Washington 1 Cent Green, 12.5 Perforation

Good day honorable colleagues!

I found among my stamps a one I'm not sure how to classify. This is Washington green 1 cent with 12.5 gauge, perforated only vertically. I know about only one Scott #536 with this perforation, and it is said that it was the only one produced because of a failed experiment with this perforation.#8232;
The thing is that Scott #536 is unwatermarked and offset printed. Mine is a flat plate with a single line USPS watermark. I checked it several times with a gauge ruler, the stamp with 12p the same issue and I can clearly see the letter 'U' going upside down. I took pictures of that process :)

Could you guys help me with some info because I don't have a recent catalog and mine 2008 doesn't show any finds besides offset printings.

Thank you!

Looks like someone scissored the top and bottom to make it look like it is something different! I can still see the remnants of the perforations


Peter

You missed the point that it is not offset, and I disagree about scissored perforation, I looked on a microscope...

Besides, scissored (or not) is not the question. The question is what the freak is a flat plate instead of offset printing with 12.5 perforation.

Agree. When identifying stamps, always look for the most likely explanation first. If this is 12.5 perf (which it appears to be), then the Stamp Smarter W/F ID Tool only points to Scott 536, which is a perf 12.5 all around. The very rough edges on the top and bottom very much point to a scissor cut, or perhaps a paper tear using a straight edge ruler.

The right and left perforations also look very wonky to me. I guess there is a chance that it is an imperf stamp that was played with to make it look perforated. In that case, the only flat plate, unwatermarked option is Scott 481.

I guess to help would be a higher resolution scan of the stamp in question, plus showing the perforation gauge match for that stamp.

Thank you, Partime, and I'm pretty sure it is not scissored, the uploaded picture is a bad quality, that is true. And it is WATERMARKED flat plate so it's not a Scott 481. The perforation looks very wonky because it didn't went well with 12.5, that's why it is called 'failed experiment'...

It clearly is NOT offset-printed, so that rules out 536, as several have noted.

Thinking beyond the standard box ... consider this illustration from page 52 of Steven Belasco's "Guide to United States Vending and Affixing Machine Perforations, 1907-1927":



These double-perfed items are quite scarce. Yours has a decent chance of being one - noting the 2 rough rectangular slots cut into the right side. Hmmm!

That's an idea, John Becker, thanks!