Medicine Strip Of 4 - Imperf Between

Here is something I ran across.
A.H.Handers medicine stamp strip of 4, imperf between.
Anything that anyone can tell me will be helpful.

all papers of the Flanders issues are known in horizontal strips. most often seen are of four but I have one of five. me. I have seen pairs that have led a hard life, but cannot say that they were ever used that way.

please excuse the extraneous "me" in my answer.

This strip appears unused. There is a heavy fold in the center, the right stamp shows a fold but it is stiff at that joint. Any idea of a Scott number or value? Is it common to be imperf between?

Scott no. rs 87.

Thanks, m & m.

These were done deliberately imperf vertically, so they could be used on packages of different retail price. This saved the company the cost of two or more plates for different denomination stamps. Why other companies did not adopt this same approach for stamping different size packages I do not know.

Mansfield and Mansfield & Higbe did, with the imperf between pairs and blocks. Some match companies used perforated multiples for larger sizes as well at times.

I have seen the Flanders stamps in strips of various sizes, the largest being a strip of 10. But I have never seen a vertical pair or a block. The fully perforated stamps are also found in strips, but are much less common.

I have never seen a vertical pair or block either. Since they were almost certainly used over a bottle top, there is little reason to think they were ever used in that fashion. Unless a remainder shows up I doubt we will ever see one. The only way would be if a collector purchased some at the time; some companies did sell stamps that way and some did not. However since none have been seen so far......

Umm, just thought it should be mentioned that these particular stamps are imperf. vertically, not imperf. between.

Jim

there is a strip of four currently up on ebay that has an obvious cork ring between he middle stamps that indicated use as a cork seal for a retail item priced at a dollar.