Help Needed: 1st-3RD Issue Revenue Double Impression Census

I'm working on a census of 1st-3rd issue revenue double impressions for my website, similar to the bisect census page that I've already published. Initial work can be found here:

http://www.revenue-collector.com/do...impressions/

If anyone has any of the following information, I would greatly appreciate it:

1. Any examples not shown or listed.

2. High resolution images of the actual stamps where I only show low-res images that I obtained from auction catalogs or the PF archive.

3. Public auction appearances that I don't have listed.

4. While you're there, please take a look at the bisect census page. I could use some help in fleshing that one out as well:

http://www.revenue-collector.com/bisects/

Thanks in advance.

-Dan

As I wrote you earlier, the #2 example of the 5 cent Playing Cards is clearly a kiss print. Since the stamp had to go through the press twice to be a double impression, it is impossible for the stamp to be doubled on the left but not on the right and be a double impression.

I'm not going to go down the rabbit hole of kiss vs. double impressions, at least not on my website. Philatelic experts disagree on what constitutes a "double impression" (see some of the arguments at Philamercury), the Scott catalog does not differentiate between double and kiss impressions (virtually all 20th century double impressions listed in Scott are actually kiss impressions), and even the PF has changed its expertization criteria; what was a double impression 30 years ago, now may not be.

Now if you want to use the nomenclature "complete double impression" vs. "partial double impression" and let the marketplace determine the relative merits and value, I can see that, but when you start saying a kiss impression (paper bouncing against the plate/blanket) is not a double impression (sheet going through the press twice), then you're trying to judge the process, not the actual end result. Also, depending on the printing anomalies and production quality, one can look very much like the other.

Since philatelists, expertizing companies, and Amos Media cannot agree on consistent terminology and criteria, it is what it is.

Philatelic experts with an axe to grind disagree about what a double impression is. Judging the process is what collectors do all the time. That's why plate varieties are different from printing varieties, and why watermark positions can be very important. What actually occurred is the whole point of so much in philately. A true double impression must go through the press twice. The phrase "partial double impression" is an oxymoron unless the relative positions of the two impressions is very far off, in which case there will be multiple impressions, one complete and TWO OR MORE partials.
AMOS will listen to the loudest voices; the auction houses and the dealers who make a lot more money on double impressions then they do on kiss prints.

The discussion of double impressions versus kiss impressions must be framed in the context of intaglio printing from flat recess engraved plates. I have not seriously followed these discussions.

I am curious about similar discussions as applied to stamps printed on offset presses. Max Johl was convinced that double impressions of the 1919 offset postage stamps were produced when very light impressions were sent through the offset presses a second time. This was done as a money saving device as in don't waste the good stamp paper. Certainly a double impression as described by Dan and Bart. But I am under the impression (a word carefully selected in this context!) that many, if not all, offset double impressions occur in a single pass through the presses. Incomplete wiping of the rubber blanket and some giggle in the presses causing misalignment of the first previous impression and the new freshly inked impression. And then both the impressions getting transferred to the paper. This all in a single pass through the press!

Bart makes the point that plate varieties and printing varieties (the double impressions) are quite different. To put words into his mouth (or at least his written post) the plate varieties are repeatable events, whereas the double impressions are single events. To further heighten the distinction, the plate varieties are more philatelically significant. In some sense I agree. But let's not lose sight that both the plate varieties and printing varieties are the result of operator error, in the one case, the creator of the plate and in the other case the press printer.

I agree with all you have said, Ron. My point was simply to point out that the process is important, not just the result. The first issues were intaglio, and as such must have gone through twice to get a double impression. It is therefore impossible to get a "partial double impression", except in the manner I discussed earlier. It has to be a kiss.

Now that Dan has put many of the double impression varieties together in one place, I think it's pretty interesting to see that virtually all of these stamps share one common trait.

You would normally expect to see a relatively even distribution of directions of the first (or second) impression. Left, right, up, down, etc.

But all but two of the examples shown have an up/down placement (or north/south, if you prefer). Only the R6 and R132 show a left/right placement.

Probably has something to do with the orientation of the printing plate versus the printing press bed I would guess.

Jim

p.s. Note that the R6 has a complete albino (or uninked) impression, which is difficult to discern unless seeing it in person.