You Thought Checking Perforations Were Boring

How would you like to run into this stamp as a worldwide collector .

I would love to run into something like this. it would definitely be one item marked off the list of over 2400 perf possibilities for this 16 stamp series.

To go through and check for these, now that takes dedication.

yeah, told my wife I was gonna start buying up any cheap used ones I can find, just to put into a box. when I retire in about 20 years, I will hopefully have enough of them to 1) keep me busy for a long, long time 2) have enough to put a dent into that 2400 list.

Wow, that is interesting floortrader.

Most collectors wouldn't think of checking the perfs on all four sides. I usually check the vertical & horizontal, one of each, and figure I have it. This image of yours tells ne differently.

Now the question is, why so many perfs on one single stamp? The design in the printing process would have to be fed into the perforating machines at different times for each perf (?)

Chimo

Bujutsu

Yes, that's true! The left and right sides would catch my eye, but not necessarily the top and bottom.

Interesting. Never saw anything like this. Is this common on WW stamps?


-IBFS

Love stuff like this. I don't know why even.

Are the 2400 possibilities broken out anywhere in a catalog? (Or do they just note the various perf varieties available on each side?)

Hi

I seem to remember that someone showed me some British?? stamps that have weird perforations. Like the top horizontal perforation having 2 different guages.

Do I remember correctly

Jerry B

ERIC-----Most catalogs use the term ----compound perfs--- ,which leaves the reader hanging.It has to be a special reference book to list that many varieties.
My story goes back to the 1990's when I was at Greg Manning Stamp Auction in New Jersey ,I was viewing stamp lots at the time .They had a BOZ &HERZ. lot which had a estimate of $300.00 ,I looked at it and thought it wasn't worth $100.00 catalog.During the auction it sold for $2500.00. I had to ask the buyer,why he paid so much for it ,He looked at me and said it was a bargin at $2500.00,I looked at him and said wow!He then explain the story about all the different perforations that was in the lot ....learn something new and the catalog only said ,compound perfs.

Not in any catalogue I've ever seen.

Let's look at this number. This series has 6 perforation gauges: 12.5, 9.5, 6.5, 10.5, 13 and imperf. Only the first four have been found in compounds; the imperf has been found for all values; the 13 has been found only on the 6h and 20h, but could presumably turn up on others so let's say there are 32 stamps for the imperf and 13, and we'll add that on to the end of our subsequent calculations.

We now look at all the possible combinations of the first 4 perfs: 12.5, 9.5, 6.5, 10.5, 12.5x9.5, 12.5x6.5, 12.5x10.5, 9.5x6.5, 6.5x10.5, 12.5x9.5x6.5, 12.5x9.5x10.5 have all been found. 6.5x10.5, 12.5x6.5x10.5, 9.5x6.5x10.5, 12.5x9.5x6.5x10.5 have not been found. This would give a potential total of 240 stamps (+ 32).

But if we consider that in all the compound perfs there could be different combinations (i.e. 12.5x9.5 could be three 12.5 and one 9.5 or two of each etc) and within these combinations there could be different arrangements of perfs top, right, bottom and left, then there are 12 permutations for each of the double compounds, 27 for each of the triple combinations and 24 for the quadruple combination. That gives a potential total of 3392 stamps (+32).

But this of course is to make the mathematician's assumption that they are sitting there pulling out perforations entirely at random. I would want a very deep understanding of the perforating machines in use before I was prepared to speculate on how many combinations are REALISTIC rather than POSSIBLE. Probably not many (if at all) more than the 190 that are currently catalogued.

Even at 190 different (catalogued) combinations - It still makes an extremely interesting topic.

Can't wait to get to my Bosnia/Herz pile...

If only Austria had produced a set of these for Bosnia-Herzegovina - think how many perf combinations there would be!

Well, it's almost exactly 2 years now, but this evening I found the explanation for all the mixed perforations - and the comforting knowledge that every possible combination will not appear.

The credit for the research goes to L.L.Howe who in February 1962 wrote a long and complex article in the American Philatelist. I herewith try to precis it in a readable and comprehensible format.

First you need to know that, because Bosnia in 1906 was occupied by Austria, the stamps were printed (and perforated) in Vienna.

It was decided that whilst the ordinary issue would be perf 12.5 they would run off some 'prestige' stamps in different perfs from the plebs' issue. For once these do not appear to have been aimed at milking philatelists, but for high officials in Vienna. They were to be perf 6.5, 9.5, 10.5 and 13.5. The printers were told to produce, for each of the four perfs, a few sheets of 100. This was misunderstood with the result that they produced a few hundred sheets of each.

Whilst they had a line perforator set for 9.5 they decided to do some experiments with a mixture of 12.5 vertical and 9.5 horizontal to see if that would make the 'landscape' shaped stamps easier to handle in separation. Someone either misunderstood, or took it upon themselves to also try using the 6.5, and when that proved unsuitable, the 10.5 instead.

Came the day when they needed to send the stamps to Sarajevo for the First Day of Issue. Naturally they picked out all their nicest new 12.5s, bundled them up and sent them off overland. They just about got into Bosnia when something went wrong at the border town of Brod and they were stuck there for days. They had no idea how long it would take to get them to Sarajevo, so the printers were told to send out a replacement cargo. What they had were of course large quantities of the prestige perfs and the trial perfs, and when there wasn't enough of them, and no time to do any more perfing, they sent out imperf sheets as well.

And that's what got sold. And furthermore since it was possible to buy entire imperf sheets some enterprising soul(s) bought some and amused themselves by perforating them 14 or 11.5 and then putting them on the market.

So now we know!

Can you give us a link to the AP article or at least an exact citation?

Bamra1

Thank you - excellent. Perforating for favour seems to have been a regular pastime in Vienna - I seem to recall that the odder perforations of earlier definitives were custom-made for the happy few. In Gb, it seems to have been more a case of the very few getting access to stamps that no-one else saw, eg the Edward VII Tyrian plum, mysteriously available to a close friend of the Prince of Wales.

Geoff

No link. I'm afraid it is written in ink on deceased trees. The full citation is:

L L Howe APS Bosnia: 1906 issue The American Philatelist Vol 75, No 5 Feb. 1962 reproduced in Jugoposta Journal of the Yugoslavia Study Group No 7 March 1986.