Need Help With Ottoman Empire Stamp

If anyone is curious or for future reference, I got Adolf Passer's "The Stamps of Turkey" today. Here's what he has to say about print quality and perfs.

"At first the Constantinople issues were also well printed. Stamps exist which in appearance rival the Paris prints; but, beginning with the 1870 issue, a deterioration set in, which eventually became so pronounced that no details of the designs are visible. This is especially noticeable in the 2 piastres. A change for the better set in in 1873, until the printing of the Administration was again perfect."

Unfortunately, he doesn't go into specifics. However, he did preface this by saying "...but the printing deteriorated while the Turkish finances declined steadily, and this again necessitated the issue of a greater amount of Turkish paper money, which had to be produced by the State printing works."

Here's what he said about the perforations.

"The 1868 issue, printed in Constantinople, was perforated 13 1/2 by a harrow machine... This machine seems to have become unserviceable about the end of 1869 or beginning of 1870."

"The harrow machine broke down entirely, probably in the summer of 1870, as in the autumn of that year we find various perforations, such as comb perforations 13 1/2 x 12 1/2 and 13 1/2 x 13, and single line perforations 10, 10 1/2, 11, 11 1/2, and 12 which must have been made with defective perforating machines, to judge from the irregularity of spacing of some of the needles, which caused many varieties. A very interesting feature was the use of sewing instead of perforating machines, one being an ordinary sewing machine for cloth, and the other for leather. The machine for cloth only pierced the paper, and this may be called a sewing machine roulette, as there are actually no perforation holes.

The leather sewing machine worked similarly, but produced a larger roulette. According to the quick or slow movement of the sheets the roulette, as well as the perforation, is close or wide in the same row, varying from 5 to 11 1/2... A peculiarity of these sewing machine perforations and roulettes is that they are seldom straight, and sometimes the most curious curves are met with... Many stamps of the 1870-72 issue show a sort of grill on the back, caused by the claws of the sewing machine..."

Lucky Devil

Fabulous information Ray
Saved.

May I ask how much you paid for the Passer tome please?

Yes, I am happy that I found it!

I checked it out from the APS library, along with 4 other books. They will wind up costing about $25 by the time I ship them all back.

I have them for 5 weeks, so I am taking as many notes as possible before then.

EDIT:If you are curious about anything else Mr. Passer had to say I would be happy to look it up.