Yes, he is one of them. His studies are ongoing, and he has now developed a notation system. You can visit the StampWants Forum, he has an ongoing thread documenting his current studies. He also has documentation for past work that can be downloaded. Those links are also buried in that thread. That guy is quite amazing; a true philatelist in every sense of the word!

k

My watermark fluid arrived in the mail today, so I had to see what the WM on this stamps was! After four attempts and changing the lighting around, I was able to see what looked like four circles with lines pointing away from them like spokes. So it is WM 90, and the stamp is #889a. Yeah, I win this time!

Interestingly, though, the watermark fluid did not make the watermark plainly visible; it was still hard to make out, especially under the design (using Clarity WM fluid on a black tray). Any tips for using watermark identification so I don't have to use so much fluid resoaking the stamp next time?

On another note, watermark identification isn't so bad if you find something more valuable and relatively less common sometimes! :)

Clark