R42-D 20cent Inland Exchange, No Price Listed

@ Revcollector

You mentioned wrong size, shape and paper. I get the paper and shape, but not the size. Thickness of those fibers was pretty close in width to others of real silk, when viewed through paper. Can you expand on the size? I have seen many blue rag fibers in paper before, they are usually much smaller in diameter. The silk also tends to be straight with an occasional slight curve. So the "S" shaped piece should have been an indicator. I am still learning the art of paper and paper contents. Some are easy, some not so easy. Thanks for bearing with me during the learning curve. I have got better over the years, but I dont get as much material through my hands as others. It is a daunting task. As mentioned before, have seen alot of Match stamps sold as E-Silk that were not. Some surprises that were. This forum is a great learning place and I value everyones time and help.

@Southpaw

I would rather gamble and lose a few as to let one go unfound. Maybe next time.

Genuine silk fibers are usually short, fairly thick and straight. Occasionally the have some small curves, and very occasionally larger curves. The fiber in this stamp is very tiny and very thin; it needs a 10x glass just to see it. The easiest way to learn true silks is to look at the common ones in dealer stocks, R15d, R24d, R44d, etc. On the larger higher values the R81d and R98d show up often (not particularly cheap stamps but ones that can be found fairly easily in dealer stocks to at least look at).

I think that we should be careful to not to interpret general recommendations as absolutes, as there IS variance in the silk threads, at least as far as length and thickness is concerned.

Look at the variance in length just within the first stamp shown below. Then compare those silk threads with the ones in the stamp below it (2007 PSE cert), which are more narrow and somewhat curved.

You also will see considerable variance in the density of the silk threads, with some stamps showing many threads and others only showing a single thread (and actually stamps that have the right paper, color, and impression for a silk paper, but without any silk threads, so they cannot be considered silk papers).

We've seen how slipshod production was on revenue stamps from this erawith respect to printing and perforating, and that extends to the mixing of the blue silk threads into the paper. Some batches had a lot of silk threads added, and others not so much...

Let me ask this.. Is the paper types for Match & Medicine E-Silk different then the First issue Silk paper? Is it possible that some of private die paper was used in production of regular revenues? I am not familiar with the details, but both papers appear at the same time. I am looking at a copy of RO105e, and paper grain is similar to the 20 cent Inland Ex. Please correct me if I am wrong, but maybe this is where I get my confusion. There is an "S" shaped piece among the straight fibers.
Thanks again for your time and thoughts.

(edit for after-thought)
The M&M paper is significantly whiter, but just he same, maybe silk was spread on other paper types? Even if so, The standard of judgement would remain the same. The fibers I see in this 20 cent stamp are compelling to be silk. It looks much different in person. Perhaps the printing shade gives it away. Thanks again folks.

The first issue silk papers and the M&M experimental silk paper is the same paper, used at the same time by the same company. And it was a white paper when it started out, but it's 150 years old now, and some of it has had a hard life.
The 40 cent has other silk threads on it not pointed out by arrows.

keep looking though. You never know what you will find. A couple of weeks ago this came in from one of the large NY ebay dealers who doesn't always check material closely. His scan wasn't great, he did mention the crease…thought I saw threads...

this is one that had a hard life I guess

This Drake almost has too many threads. I saw at least 12, which at least raises the possibility that it is a regular silk paper with a somewhat less then normal thread count. This does happen within a sheet; I was fortunate enough to see the imperf Newbauer & Co block of 114 silk paper stamps when it was discovered which enabled me to see an average pattern. In this era the idea of real quality control for paper manufacturing was just a dream.

Possibly, and I know paper goes through a lot in 150 years, but its quite a bit thicker and softer than regular silk paper. From what I can tell regular silk paper seems to have a "grayer" appearance too.

I'll upload a higher res image of the left side of the stamp. I don't think all of those are threads. Some are marks I believe.

I am glad this is an interesting topic. I have some more homework to do on paper types. Someday I hope to get an opportunity to attend a show with lots of material to cull over. Thank you all for sharing your experience. I guess I will have to bite the bullet and get some of my Match stamps a cert for e-silk. I have many with blue threads that may be silk and maybe not. Has anyone seen revenue stamps with a high percentage of false silk/rag fibers? Seems like I get stamps with one big piece and many tiny fibers. There have been a few I purchased as e-silk that were pretty obvious that were not real e-silk.

This is a very interesting part of stamp collecting. I have focused almost entirely on revenues for the past 6yrs. I am hopelessly addicted.

Nice find Southpaw, Im batting for your team on this one. I do find that most times the silk in regular silk paper to be a darker color, whereas e-silk is the lighter blue. As stated, they were tossed into the paper and one could expect a heavy concentration in some areas. Could go the other way as well. Color is my guage.

Thanks, I really appreciate everyone taking a look at this. I'm getting better at identifying paper but there's still much to learn. Here are higher res scans.

My vote is e-silk given the fact none are present on the face that I see. Some do appear dark in color, but I see light ones in there too. I dont have any regular silk papers with tiny light blue fibers in them. Pretty sure the 1872 and later silk is different.
How are you getting the hi-res photos to embed in post??

I stand corrected, there are some on face. I need glasses. This is a tough one.

Hi RW - I adjust the size in Photoshop "save for web" highest res and quality yet staying under 200k. It's pretty easy to get a big image of the back of a stamp.

Regular silk paper is normally much thicker and softer then experimental silk, which is a medium level paper. Somewhat thicker and softer then old paper but normally less of both then the other three papers. And experimental paper is much whiter as well, although time can take it's toll on that aspect. If you look at the back of this stamp with a 5x you will probably see at least 15 threads, plus at least 3 or 4 on the face as well. Unlikely to be experimental silk.