You Tell Me What The Perf Of This Stamp Is..?

Hi guys

Unitrade and N.S.S.C. catalogs both classify NFLD Scott 56 -57 and 58 as perforation 12 x 12.

You tell me...Here is my Scott 56...Measured with 12 x 12 and 12.25 x 12.25

I checked all my other 57 and 58, they were 12 x 12..BUT I have another Scott 56 with the same 12.25 x 12.25 perforation.


Robert

Looks like 12 and a quarter to me.

I cannot speak for Unitrade and I have more experience with US than Canada...but for US stamps Scott doesn't do 1/4 perfs on older stamps (but they do on more modern stamps). They round off. This seems to casue a lot of confusion for folks with perf gauges which have 1/4 indicators.
Don

12.25 X 12.25 = 12 if rounded off using Scott's method as outlined by Don.
wert, your 2 look like 12.25 as already opiniated,
Rene

Here is the problem I have always had with perforations....Newer stamps are classified very exactly, say to 13.1 and not rounded off to 13 like they rounded off on older stamps...

I, myself think the perfs for older stamps should be revisited to bring them to what the TRUE perfs are (like newer stamps) and not rounded off.

Just my opinion.

Robert




Rene, these are not 2 different stamps, they are just one stamp measured at 12 x12 ad 12.25 x 12.25

I understand, wert, sorry for my mistake. Same opinion though and you are right about perfs on older stamps.....they all should be re-measured !!

Rene

Thanks Rene..I was going to start that big task, but thought what if after all the work they just say "very nice, well have a good day"...haha

Robert

The catalogues people should be doing that, at their own expense

I am sure they wouldn't do it......

Rene

Hey WERT you got to remember. Back in those days they didn't care about perforations and used what ever means to get it done. Sometimes the same supplier could have multiple perforators set to what they think is the same setting say like 12, but in reality it is 12.5.

Nowadays with technology, if the stamps says 13.1 its actually 13.1.

Going back remember the Newfoundland Long Coronation Issue. Only 3 main perfs are identified in catalogs, but in reality there is 10 different perforation sizes on that series alone.

Trodent

Perforations are not measured, they are gauged (for number of perforations per 2 cm).
Don

The interesting part, to me, is not that the catalogues rounded their numbers to a greater or lesser degree, but that wert has actual 12s and actual 12.25s, meaning that he has identified two different perforators, or at least two different setups. wert's doing good old-fashioned philately. I wouldn't be shocked to hear that there is an eighty-year old journal article that has a full discussion of the known variations for this issue.

There was an interesting article in Topics #476 about KGV-era Newfoundland perf differences. I'd have to go back to the original to confirm the coding in this table, but one symbol (x, I believe) represents NSSC listings, and the other (o) is the author's own discoveries.




Scott would get no extra love for including that information. Unitrade, maybe. It seems that it would be pretty easy to start to implement it. A tiny line at the end of an issue with Known Perfs: 12, 12x12.1, 12.25 could seemingly be added, and added to, as necessary. It might save a collector some headscratching.

Devil's advocate position: if they didn't break it down by individual varieties known for each value in an issue, would it really be that useful? As the table above shows, there are lots of combinations to potentially discover, but you need to know what's known for the 2c, and the 3c, etc., in order to make the discovery.

I'm back to thinking the specialist literature is the only practical place for this. Most collectors would think it was cluttering up a major catalogue.

My 2c.

Wert, gathering that data and tabling it by Unitrade number is a task worth doing for classics. Decimal measurement would be better for data management, and you will find variance. Have a good day.

Unitrade does include a perforation chart for the Canada Small Queen stamps on page 55. Since Large queen stamps also share the same perforators and perforations, this should also include them. It must be remembered that the early rotary perforators that line perforated Canadian postage stamps were made in the U.S. Thus, both countries should be considered together. With Newfoundland, there are some different printers and perforators from the U.K. that were used such as stroke perforators instead of rotary perforators. However, stamps from the American Bank Note Company should be the same for both Canada and Newfoundland.

Canadian Line Perforation Gauge Measurements
http://stampsmarter.com/learning/Ma..._canada.html

Don

Are the older US stamps also in need of re-gauging ?

sleepy..I would imagine there is a similar problem with American stamps to as there is on early Canadian stamps...Has anyone down there tried to do further investigation..??

CJD..Nice chart..That is the type of chart I was thinking of trying to create.

BTW Don..Nice write up.

Robert