One For South Africa Specialists (Sg 3)

South Africa 1913 1/2d green (SG 3)

This is an odd one:



Note that while the top of the stamp is perforated normally, the bottom seems to have been perforated with a different kind of machine. I've seen this before on some German inflation-era stamps which are somewhat expensive on that account.

This one is also imperf on both sides. I don't think the side perfs have been cut off with scissors - you can see part of one hole and if there were any others we should be able to see at least part of some of them too. But this is the only hole we can see.

In short, an odd stamp!

Check out Scott 17, the coil stamp. You can see if yours perfs 14.

[edit: SG18, also available with an inverted watermark for a significant premium.]

I thought it might have been a coil stamp, but I overlooked that entry in Gibbons. It's SG 18. I actually thought coil stamps didn't appear until after the war.

Nonetheless, it's odd that the top and bottom were perforated with different machines.

Perforated by the one machine,
shows classic case of mutilation by scissors.

It helps to hold a piece of paper up to the screen to cover up the "extra" portion of the bottom perfs. Then they seem to bear the same relationship to the stamp as the top perfs. Scissors or some sort of separating device for a coil are the most likely culprits.

My 2d.