3 Envelope Questions

Hi all,

hoping to get some help on 3 envelopes:

1. it has no inkt but a inpressed emblem on front, but inside the enveloppe is a vage inkted print. has a US 1949 watermark.

2. Postal service envelope with PS watermark. would the print in left corner and/or addressee be of any extra interest. I think it is a UO16, agree?

3.cannot find this overprint in the catalog, anyone?


any help is much appreciated. interested in the story/what it is (how does inkt get inside instead of outside of the cover????) and also if the error and rare overprint have any value?

First one is an albino envelope. Usually has value.
Second one is a UO16 - look for it under official envelopes. And yes, I think it is worth keeping


Peter

peter,

thank you. do you know how it can be the inkt is inside but not outside....?

I might have a guess. These things got printed on a sheet with several "stamps" embossed at the same time. If one sheet was stuck to another and then deposited on a still somewhat wet sheet some of the ink goes to the wrong side ( read:inside ) of the envelope.


Peter

Here, the indicium is embossed and printed on a flat sheet of paper first. Then that is cut into envelope shape, folded, then glued together with glue strip added to the backflap. Note how crooked the indicium is in yours, other than being backwards. The sheet was probably flipped over and also fed crookedly into the cutter, which still made it into an envelope.

Note some stationery (non-US only??) with embossed indicia show embossing going through to the back of the envelope. There, the envelope was made first, then printed.

This is called a penalty envelope; there are many different. The cover above it can be considered one, too. It's something too specialized for a general catalog like the Scott Specialized, even the more detailed UPSS catalog. But UPSS has a specialized catalog for them now:
http://www.upss.org/code/publications.php

By the way, nice covers!

Most albinos are created when two (or more) envelope blanks get fed into the press at the same time. The top one gets the ink during the embossing process and one underneath gets just the embossing.

Now, for the ink on the inside reason. If the press cycles and no envelope blank is fed into the press, then the embossing die (well-inked by the press's inking mechanism) imparts its ink onto the platen. When an envelope blank finally makes its way into the press, ink from the platen gets imparted on the back of the envelope blank, while the embossing die inks the front. The ink coming from the platen attenuates leaving fainter and fainter images on the back of envelope fronts.

Your envelope has both of these things going on. You've got an albino being created at the same time offset is being applied to the back of the envelope front.

Ink does not "migrate" through an envelope blank. Please do not spread that as a reason for offset on the inside of a stamped envelope.

thank you, very interesting to learn the background stuff!