Small Queen 5c Grey Perforation Question

Have this 5c grey small queen mint hinged strip of 3. Recently noticed the large difference in width between the first and second stamps, caused mostly by the 2nd middle vertical perforation line being offset to the right significantly.

I'm not very familiar with perforating tech from that period - question for those more knowledgeable - is this typical of small queen issues? I would expect to see some variation but these seems unusual.

This is absolutely typical and normal. Perforation machinery then was not the near-perfect thing that it is today. Not only do we get the wide range of centering in the same sheet/pane, but jumbo margin examples and stamps cut into on more than one side. I suspect extreme examples of the latter would either not pass inspection or were mostly culled by collectors and dealers long ago.

Someone else might post and tell us what the exact method was for this Small Queen. Canada was already using a hand-fed perforator with the pins on wheels for the 1859 issue (says Winthrop Boggs). So, two passes through did one sheet/pane. But as we see for the later US Washington-Franklins perfed this way, there could be quite some variability in overall stamp size. I again suspect that the wheels could slip on the rod they were mounted on over time and production demands would allow stamps not perfed with even margins all around to pass muster.

Another method that would cause this was a machine that perfed line by line, sometimes in an L pattern. The puncher or paper was advanced for each line of perfs by gearing. Either the perforator or paper could slip.

They are line perforate, hence the irregularity,
The sheet has to be rotated, accuracy depends on the person driving the machine.


In comb perforate, the sheet advances in 1 straight line,
and both horizontal and vertical sides, are punctured in one
action of the die. (3 sides)

In a "Harrow Perf" 4 sides are punctured by the die
seen in multiple stamp souvenir sheets.
All stamps are generally punctured in 1 strike of the die.

That said, your example is pronounced.

Nice stamps, albeit the right hand stamp is hanging on by only 7 teeth

Thank you both, very helpful. If I'm reading the Walsh BNA catalogue correctly (with great sections on perforation written by jogil I believe), then the small queens were line perforated using rotary perforating wheels. Something to educate myself more on for sure.

And yes, the right hand stamp is being assisted to stay as part of the strip by a hinge.