Need Help With Identification Of A 2c Washington

I'm pretty new to this. My dad left an 'accumulation', and so I got myself a perforation gauge, to sort and catalog them. After looking at hundreds of 2c Washingtons I thought I was starting to get the hang of it, but then I saw this one I can't quite figure out. I couldn't find information online about this design ever being perf 12. Any thoughts or suggestions would be very welcome.

Hi warped, and welcome to the forum. My first impression is that you are using your perforation gauge incorrectly. hen you lay your stamp down on the gauge, the perforations should fit around the little circles on the gauge. Try that and see if you still get the same result

Peter

You are correct, there is no perf 12 of this design listed among the regular issues. And your use of the perf gauge looks fine.

But in the back of the Scott US Specialized catalog, listings have been added in the past few years for counterfeits. 634(CF1) is perf 11.65 and 634(CF3) is perf 11.9. It appears you have one of these, probably a CF3. This is actually good news. Instead of being worth a penny, these 2 catalog $20 and $15 respectively for used singles. Yours is damaged, so is not worth nearly that amount, but still a really neat discovery and well worth keeping.

Thanks, Peter. This is with the stamp laid over the perforation gauge. It still looks like 12 to me.

it could be the perf 12 postal forgery

Looks very much like one.

Stamp does appear to have the "over-sized" S in WASHINGTON mentioned by Scott for CF2 & CF3. Since CF2 is perf 14.1, this is presumably CF3 (perf 11.9).

Welcome aboard! It's very easy to be fooled by bogus stamps, especially when you're just starting out. In the beginning, we've all been there ... done that! Don't worry, as time goes on you'll learn just like we all did. I'm constantly learning and I've been doing this a while. I suppose that's what's so interesting about stamp collecting ... there's no end to learning.