Watermark Orientation On 1894/1895 Issue

Hello,

sometimes I find the information that for a certain issue the watermark can be oriented in all ways and also inverted, also for 1894 issue. I know it from other countries that this would be a collectible error sometimes, but never for US stamps.

I just would like to know:
- may I assume that there was no "official way" to use the paper to that time, so that there is no regularity the watermark is oriented on early US stamps in general?
- why was the watermark on 1894 stamps vertical then?
- can the wrong USIR watermark on this issue also appear in all different orientations? (would help identify)

thank you.
stamperix

Hi Stamperix, I also pay attention to the watermarks on U.S.A. stamps which started watermarking on regular postage issues in 1895. The 1894 regular postage stamps were not watermarked.

The 1895 regular postage issued came in 8 orientations for watermarks. I pay attention to all orientation. Do not know if there are other U.S.A. stamp collectors that pay attention any more.

In general you are correct that there is no official way to use the paper at that time. Later issues generally the paper was orientated in one way so that the watermark would generally be in one direction. Ah, but mistakes did happen and other orientation of watermarks could be found. I hunt these out.

Do you have access to the Scott Specialized Catalogue of United States Stamps & Covers? Maybe you could find a used older copy, buy it cheap. Lots of information on U.S.A. stamp along with watermark information included there.

There might be information on line, but do not know how good it is. Not saying it is bad information, I'm just do not know about it.

Stampmaster

The 1894 1st bureau stamps are unwatermarked. The 1st bureau 1895 stamps have watermark 191 which was in use from 1895 to 1910. Scott specialized does list that "In the 1895 to 1903 U.S. issues, the paper was fed through the press so that the watermark letter read horizontally on 400 subject sheets and vertically on the 200 subject sheets".
That being said Scott specialized shows 4 different horizontal watermark orientations and 4 different vertical watermark orientations starting in 1895. They are;

Normal
Reversed
Inverted
Inverted reversed

The USIR watermark (191R) was only used on postage stamps in 1895 (Scott 271a & 272a) and in 1951 (Scott 832b) but it does not list the orientations for the USIR watermark. Things changed just a bit in 1897 when booklet panes, 360 subject plates and 180 subjects plates were introduced.

The USIR watermark can occur in any orientation.

Can this assertion be verified by finding a vertical and horizontal example for every Scott number with a USIR watermark? I don't recall noticing this on watermarked Match and Medicine stamps.




Recently Scott added 279a and 277Bd horizontal watermark varieties to the catalog. They also printed on 400 subject plates and are believed to be errors

Also, Scott lists booklet panes 279Bj with horizontal watermarks and 279Bk with vertical watermarks. The change from vertical to horizontal grain paper resulted in more accurately cut booklet panes. Scott does not mention a change in plate size. (Vertical watermarks were applied to horizontal grain paper while horizontal watermarks were on vertical grain paper.)

My comment was in relation to the question about the small banknotes postage issues. However I have seen M&M stamps with the watermarks in every direction over the years. I cannot guarantee that every single watermarked stamp comes in all directions however.

Usually the M&M watermarks are horizontal.

Hmmm... as I ponder a US watermark collection of a low value easy to find US stamp (pick any Scott#) where 1 example is the stamp face and the other 8 examples show the possible watermark oriented backs for that Scott#... That could be a fun distraction for a change... Hmmm...

thank you all very much. this answers all my questions. Of course I wonder why all those watermark orientations are not analyzed more in Scott and have different Scott numbers (suffix) as I know from Germany for example for some stamps. But as you wrote there was no regular way in using the paper, so the number of stamps is sometimes more sometimes less for any stamps, and I guess there is no way to "count" the distribution of the paper versions. Concerning the USIR this makes it more difficult to sort out the candidates for the 6c and 8c, but also creates more candidates.

Someone wrote this, but it is not true for wet printing.

Paper orientation was important for achieving accurate perforation alignment. If a sheet was placed sideways in a run or vertical grain paper, perforation alignment would be off. Stamps on the rotated sheet would be shorter and wider, enough to be quite noticeable over the width of a sheet of stamps.

When horizontal grain "special paper" was no longer needed for flat plate booklet panes after production switched to rotary press, it was used to print higher denominations of the Fourth Bureau issue. Perforating machines had to be reset to fit the changes in stamp size.