Show Your US 1851-57 Imperforate Stamps

I would urge using an abundance caution over hope when it comes to protecting your stamps and covers. I am actually going to try using the Hagner pages because I never have and they sound pretty good. I have gone to housing my covers in glassine envelopes but they do indeed make looking at them difficult!

A few more things...

Sometimes the colors of stamps have already changed quite a bit. Not seeing more change is not necessarily proof that you are using a good product.

When you have a nice cover with a really nice Plate 5L stamp and a striking DT printed in a lovely pale 1857 claret and you see the stamp turn almost black, you will come around to my way of thinking.

I think this recent discussion has a great deal of value for the members and even though the stamp I am showing here is not one that should be here, I believe it is a good example of how a stamp might change due to all of the conditions it has experienced in its' lifetime. I believe this is a sulphated stamp and I would not try to change it,
The first reason is that I would likely make it worse than it is should I attempt to do something. Second I actually like the appearance of this the way it is. My choice, perrogative if you will. The history on this stamp is that it has been in a Scott album since the 1950's which has wax paper interleaves as my grandfather mounted it. Not sure what a conservator might do to improve the stamps condition, if they had a chance to do so.

Here is a 3c I think I have plated correctly. I started looking at Plate 3, then went to Plate 2L and finally ended up on 1L. Position looks to be 88R1L. Assuming I'm correct on the position, is there anything on this stamp that should have clued me into 1L to start. I was seeing a single line recut in the URDB and not thinking it was gouged.

- B Relief
- Guide dot located just left of the bottom left corner of LRDB
- 2 inner lines
- The 3 visible corners do not have frame lines extending past each other.
- Triangles are not recut.
- Top label block is thicker over "AGE". Guessing this is the gouging out of the TLB.
- Chase identified a diagonal line in the thicker left portion of the "U". It appears very faint in my example but I believe it is there.
- Finally, the left frame line of lower stamp extends above the top frame line. This matches up with position 98R1L.

Nice stamp, Harper.

Although I didn't run the stamp through the full plating process, I took a quick look, and 88R1L looks like a match to me. I can see the diagonal line in the U that you referenced, and its position matches the reference copies I looked at.

I think you identified all the essential plate 1L general identifiers. Your stamp doesn't indicate significant plate wear, so the top label block gouging doesn't jump out like it would on a worn-plate printing.

The low-quality ink resulted in a less-than ideal impression.

I have typically inserted my stamps into clear Hawid mounts, and then I insert the Hawid mount into either a Lighthouse stockbook or a Vario page.

I appreciate this discussion, and I, too, am going to explore Hagner pages as a result.

I haven't had any issues, but my material is more geared to the blue 1c stamp vs the more color-problematic red 3c stamp.

When I had a notable color study of the 3c stamp, I kept it hinge mounted on acid-free cards from Amonette. The cards were stacked on top of each other, so no plastics were touching the face of the stamps.

Greetings all. Here's one I found to be an interesting specimen to plate. I'm thinking its 66L5E or 66L5L although i'm not seeing the signs of re-entry so I'm leaning towards the early state. Curious what you all think.



-Frame lines are clear.
-Two inner lines
-B Relief
-Triangles are not recut
-No LR guide dot. Although initially I thought there might be one in the corner where the outer frame lines meet. This led me down a fruitless path where I found no good match.

I had trouble narrowing it down to any one plate. This one came in a group of 11/11A's I purchased off eBay so I figured it must be 1L, 2L, 3 or 5L. After I abandoned trying to find a match with a guide dot, I started focusing on the right frame line. It has a distinctive outward bow around the ponytail and then heads back towards the design as it approaches the top. It also extends up beyond the URT. This ultimately led me to 66L5L. I brought up the SSD (amazing resource by the way) and Lund examples for comparison and noticed all these examples had distinctive doubling of the frame lines at various points. I am guessing this doubling is from re-entry of the reliefs. My specimen is not showing this doubling in the frame lines which led me to look at 66L5E. I've added an image below showing examples from early and late states along with my stamp. I think it matches best with 66L5E.

Hi Harper1249 --

I agree that your stamp is 66L5E.

You correctly noted that one of the differences between 66L5E and 66L5L is the doubling of the LFL at a level opposite the top of the LLR on the Late state -- but no doubling on Early.

Another difference between 66L5E and 66L5L is that on 66L5L there is a small engravers slip in the RFL at a level opposite the bottom of the queue -- but no slip on Early.

Despite your stamp having its TFL cut off, it shows the TFL of the adjoining 76L5E below -- and this is a solid match which further confirms.

Always nice to pick up an "orange brown" in a grouping offered as "dull reds" .

Regards // ioagoa

Thanks for the confirmation ioagoa. Am I right in saying that the doubling of frame lines is the result of the rocking of the relief when it was re-entered? Or was it the engraver just not recutting the frame line over the faint frame line left by the relief?

Hi Harper1249 --




According to Chase, when plate 5E was reworked into plate 5L it was re-entered -- AND -- there was also some touch-up by hand / light recuttting.

Against that backdrop -- and very generally speaking, doubling of the FL's on 5L could be due to either the re-entry process -- OR -- recutting by the engraver with a hand tool -- and the answer could be different for each position on the plate.

