1c 1851 Plate 2 Stamps

Looks good, stallzer. The marks in the right margin can be found on several other Plate 2 positions, but the position and orientation of the stamp to the right argue for 12R2.

#7 from sheet position 3R2:

stallzer - I agree with dudley!

Nicely centered with great borders Classic!

Thanks, Caper.

Beautiful stamp.

With the dark blue, there is a decent chance its a Nov or Dec 1856 printing.

Looks like a type II to me. Agreed? Plate 2?

Ty IV, #9. Recut once each at Top & Bottom.

Thank you. I was worried about this one. The recut is more subtle than usual. Thanks.

Thanks for your comments, txstamp.

rlsny, your stamp is position 62L1L. The top recut is well-defined. Bottom recuts are often harder to discern.

I am attempting to plate a stamp with visible portions of all four of its neighbors. I have Neinken's book, and the first thing I did was to try to discern which positions were the most likely from guide dots and the vertical row spacing/alignment.

It is vertical row alignment that I find the most difficult to determine. Even with partial portions of stamps on both side margins, I can't determine the displacement up or down unless I'm sure that the scanned image has been rotated so that the design is exactly vertical. The asymmetrical design makes that not so easy to do.

Are there points on each side of the design that are on a horizontal line, and that I can use as a reference to vertically align the image? It appears from his discussion of plate 1L (Fig. 11-D and 11-E) that Neinken determined vertical row alignment by drawing a line under ornament "L" of the left stamp to ornament "A" of the right stamp. I believe that I've rotated the image of the stamp below to within 0.1 degree of vertical, but I can't be sure. It causes me to question whether the bottoms of these two ornaments are actually horizontally aligned on the same stamp (see 2nd image with grid lines). If not, how can they be used on stamps side-by-side to determine vertical row alignment?

I think that my is from position 78R2, but my determination comes mainly from the faint diagonal line coming from the right guide dot of 68R2.

I have a 68R2 with a big bottom margin, and there is also one at the 1c plating archive.

I think the scratch you point out does appear to match. Additionally the 68R and 67R guide dots appear correct. Spacing and alignment and ornament completeness also appear to be correct.

I'd like to have a bit more time to be 100% sure, but with the short time I just spent, I'm almost sure. I think you very likely nailed it.

I agree txstamp - 78R2 it is.

Here are the points that I always use on every stamp to get the alignment.
Right or wrong, these are the best points that I have found to use.