Benjamin Franklin 1 Cent

hy-brasil,

the proofs also have the lines at the left and even at the right of the head:
https://siegelauctions.com/lot_grd....emailflag=on

actually, all recently sold 205 and 205C have those lines, so it seems to be just normal.

205C
https://siegelauctions.com/lot_grd....emailflag=on

205
https://siegelauctions.com/lot_grd....emailflag=on

I didn't think it was something worth think about and didn't do any speculation about the special printing, but just wanted to chime in as it was mentioned that there were no diagonal lines at all. So hy-brasil, I guess you will find them also in your stamps with a good magnification.

The proofs do apparently show diagonal shading lines. But all details in proofs do not necessarily show up in special printings. But we also have a semantics problem here. A printed line (to me) is something that is continuous from point A to point B. A trail of dots or short pieces from the same point A to point B is a broken line or dotted line, not a line. That broken line may appear to the eye to be solid/continuous but is not. So there were once diagonal continuous lines in the original die, that may or may not resulted in continuous lines on any printed version, 205 or 205C.

The two enlarged pictures I show are of the stamps in color above as noted there, taken about 5-10 minutes apart from the scan of the 2 stamps together. The LED lights (used alone) in the USB-powered magnifier accounts for the gray color. I don't see any continuous diagonal lines in either. Can you, stamperix? Yes, I already looked at these under a magnifying glass. The thesis given was that the diagonal lines were in 205 but absent from 205C (probably impossible); just these two stamps disprove that thesis. And these two are all I have at hand of 205, pulled from a junk lot.

I suggest that everyone have a look at their 205s, mint or used, with a magnifier and report back. Offhand, there might be some early prints that show continuous diagonal lines of shading. It would also be nice to see a 205C enlarged more than what the Siegel site has.

Also, the Mooz article referred to in Siegel link seems to imply that 205Cs were just regular stamps sold to fulfill orders for Special Printings. Can anyone confirm that that's indeed what the article said? I think it would explain why the perfs look so different on 205Cs vs. (other) American Bank Note Special Printings.

I've done some exhibit work on the 2c and 4c 1883.

At the tail end of the program, according to Mooz, regular stamps were substituted for "special" printings.

Not many of these stamps were sold (for obvious reasons), and in most cases provenance is the only way to identify them.

-AJV