Schermack 2 Cent Washington 344 Or 384 With Paper Folds And Ribbed Paper?

Not sure what is going on here. Looks like 3 horizontal creases in the paper evenly spaced and parallel to each other. The paper also looks like it has many vertical lines across the whole paper. You can see it better on the background of Washingtons head.








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The horizontal creases are damage caused by the affixing machine.

Hi John, so the machine that applied the stamp to the envelope caused those lines. So from like pressure rollers? How about the vertical lines?

It seems to have the appearance of "laid paper". Use the search function, there a good scan of laid paper on earlier classics in a post by Ken Srail, that is similar in appearance. There are a couple of articles in the United States Stamp Society journals by Larry S. Weiss where he says that what appears as laid paper on W/Fs is not actually laid paper. Interesting read. There have been W/Fs certified as having laid or ribbed paper. Interesting description on this cert. from the APS on a #337 that on ebay now. As far as I know, Scott has not recognized laid or ribbed paper on W/Fs.

https://www.ebay.com/itm/Scott-337-....m1438.l2649

The paper has a ribbed or ridged pattern like Continental ribbed paper. Examples from the first two decades of the 20th Century are not too difficult to find. So-called "laid paper" also exists but the lines are more likely to be spaced 1.5 to 2.0 millimeters apart. Laid paper is visible only in watermark fluid or possibly dry against a black approval card. The source of laid lines is not clear, but it may have occurred because of missing wires near the joint in the belt on a Fourdrinier paper machine, the source of stitch watermarks. Paper with laid lines is relatively uncommon but not impossible to find.

It is important not to confuse ribbing with laid lines in the paper. Unfortunately, ribbing on Second Bureau or early Washington/Franklin stamps also can sometime be seen in watermark fluid because the paper is relatively thin and brittle. Ribbing can sometimes be found on flat plate stamps from the 1920 to 1940 period, but the paper is softer, and the ribbing does not show in fluid.

Here are the stamps from the back in water mark fluid.

I see in PF data base they have a cert 448784 for a genuine 2 cent washington scott 375 with ribbed paper. also scott 377 498 and 349 on ribbed paper. They don't show what the back side or the ribbing looks like.