US 1919 Sc537 Re-Entry: Left Scroll And Left Flag Fold

Good Evening,

I believe I have found a re-entry on this US 1919 Scott Catalog 537 stamp. See the left scroll above the 3 and the bend in the left flag fold. Scott does not list a value for a re-entry / double impression. Just looking for opinions in regards to this stamp. Please stay on topic for the good of the community.

Thank you!

STAMP - FULL


STAMP - FLAG RE-ENTRY


STAMP - SCROLL RE-ENTRY

The Scott catalog is a very poor source of reference for collecting and identifying minor plate varieties such as double transfers and the like, as well as their pricing. Scott lists only the most spectacular and noteworthy. Also, a dash "--" for pricing does NOT automatically mean rare, only the lack of pricing data. And rare does not automatically mean valuable. Value takes demand. Minor double transfers have very modest demand.

The go-to reference is Loran C. French's "Encyclopedia of Plate Varieties on U.S. Bureau-Printed Postage Stamps", which lists countess thousands of non-Scott listed plate varieties. Your post suggests you are not familiar with this work.

That said, French lists 3 double transfer varieties of approximately the same degree of minor added lines as yours, but none matching yours. (Scott does not specify which of the three DT varieties they give a value of "--" to). So yes, it appears you may have found a 4th. There are probably others yet undiscovered.

7 plates of 400 were used for printing this issue. Assuming equal use (which I know is not true), any particular position would be 1 in 2800. Printing was 99,585,200 meaning there might have been as many just over 35,500 copies of this double transfer. Thus not impossible to search for and find a confirming example (and would not take too long to examine that many positions on the proof sheets held by the Smithsonian).

Except for a handful of classics and a couple of 20th century plate varieties, nearly all DT's etc. get no respect from the catalog.

That's fantastic news. I will pick up a copy asap. I have others I have never posted - maybe they are unique as well. Goes to show - undiscovered rarities are still out there waiting to be found.

Thank you so much for the ultimate reply!!! Fantastic job. BEST ANSWER award for sure :) 5xStars.

Encyclopedia of Plate Varieties on U.S. Bureau-Printed Postage Stamps"

Alas, this book is out of print, and not always easy to find. At least without spending serious money.

Don't get over-excited. French's book was published in 1979.
For plate varieties, you really don't want "unique", but rather to have a confirming copy or two which will prove a repeating plate variety instead of a printing freak/oddity.
To repeat, rare does not mean valuable. It takes demand (often a result of some obvious eye appeal), which these just don't have.
These are almost always worth less than the cost of expertising.

Tell that to the dealers who often ask big bucks when they find one. And for sure there are those of us who collect them seriously.

Once a confirming copy or two are found which rules out inking varieties, the shown item may attract an extra dollar or two on top of the normal price from and interested collector. That will likely be a long, long sell.

The vast majority of these and I mean more than 90% have little to no increase in value over the basic stamp and no collector interest. That is just how it is in US philately, not so in other areas of the world with their own stamps.

French was published in 1976 but reports of additional plate varieties were still take and published in The U.S. Specialist. Those reports would need to be reviewed as well as discussed with a specialist in US Sc. #537.




Now for the good of the community I will address what your wrote:

What you show is in no way a double impression. As to a re-entry that is extremely unlikely give the very small areas involved. Once you find French's book learn the definitional meanings of the terms of art associated with flyspecking plate varieties.

No matter who we are the three SCF commenters on this thread are far from being an authoritative review of a potential PV's existence or calling it a new find. Again, you need to rule out inking issues and this 537 has know inking issues, light, heavy, wiping caused, and of course a number of color varieties each with a Scott entry.

Lastly unless there is published verification of a plate variety two example which prove the variety need to be sold together as once separated they are not substantiated plate varieties without published verification.

Oh, I see Martha dropped a grand.

[Edited for this note: This is on topic since she appears in your first post here and I said I would not post again in the main Martha thread.]

Reientries:
https://re-entries.com/

I certainly hope people continue to think this way........

And now you can make an offer. Tempting….

Back to the topic, French only has a limited section on the 1919 Victory Issue, shown below. You can see the three DT (Double Transfer) known varieties (at the time).

Nomenclature is not universal and that is true in philately.

Terms of art vary by country collected. You are showing a US Stamp here (and in you many other threads) you should stick to the terms of art used in this country. Once you receive your French's the terms of art for here will be will defined before moving to the actual listings.

Similarly in the USA the description of these items you chose to show are ODDITIES from the three US terms of art categories of Errors, Freaks and Oddities. In other countries, other terms are used, including error for any little thing that is different from what is supposed to be intended.

As you learn more about philately hopefully you will learn to better filter and understand what you read on the world wide web as it applies to US philately.

The EFO Collector's Club may be of interest to you. It has a good on line presence.

Here is another on topic point, learning:

1) Unconscious Incompetence
2) Conscious Incompetence
3) Conscious Competence
4) Unconscious Competence
5) Fifth stage (conscious competence of unconscious competence)

In today's age, a quick Google Search (or other search engine) places most folks squarely into category one.

I just like that site, it's inspiring - especially the "misplaced entries". Those are something spectacular. That site trained me on how to look and find re-entries. It's an award winning site and a collection of collections. I personally love all of it. Who knows what backlog of re-entries he has yet to post!

"Re-entry" is really just a general term, not all double transfers are caused by re-entries as such. Some are cause during the initial entry when the transfer roll slips, or twists.