Interesting Marks On Sc135

Hi,
The first pic shows a missing perforation at the bottom.
The second pic is from the same stamp, showing a dot in C of CENT,
plus an hairline in the last E of THREE and the E in CENT.
Is this a re-entry?

Looks like the hairline started (?) in the dot in the C. I see the line in the C as well, although not as clear. Nice stamp!

Peter

The "Dot in C" is a documented constant plate variety on this stamp. It is listed in Hans Reiche's 1982 book, Canada Steel Engraved Constant Plate Varieties. The plate and position are not given and the lines through the letters "E" are not mentioned and cannot be seen on the crude illustration shown in the book.

I would certainly say that these marks do NOT come from a re-entry. The hairlines could be constant and the result of the same damage that produces the mark in the "C" but I suspect that they may be a printing variety from a smudge or light ink pull.

This stamp was produced from 12 plates, so if the "Dot in C" comes from only one unique plate position, then it would be pretty rare and very collectible.

Nice find! I would be glad to feature this stamp on my FlySpecker.com website if you could provide me with a 1200dpi scan. My email address is available from the site.

Cheers!

Thanks for your replies,

This stamp, with your comments, will find a nice place in my collection.

As requested, an E-Mail including a 1200dpi picture has been sent to you Scottamer.

I was following this thread and thought to examine my copies. I had remembered something about this stamp, and was surprised to see so much similarity. Here is my stamp, but with a slightly different "Dot in C".



Note how my left edge is sloppy ... probably trimmed? But on closer examination, I am sure I see a guide line along the left side.



And, along with the odd "Dot in C", I also have what I had first thought was a plate scratch through the HRE.



I would like to see if anyone else has the "Dot in C" variety so that we can see if either of ours is genuine or just an anomaly.

Partime, I have a few copies with the same type of edge in margins.

Hereunder are some additional dots found in C of CENTS.
They all look different.

I wonder if there was some foreign object on the transfer roll that kept moving a little bit on each entry for the "C" dot.

Here are two different marks found from my stock.


Long hairline giving the impression of a scratched window.


Numeral oval on the right in poor condition.

This stamp was the subject of a presentation made at a BNAPS Admiral Study Group meeting at BNAPEX 2008 in Halifax. The presentation was posted on the BNAPS website in August of this year. To see it, go to the listings for August on this page:

http://www.bnaps.org/ore/ore-WhatsNew.htm

The "dot in C" is a guide dot used to position the transfer roll for each stamp impression on the plate. It occurs on many (but not all) stamps from plates 9 to 12. Its position varies a bit from stamp to stamp. Refer to pages 12 and 13 of the presentation.

The horizontal line through "HRE" posted by Partime is probably a remnant of a horizontal guideline that runs through the guide dot in the C.

AdmCol, thanks for the great article. It seems like these items are very common. Looking through my stock, I found some other ones that were highlighted:

Dot in middle of Arc, above the P, Plates 1-6:



What looks like a minor defective transfer, LL corner, from Plates 1-6 also:



And some interesting broken lines in the upper right:

Thanks AdmCol,

Your comments are appreciated. I just read the presentation from the BNAPS site.

Super article which answers many questions. Excellent reference material that I will use for checking my stock again.

Well, after the additional copies with different dots in the C were posted by Major1044, I was convinced that this must be a position dot. I thought I was onto some new potential research here but the great presentation linked by AdmCol reveals that this has already been well-researched and documented.

Still this would make an interesting article for my site. Thanks everyone for the information.

I am amazed by the depth of research and new information that keeps coming on stamps that are nearly 100 years old. The spreading of affordable electronic microscope, together with the internet communication is changing the face of philately and taking it to a new level. I only wish I had more time to dedicate to my stamps....