R54 Possible Scratched Plate?

While scanning Revenues I saw a consistent flaw on the tag of the five in the lower 50. It was consistent across a R54c and R54d, see the attached pictures.
There is a cracked plate mentioned in Scott Specialized, but this looks more like a scratch or some sort of other flaw.

you are correct that this is a scratch

I think it is more persistent than a plate scratch; it may be part of the original design. That mark appears on more than 90% of the examples of R54c and R54d in my collection.

There is a much longer plate scratch found on R54c:




More information on U.S. revenue plate varieties here:

https://revenue-collector.com/platevarieties.shtml

Interesting, thanks revenuecollector. I use the revenue-collector.com site for reference quite often.

I have 7 examples of 54c- I am finding the "5" scratch, but not the longer one.

The longer scratch shown by Revenue Collector is quite scarce. This occurs on position 54 before this position was re-entered creating the position 54 double transfer.

There are several different plates scratches with this issue. I have 11 different ones in my collection. Ironically, I don't have the one Dan has. Several of these I have multiple copies of.


1. Diagonal through the first E in Conveyance. I have 4 copies of this scratch.


2. Lower left, through the N - 3 copies of this one.


3. Lower right - diagonal through N - 3 copies of this one


4. Lower left - base of scroll - 2 copies.


5. Lower right, diagonal to the 50 - 2 copies.


I only have single copies of the remaining.
6.
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11.

Here is one I have



Don

Jeez.

It's almost as if the pressman wiped the ink off this plate with 80 grit sandpaper instead of a rag.

Jim