368 - A Pair And A Block Of 4

I'm a long time lurker, first image post. Just test driving the Image Optimizer. Test driving getting the scanner set up with the Win10 box. And taking a look at this 368.

I especially enjoy this cover because the block of 4 is 3mm and the pair is 2mm.

Glad to be here and hope to participate more.
- chris

Hi Chris, and welcome to the forum! I love your envelope, but am puzzled about your description. What is the meaning of the 2mm and the 3mm?

Peter

Welcome, and very nice example. The 2 mm and 3 mm have to do with the spacing between the stamps. Scott's does not have any value difference between the two. Having so many on one cover is very neat! Thanks for posting.

The spacing between the stamps is 2mm on the pair and 3mm on the block of four. The plates were designed like this as an experiment to avoid waste and get more usable stamps out of a sheet. For the sake of better inking, the paper was made damp before the ink was applied. When the paper dried after inking, it dried unevenly from the outer edges inwards to the center. When the sheet was run through the evenly spaced perforator, the uneven shrinkage created a lot of waste. So the redesigned plates, with stamps in the outer rows spaced 3mm apart and inner stamps spaced 2mm apart, were an attempt to fix that.

Thanks guys! I had no idea about this.

Peter

The experiment continued since the 2mm/3mm spacing did not really work that well. Different papers, that had better resistance to shrinkage, were introduced. The 35% rag, bluish paper Washington-Franklins were a result of this experiment. The better paper was more expensive. It was quickly decided that the added cost was not worth the small improvement gained and discontinued. China Clay paper was part of the experiment also. Eventually, it was determined that 2.75mm spacing on the entire sheet was the solution.

Thanks for sharing mudrat.detector, that is quite interesting! Always learning something new.

Thanks for the reponses. Great info. Appreciated.