World Classic Doppelgängers

I'll guess Left is the Doppler?

Why is the left one the "evil twin"?

I'll leave out my poor explanations, just a guess, After all it is a 50/50.

I'll give you a hint: on the backside, one exhibits the "Crown & CC" watermark, and the other the "Crown & CA"(the doppelgänger). In this instance, what makes that one the "dud" is its lower monetary value, hence perhaps many more were printed and used, than the other. Both are lovely, yes, from the front.

Isn't that the way, when shopping for a stamp. The vast majority of sellers show only the front of a stamp. Then, sometimes, once it arrives, you turn the stamp over, and horrors of horrors: thins, repaired tears, hardened/petrified gum, et al.

But the backs of these two are pretty, now, and sound. Incidentally, all of the stamps I illustrate are sound, unless noted otherwise.

Needless to say, from what I know about them, which is which is as plain as the nose on my face. What I mean is, I don't have to re-check, ever again. I can tell which one is older, somewhat more costly, then perhaps scarcer as a result, and from their fronts.

The two stamps have been ordered correctly all along, according to date, but the colours were reversed within the written description. The one of 1876, at left, is magenta; and the doppelgänger, at right, deep mauve, 1885.

1929, United States, 2¢ carmine-rose...

...safe light, at night, at last; no more fires, as with candles.

Looks like flat plate on left and rotary press on right? At least the perforations on the sides seem coarser on the left...

Which imprinted design is "taller", vertically?

rotary would always be larger.

Hmm...

I don't know what to think.

To clarify ... Meaning an image size "larger" in the direction of the curvature (stretching) of the plate as it is bent to form a cylinder (or more typically, a half cylinder, then paired).

Curiosity got the best of me and I had to dig out my album page. As it turns out, the rotary coil (Scott 656), being a horizontal coil, is slightly WIDER than the flat plate stamp. The rotary sheet stamp (Scott 655) was made on plates curved along the other axis, and thus is slightly TALLER than the flat plate stamp (Scott 654). Being a small size difference in the image, I would lean toward using a perforation gauge.

They differ in value by a nickel, both essentially equal and certainly look-a-likes, but neither really being the evil twin.

But one is, most definitely, albeit not quite as "evil" as some others, but "evil" nonetheless.

No more light by candles, once cherished...

...nor a raging fire caused simply by the upsetting of a single lantern...

Neither stamp is a coil...


I have to wonder if that yellowing within the rotary's vertically-stretched design was caused by a chemical used during the printing process, or by its own gum. That rotary, #655, has a few things going against it to make it the "evil" twin. The gum is wonky, the design is stretched, distorted, and again, chemical-burn possibly, to where it caused the gum itself to yellow even. The lattermost is just a suspicion is all.

I understood that fully. You may ave missed my point that rotary is not necessarily "taller" depending on how the plate is curved.



No clue where you are getting this idea.

I guess I have a problem relegating either printing method to a lesser position than the other. The are both equally collectible.

And it's much easier to use the perforations as the clue to differentiate them. The flat plate is perf 11, the rotary perf 11x10½.