Scott #196 - What Kind Of Water Mark Is This..?

Hi guys..Was looking at this Scott #196 Mint stamp..Could not figure out the back..There are vertical lines as you can see on the picture, but also where the arrows are, there is horizontal lines going across the stamp.....Any help would be appreciated...Thanks.

Is it gum breaks?

Hi stampcrow...I just took another look with my 10X and the gum is very, very fresh and there seems to be no breaks/cracks in the gum at all..strange...??

P.S. - if you are referring to the horizontal lines..??

The horizontal lines are the result of so called "ribbed paper". The paper being passed between rigid rollers.

They are horizontal gum breaker lines that are around 5-5.5 mm apart from each other. They were applied to rotary press stamps to prevent them from curling. The vertical lines are from the rollers that applied the gum to the back. See: https://goscf.com/t/35011&SearchTerms=rotary,press

To the best of my knowledge, I don't think it is 'ribbed paper' but, more the result of gum being applied to the stamps. Some sheets of stamps were fed vertically, and, others horizontally. By mentioning 'gum breaks', we are not referring to a defect, but, more of a gumming process and the gum breaks were the end result.

Chimo

Bujutsu

KG V Arch/Leaf Issue #169 was printed on a RP (rotary press)which looks like the original pic posted by Wert. The other #169a was printed on a flat press.

Sheets printed on a rotary press tend to curl and are passed through a series of fracturing rollers to break up the gum crystals thus stopping the curing.

Bujutsu and Jogil you were right nothing to do with ribbed paper.

There have been some new articles recently on this in BNAPS BNA Topics (Volume 70, Number 4) and RPSC The Canadian Philatelist (Volume 65, Number 2) which are both very helpful.

As has been stated by several people here, the back looks like this due to the printing and gumming process (rotary press). There are plenty of articles written on the US stamps from this era that are really helpful. Here is a helpful article ...

Brian


http://www.1847usa.com/GumBreakers.htm

Rileysan...Thanks for the link.

From the above link, it looks like the Canadian Stickney rotary press stamps have U.S. Type I gum breakers which are 5.5 mm apart.

From the article -




I am not sure how many of these apply to Canada stamps or if the US BEP even shared this technology with the British American Banknote Company. It's possible this technology was developed independently of the US BEP.

I have no doubt that there are people out there that collect the different types of experimental gum breakers. Thankfully there are no catalogues available that specify and price the different types (that I am aware of). I would hate to collect any more varities of Washington/Franklins than already identified by Scott!

Brian

Rileysan...I would imagine that the printing technology for both Canada and the States back in the 30's would have been maybe dictated by English inventions..Presses and techniques I mean..Just a thought