ID Question: Switzerland Tell's Son, 1933

I have a Swiss stamp, William Tell's Son, used with grilled gum from 1933. I've ID'ed this as Scott #156a. However, note the stamp has features of the first engraving (or what Michel calls Type II) from the 1910 issues: "Helvetia" letter are sans-serif and the crossbow loop at top is thin and skewed to the left and farther from the upper white frame line.

Is this normal for this stamp? Should it have the 1910 Type II features or does it normally have Type III (second engraving) features with serifs and symmetrical crossbow loop, thicker and closer to upper frame line? That is, why does it have the Type II features, when others in the same set are Type III?

Here's my #156a (a Type II):



And here's a couple Type III's, which is what I expected:

Welcome to the world of Scott. Scott is very good about being inconsistent.

In all fairness, it is really difficult to arrange definitive sets because the stamps/varieties are often issued over several decades, and the denominations/varieties don't appear in sequential/chronological order.

Then when Scott tries to renumber sets to clean things up a bit, there's always going to be a group of collectors/dealers who gripe.

Scott loses both ways. Can't make everybody happy. Meanwhile, we just have to live with the sometimes confusing listings.

According to the Zumstein catalog the main characteristics of the three types are: Type I has the crossbow constructed wrong ( the string is in front of the shaft ); Type II has the crossbow loop away from the top and Type III has the loop close to the top.

So type 2 means he has a star on his shirt?

Yeah that star does stick out.

For sure, Scott sets are not chronological. But even Michel, which groups sets by year, doesn't mention that this 1933 stamp, which is on buff paper by the way, has the earlier Type II engraving.

The implication from the Scott catalog is all stamps in this "set" after the "second engraving" heading first appears (which is Type III), should be the second engraving, but apparently this one denomination from 1933 is the first engraving.

I was wondering whether this was a mistake in printing this denomination and whether there were Type III versions of this denomination or whether this is just normal for this one.

So until I get some more examples, I'll just assume that both catalogs failed to mention that this one stamp from the later series actually had the first engraving.

Yup. And Type II and III also have the differences I mentioned above, sans-serif vs serif and the thinner skewed loop vs thicker symmetrical loop.