Mystery Of Liberia Inverted Centre

An article in the latest GSM got me wondering about this inverted centre stamp...




My understanding is that inverts like these occur because the paper is fed through a printer twice, once for each colour. An upside down sheet results in an upside down centre print.

OK - but look at this stamp. The dark centre is way off to one side. Surely if the sheet was fed through a second time, the centre would appear on the opposite side of the stamp, not right in place in the white circle.



This is true, I think, even if the stamps are printed sideways on the sheets. Turn them around and what was near the bottom is now near the top.

So, my question is, how can this stamp exist accidentally? What happened during the print process?

If you rotate everything 90 degrees the shift is no longer there. Would they have been printed that way and not aligned to the obvious top and bottom of the stamp?

Another scenario: the stamps were purposely printed to look like inverts. By the Way, what is GSM? Please don't use acronyms that might be familiar to you but not to others. Remember, this is an international forum with people coming from many different philatelic cultures.

GSM = Gibbons Stamp Monthly

Kind of like we used to use SSM for Scott Stamp Monthly.

A good writer never uses an acronyms until she has used the full name first.

Why does that sound like a reprimand?

While Glenn might have come off a bit brusque, his comment is a good one. I too, had no idea what "GSM" meant.

Sorry.

Gibbons Stamp Monthly = GSM

k

Of course, I'll be terribly embarrassed if it turns out Ringo meant something else by GSM.

Now if we can get back to commenting about the inverts...

And I didn't either. But the question was about the stamp and I didn't worry about the acronym used. It just seemed the comment was made and answered by someone else and the second comment seemed to be belaboring the point.

Hi John, you said in your first reply, "If you rotate everything 90 degrees the shift is no longer there".

I had thought of that, but I reasoned it would still give rise to the same problem. With the stamp upright, as in the original scan, the empty white area is on the right. If you rotated everything clockwise, then that empty white space will be closer to the bottom as we look.

Suppose that's how the stamp is being printed - then the black centre motif will land at the bottom too, right in position. On the other hand, if the sheets were sideways the wrong way round, the empty space would be closer to the top - but the black print would still land at the bottom. So, I think there would still be the same shift expected.

I also think the idea that this was done deliberately is more convincing, although the stamp seems to be regarded as an error stamp, at least by the writer in GSM (yes, that's Gibbons Stamp Monthly, folks).

PS - will try to avoid TLAs in future. (Three Letter Abreviations)

Ringo, another option is that the cliché was inserted inverted in the master block. That could account for the apparent full alignment.

You should contact The Liberian Philatelic Society with your question at http://www.liberiastamps.org/

Is the error known only one per sheet? If that's the case Tim H is probably correct with his answer on the reversed cliche. Latvia managed to screw one of those up for it's best known error.

These errors were produced for collectors.

Few years ago I purchased a large lot....thousands....
plenty different #s....Inverts, color shifts, incorrect colors,
missing colors....you name it....they produced it.

They are collectible....sell well.
Couple dollars each.....
They "look" impressive....