1c 1851 Plate 4 Stamps

Tipzi - I don't understand how your stamp could possibly be identified as a Scott #20. I'm not convinced it is a 87L4 either. There is a small dot to the right of ornament Z1 that is also on Doporto's example of 87L4, but that's all I can see that might point to that position.

I'm not convinced that your stamp isn't a relief "F", and I'd like to see a higher resolution image of the area surrounding the "F" relief plate flaw. Your stamp has a cancel that hides the point where the plate flaw is most obvious, but I see a hint of the flaw to the left. I enlarged that portion of your image to try to illustrate what I'm referring to, but I'm not sure I was very successful.

Hi Tipzi,

Although it is always difficult to be sure with the low dpi scans on this site, your stamp does match 87L4 against reference that I have access to. There is, however, a break in the top line above and to the left of the P in postage which is partially obscured by the cancel. This would make this position a 22 not a 20.

You may send me a 1200 dpi scan if you want me to look into this further.

This is a 1200 dpi scan saved as JPG (using default PhotoShop save options, no other 'optimizations' used) and uploads fine to this forum. It is 997 x 1300 pixels.


The resolution of Tipzi's image is 337 x 426.


This forum supports uploading 1200 dpi if a user is scanning a single stamp. And if folks want even higher resolutions, I have always offered to post them for anyone who asks.
Don

Thanks Stud. Good to know.

Thank you all for your responses. Unfortunately, I have not owned the stamp for 20 years. A subsequent owner sent me an image of a PSE certificate stating it was a #20, asking me if I agreed with that opinion. He no longer owns the stamp. I then looked at the PF website, from which I downloaded this image, and found that the PF also certified it as a # 20.

I wasn't asking for a confirmation on the position or type. I was only wondering if any of the students of the 1857 series knew of any other Type II stamps from position 87L4 or any orher position on Plate 4 other than the top row?

Widglo, the F relief flaw was not apparent on the stamp, which is why I always thought it was an E relief. I'm pretty sure that white line is a scanner artifact.

I bought it about 30 years ago with an APEX cert as a #22. I'm unsure if the Type 1c from relief E was listed in Scott at the time. I thought it was a nice variety and one of the best looking one cent 1857s I had ever seen.

tipzi, the answer to both these questions is no. The stamp you showed does appear to be position 87L4, Type IIIA.

I'm still curious as to how both the PSE and PF could certify this stamp as a #20. This wasn't a clumsy mistake - it seems to have been a careful conviction of the expertizers. I found the PSE cert below which goes so far as to specifically call out what they believe to be an error in Neinken's assignment of 87L4. To me, this is just one more example of the absurdity of "transitional" types.

I've always thought that the E relief itself has no top line and therefore none of the positions entered with an E relief would have one, either. However, since Plate 4 stamps were in production at the advent of perforating, I wonder if this is a case of the last out being the first issued?

Maybe the imperforates show more wear than the perforated, having been drawn from the newest prints at the top of a stack of sheets. Thus, any plate studies from imperforate multiples would be of impressions from a plate worn to where the weak top line was broken, leaving students with the impression that Relief E had an incomplete line. If so, the earliest impressions would have been perforated, perhaps like this copy; and because design is cut into as there's no room for perforations, a complete line has gone undetected until this one.

Just for kicks, since this stamp allegedly has a complete top line and clearly displays bottom details better than most Type 1a positions, shouldn't it be classified a Type 1b rather than Type II? There are no stamps classified as Type II from any transfer relief that produces Type 1 or Type 1 subclasses that I can think of (though I'm not thinking if Plate 12 here).

Edit: I should add that I don't think there is enough here, given the perforations and the cancel interrupting the top line, for this stamp to be the discovery copy. I'm assuming that others have been found that verified such an animal indeed roamed the plains.

Plated as top row 3L4

Actually, Plate 4 E Relief stamps can show a significant portion of the top line. Or almost none. This is the nature of Plate 4. Personally, I see nothing in the photo of 87L4 that indicates the presence of a complete top line, especially between the S and the P. Also, the perforation hole above the O of POSTAGE could be obscuring a break.

Jerry Wagshal once told me that he had an E relief that was complete at top. I do not know anymore than that, and I never saw the stamp.

I will be skeptical until or unless I see one in person - to be sure it isn't a printing anomaly like over-inking which caused it.

Regency stamps promoted one many years ago but I wasn't collecting then and I never saw a good scan.

I really want to get a white whale joke in here but I'll leave it at this.

I've started looking again at a few stamps that I posted earlier and whose exact position was never decided. This is one I posted in June:


txtamp wrote then -

I should have spent more time on txstamp's suggestion, but I thought that there were other possibilities on the same row, and I settled on 67R4. Now I'm sure that txstamp had nailed it (as usual) - it is 66R4. After sharpening the scan, I could easily see the vertical line on right side. It is a lesson for me on the value of using digital enhancement even if I have a high-resolution scan.

Hi Lorry,
Did you receive my emails regarding your Plating PDFs?
Don