1c 1851 Plate 4 Stamps

That is a gorgeous piece.

widglo - that is a fabulous Ty III. Its very hard to find bottom line breaks that large. Yes, that impresses me more than margins.

I bought another #22 from Alan Cohen. The impression looked great to me, and I really like blue cancels, too. This one is relief "E" (position 45R4).

Pretty stamp! Those E reliefs show a lot of the design at the bottom, which is nice when you get one that is centered properly.

Here are my two other Plate 4 examples. Both are top row. They are posted in order 2L4 followed by 1L4. I'm not ambitious enough to try to complete an entire plate, but I am trying to collect interesting examples from every plate, including at least one relief from each transfer roll.

Beautiful stamps. To have a perforated copy of an E relief that well centered is especially impressive.

Thanks for everyone's comments. I didn't realize that the "E" relief was particularly desirable. My personal favorite is still the "A" relief. My eyes seem to always go to the top ornaments, and the top row of Plate 4 is hard to beat. Here is one more that I forgot to show - it is a #20 from position 8R4.

The E and F reliefs on Plate 4 have very tall designs, and, thus were a challenge for perforations.

Top row plate 4 stamps are a lot of fun. About 20+ years ago, a friend and I (with good input from another friend: njs900 as well back then), collectively, reconstructed the top row with a combination of perf+imperf stamps. Back then, before good scans, with just the Neinken book, and our respective stamps to refer to, it was a real challenge to do this.

One would think that with nice guide dots that it should be easy to plate these top row stamps, but they can be a real challenge at times.

Anyway, your stamps are really nice - I have always considered imperforate top row plate 4 stamps that show 4 margins to be really nice, desirable items. Bravo.

I previously posted on 09/13/2020 a Scott #22, position 35L4. Although it had three PF certs identifying the plate position, I couldn't understand how an exact plating had been made. It looked pretty clearly to be a relief "D", but that was about all I could say. The Neinken diagram for 35L4 just didn't seem to match my stamp.

The stamp had originally been submitted to the PF as the left stamp of a pair, so I just accepted that there must have been enough plating information between the two stamps to identify the pair as 35-36L4.

Well, almost by chance, I have been able acquire the the other member of this pair (36L4 - the first image below). I've also photographed the two stamps sie-by-side as they were originally joined. I've examined the 36L4 member of the pair carefully, and I'm still no more certain that the plating ascribed is correct. Any help would be appreciated.

Also, does anyone perhaps know anything about the provenance of the pair before it was separated?

widglo, regardless of the plating issue the rejoining of this amazing pair is quite a feat. I for one salute you!

You have 36-37L4. A good plating mark for 36L is a scratch on the shoulder, under the red 1 on your copy, (unfortunately not shown in Neinken).

Sorry 36-37R4 not left. I do that all the time.

Njs900 - Thanks for holding to your initial plating of the #22. I wasn't ready to accept it without more authorities weighing in, but now with the right side of the pair in hand, your plating is confirmed. From Richard Doporto's site on position 37R4 - the scratch he marks up in Figure 2 through the "O" of "ONE" is clearly on my stamp, too. Doporto also an image of my #21 (37R4) on that page now, and either it is new, or I missed it before.

Plating has certainly been made easier with modern visual aides via computer!

This is 1-2R4 with a #31 from a ratty cover.



As the 31 is off center and the 20 pair was not identified as plate 4, I bought it quite reasonably.

1R4 is marked to show the line on the shoulder.

I now need 2L4 and 3-4R4 to complete the top row.

I have duplicates to trade if anyone has those positions and is interested in trading.