Regarding differences in states, one important aspect to consider is what a reentry does to existing recut lines. On 5E, for instance, FL's and inner lines were recut after the designs were initially rocked in from the transfer roll. If you think of these as various 'V' cuts into the plate (made with a graver), the wider (and deeper) the cut was, the more ink the grooves hold.

These recut grooves are deeper into the plate than the transferred design. As the plate wears, both get weaker, and the recuts tend to stand out more from the normal design.

Now what happens to the recut lines when the transfer roll re-enters the normal design? The recut lines tend to get a little pressed out. Some become quite faint. Additionally the original (weak) FL's are again impressed into the plate, often not quite lining up with those lines recut initially, often resulting in some doubling of the FL's. You really see this on Plates 10 and 11, the 26A stamps, where there was a third entry and no recutting done after the Early state.

In the case of 66L5L -- IMO, the doubling of the LFL that you are seeing at the level opposite the top of the LLR was the result of a bit of touch up with a hand tool by the engraver. I say this because on 66L5E there is a weak spot in the LFL at this point -- and re-entry likely did not satisfactorily restore the strength -- so the engraver cut a short touch-up -- which is what we are seeing. Plus, to me, the doubling in question just doesn't look like a relief line. Still, it can often be very difficult to determine if the exact cause on a re-entered plate is due to re-entry -- or additional recutting after the fact.

On the other hand -- that small engraver's slip that I mentioned in my previous post in the RFL of 66L5L at a level opposite the bottom of the queue (i.e., but no slip on Early) IMO is clearly the result of a recutting slip -- as it is out of alignment with the RFL -- poking out and then back in.

As an aside -- in those cases where the FL's on the Early state of the plate have violent bends -- the doubling of the FL's can really stand out as the originally recut lines are so far outside of the re-entered relief lines that the cause of the doubling is obvious. But, alas, IMO, that is not the case with the LFL doubling on 66L5L versus 66L5E.

If you are getting serious about plating -- and it sounds like you might be -- you should definitely pick up a copy of James Baxter's book "Printing Postage Stamps by Line Engraving" -- and FYI -- the Quarterman reprint is just as good as the original publication and can be had for a third of the price -- around $35 I think -- and, from the perspective of a plater, well worth the cost for the information contained therein.

Regards // ioagoa

Thanks for the insight ioagoa. It is very helpful in better understanding how the plates were made and maintained. I'll work on getting the book, sounds like it would be very useful. Thank you again.

Harper1249

Good morning all. Been looking at this one this morning and I think it is 5L5E. It's on a folded letter postmarked Aug 24th. The letter is dated August 23, 1851. Chase and Lund examples of 5L5E have a similar upper right guide dot and frame lines. SSD doesn't have an example of this position. My example has what I think is a very clear engraving slip just left of the LLT but I'm not seeing it on the Chase and Lund examples. I suspect its there on Chase but the image quality prevents us from seeing it. This area is missing on the Lund example. What do you all think?

Edit: I found an example of 5L5E on Siegel that shows the mark.

Regards, Harper1249

Hi Harper1249 --

Here is another reference copy of 5L5E -- which shows the slip in the LFL that you mentioned.

Too bad the TFL of your stamp is cut off -- as the bends are unusually extreme -- which would normally make this one fairly easy to nail down.

Apologies for the scan quality -- but I cannot rescan to improve as this is not my stamp -- and consequently I do not have the stamp in hand -- (i.e., it is a 1200 dpi reference scan from a fellow plater that I resized so as not to exceed 250kb for SCF). If you want the 1200 dpi scan, please send me a private message via SCF and I will send you the full sized file.

Regards // ioagoa

Stuck between a rock and hard spot with this one. I believe it is 16L5E, but the BFL looks to be recut which could make it 16L5L. However, Chase says that there is a small 1mm splash of color outside the RFL 10mm down from the top on the 16L5L that I'm not seeing.

Unfortunately, the right side of the TFL is missing. It does bow out quite drastically narrowing the candidates, there are slight FL remnants visible.

I did the squish tests both Horizontal and Vertical and given some distortion in stamp paper over the years it looks like a match to me.

Opinions welcome, thanks.

I'm just an entry level apprentice here, but I would agree that it is 16L5E. All examples (Lund, Chase, SSD1 and SSD2) of 16L5L have the dash of color along the right frame line. I'm not seeing anything that resembles it on your stamp. Color also seems to be closer to Orange Brown than Dull Red. But i'm new so take it with a grain of salt.

Harper1249

Hi Moyock13 --

You wrote --




Bottom line up front -- I agree that your stamp is position 16L5E.

Regarding your comment about the BFL looking to have been "recut" -- All 4 FL's were "recut" on all 200 positions on plate 5E -- so recutting alone would not point to plate 5L. Rather -- signs of "re-entry" when plate 5E was reworked into plate 5L would be the differentiation -- and I see no signs of re-entry on your stamp. Plus, anecdotally, based on your scan -- the inking and impression look OB to me.

Also -- as you noted in your original post -- and as Harper pointed out -- the lack of the blur of color in the right margin further confirms your stamp as 16L5E.

Your stamp has an especially nice impression by the way -- thanks for showing it.

Regards // ioagoa