Trying To Make Sense Of Wf Coil Waste Issues

From reading through Max Johl's "United States Postage Stamps 1902-1935", I see that the source of WF coil waste stamps are from "stock of 170 subject sidewise coil sheets on hand at the Bureau which had been laid aside for mutilation because they could not be made into coils on account of some defect ...". These were initially printed/one way perforated in large rolls (see pic below), being 10 stamps wide but continuous longways (for endwise coils). Two rotary plates were used, each being 10 row x 17 columns, curved, then connected together on the "drum". There would be two lines showing where the plates were connected on the drum. So I'm assuming that a huge roll, having been deemed "defective" for making regular coils, would be hand cut at every 17th row creating sheets 17 rows by 10 columns with only vertical perforations (perf 10). To make these useable, these were then run through a perf 11 perforator then shipped out to PO's.

For some reason, I had always thought that the coil waste came from unusable "end sections" of the rolls - not from hand cut entire "defective" rolls which seems like an ENORMOUS job. Any expects out there that could shed some light on this? Also, what specific criteria would the BEP use to determine "defective" and unable to finish the process of making coils from that particular roll?

I like Scott's explanation best because of its relative clarity:




When these "short lengths of paper at the end of the coil" were reclaimed, they might have already been perforated as perf 10 coils, or not perforated at all. It was a simple matter to add perforations in order to make them usable as sheet stamps.

A lot has been written on these since Johl. Check out the library catalog at APS/APRL. "Coil waste" gets over a dozen hits to articles written in the past 30 years.

Thanks for the tip on the APS Library. I've made a request for a few articles to be sent to me.

One thing I have a hard time getting my head around is the concept that these stamps come from exclusively from "short lengths of paper at the end of the coil run". Griffith in his "United States Stamps 1922-26" says in his description of US #579 that there were 105,400 sheets of 170 of these (some of these were used to make #595 also). 105,400 sheets are a lot of "end of roll" pieces. That's why I thought perhaps the original Johl description may have some validity (perhaps an entire roll may be a source too). On the other hand, maybe that many short pieces are not out of the question either.

You might find these exhibit by Gregory Shoults to be of some interest.

https://www.rfrajola.com/Shoults1/Shoults1.pdf

https://www.rfrajola.com/PDR2020/GS1/GS1.pdf

https://www.rfrajola.com/PDR2020/GS2/GS2.pdf

https://www.rfrajola.com/PDR2020/GS3/GS3.pdf

I am not sure, but he may well have articles on the subject in the USSS Specialist.

Mike

For coil waste, it is any part of the web-fed rotary press printed stamp paper that was cut off from the web roll to make a kind of sheet which was fed into a sheet-fed rotary wheel perforator.

Wallace Cleland wrote an 8 part series on the Coil Waste Issues which appeared in the United States Specialist, numbers 667 (Sept 1985) through 679 (Sept. 1986). One should read the whole series to get a full picture because in later installments, Cleland would correct earlier statements on the basis of information and examples coming in to him from readers.

He returned to the subject in no. 798 (Aug 1996) with an update on the horizontally imperf coil waste versions of 538a and 540a which he argued should have been recognized by Scott as major varieties and numbered 538A and 540A because they were more or less purposeful creations by the BEP.

And then again in no. 991 (Sept 2012) with a short note about the discovery of a third plate block from the coil waste production of the flat plate #383. The 1st of his original 8 part series goes into more depth on this anomaly and the flat plate 374 and why he would consider some of these to also qualify as coil waste.

Thanks for these great references. Just starting to dig into them and they are really opening my eyes so far.

One thing I'll be looking out for is how the roll, after printing, was initially perforated 10 perpendicular to the roll's long direction. I'm trying to imagine a machine that would do this.