New Zealand Perf (1898)

<Title Corrected to match actual issue.>

Can't quite place this perf, and maybe the EZPerf people can tell for me. The picture is scanned at 1200 dpi. My guess is 14 x 13, but it sure looks variable on the right and left sides. There is a listing in SG catalog for "mixed perfs". I'm still working on the watermark.

One old trick is to split your image, in this case vertically, and rearrange the halves, so that the left perfs and right perfs are immediately adjacent. Then you can tell very precisely if they are the same.

As you can see from Scott or Gibbons, early New Zealand have tons of different perf combinations.

Well, no expert but I split the image and moved things around. The top to bottom comparison is shown below, and looks like it starts OK, but then goes to pot.



Side-by-side comparison is shown here, with the same poor results:



When I shift the perfs up slightly, it improves, but still some problem spots.



Is this normal? I've never tried the splitting technique, but it seems like this stamp is a little odd. Any other opinions?

Well, but this is exactly what you want - it worked perfectly, showing that the stamp has considerable variation. It helps detect reperfing too.

As the postmark appears to be 1898, it should only be the no watermark 1898 issue. Gibbons describes it as 'perf 12 to 16', which seems to fit the bill. That would make it SG 248b - the rosy lake shade, it looks to me.

Well, learned two things in this journey. (1) How to clip and compare perfs. (2) Look at the date, dummy! Thanks to both of you.

Just curious; do the two halves need to match up? In other words, is it possible that the left and right side can 'shift' up or down depending on the design and implementation of the dies?