A Visual Guide To Tagging - Finding First Efo's

So you have decided to plunge into the world of tagging EFO's, how do you score your first finds. Based on my experience looking at more tagged stamps than I can count I would suggest starting with 1384 & 1384a Winter Sunday. This issue has numerous EFO's some of which are very common.

Below are typical normal tagged versions. Nicely shaped block tags fully filled in and reasonably centered.




Below is a version with the block tagging significantly misregistered. The block is shifted to the point where the vertical gap between the blocks is centered on the image. This EFO is very common on both the normal and precancelled versions. In a random sampling you have at least a 25 percent chance of finding one in my experience.



Another fairly common version is where the block tagging shows worn areas where the tagging doesn't get deposited evenly on the stamp.




A block of 4 with misregistered tagging and showing worn areas.



The following varieties are less common but are out there.

Block tagging is misregistered both horizontally and vertically.


Block tagging mat worn to the point only the edges get printed.



I have been creating these posts to show collectors the fascinating aspects associated with tagging. I have found many collectors know little about this area of the hobby and view it as a specially area. I don't claim to be an expert and just want to demonstrate you don't have to be an expert to pursue this area of the hobby. A small investment in a battery operated SW UV lamp and away you go.

Like the first time you posted these I still appreciate you posting these. But why are you starting new threads every time? It gets rediculously difficult to find anything in the future - please keep them all in the same place and thread! And please keep them coming,

Peter

Maybe for general posting, have a thread like a topic ..."show me your tagged stamps"

We are working on developing a tagging database on Stamp Smarter. Not only will this centralize all the tagging info but it also supports full indexing/searching/filtering.
Don

I intentionally broke these into multiple posts. I hadn't planned to continue with this miniseries. I thought about the search aspect by at least having a common portion to the title. I also made the assumption correctly or incorrectly that separate posts would generate more visits than repeat visits to the same post. My goal was to generate interest in an area of the hobby that doesn't have as much easy to find information as other areas.

The transportation issues are always popular so I specifically started there. My goal was to highlight a limited set of specific examples.

The second post focused on fairly recent modern stamps to try and generate interest in modern issues. I see to many posts in other threads from people saying they gave up on modern issues for one reason or another.

Lastly, if I managed to spark the interest of even one person to head down this path I wanted them to quickly score a find. I remember the thrill when I started examining stamps under SW light and found my first EFO. I wanted others to quick experience this same thrill. I had planned to hold off on the last post another week, but my plane got delayed so I used the time to generate the post.