Green Halfpenny King Edward Stamps

thank you rod and nigel.

nigel: I also made some photoshop :). Two things to notice:

First thing: As said already, the horizontal and vertical perforations never fit, on no stamp. So I guess this is normal, interesting though that it's "officially" perf 14 on this issue, although it's more 13.75 x 14. I guess that somebody must has noticed this before.

Second thing: for the Curragh Camp stamp the top and bottom is slightly different, as the top is close to 13.5 while the bottom is close to 13.75 (as all the other stamps). See my comparison, at the right in the following image the Curragh Camp stamp is shown twice. Interesting, isn't it?

Hi stamperix,

I don't agree with you about the top and bottom of your stamp but that just comes down to how we each measure perfs.

You need to remember that pins were frequently not spaced equally.

I would measure between the centres of the two most widely separated holes on an edge, compare these distances for the two edges, and also check there were the same number of holes between these pairs of points.

hello - when it comes to measure less than 0,5mm, it's not accurate mostly for me, so I just made another image rather than measuring. I am still a beginner, and you're right that the holes are not spaced equally. So I just show you this image to ask you for your opinion what happened here with the top and bottom perforation. To me it does not look to be the same, but perhaps it is.

I think 37.B duplex cancellation was for Notting Hill (London)

thank you Eiger.

Nigel and all others:

I still don't understand what is happening with the top and bottom perforation here. I just had the time to make a scan of the perforation gauge and the stamp at once and put it virtually on the 13.5 gauge. All sides are fine perf 14, but the top is just not perf 14, but more 13.5, as you see. I don't need to say that it's perf 13.5 at the top, but I would like to understand what happened here technically, or what perforation you would call the top then from the definition point of view, it it's really not perf 14.

Hi Stamperix, please see my 2nd post in this thread.

The variance could be unevenly spaced pins on the perforating equipment or paper shrinkage over the life of the stamp. We can only guess what the stamp has been through over 100+ years. Alternatively, someone in the past has created a fake, which has been known to happen from time to time.

thank you, sorry, I didn't think of your post now, I was a bit lost with all those cancellation (types) here on my few British stamps :). Yes, so I will keep this stamp as an oddity and look at it from time to time with each time more knowledge, for example about fake perforations. (shrinkage would probably make the whole stamp smaller, but here top and bottom is different, as said the other three sites match very nice to the perf 14)

Hi stamperix,

Let me try once again!

Remember that the pins are not evenly spaced so the measurement is essentially an average over the width or length of the stamp.

If you look at the top and bottom stamps that you have compared in the last two images both the extreme left and right holes on one stamp are displaced to the left (or right depending on the image) of the corresponding holes on the other stamp.

I still see no evidence here of the the perf measurements being different so I guess we should agree to disagree on this one!

If you haven't done so already I'd recommend you try using a perf gauge such as an SG Instanta which I find works well especially for fractional perf measurements and/or uneven pin spacing:

https://www.stanleygibbons.com/inst...s-r2534.html

thank you again, Nigel. Although it may seem that I got stuck into this stamp :), it's not really the case. I use this stamp to learn about perforation and its measurement, and especially about the not evenly spaced holes. I understand these holes that are not evenly spaced in a way that the distance between some holes is not the same. As suggested by you I took an Instanta as well and show the result here. For my beginner's eyes both top and bottom perforation holes are normally spaced, the distance between the holes is always the same. But tell me if you don't agree here as well :), I am willing to learn really.

When I try to figure out which perforation matches the best, it's perf it's 13.75 for three sides (or rounded perf 14), but for the top I can't lay it on the 13.75 for a match, but more for the 13.5.

I know that this is a very fine difference, but at the beginning I didn't do all this Photoshop and scanning stuff but just looked at the stamp(s) on my desk and compared their perforation without loupe and found something to learn more about.

Hi stamperix,

You almost have me convinced.

I would suggest one change in method which would be to line up the lines on the gauge with the centres of the holes as I find they are usually more clearly defined.

Although in this case it may not make much difference.

hi Nigel,

as requested here the version with the holes at the lines. I see on hole at the top perhaps not matching, but all in all it looks like evenly spaced holes (to me).