dudley - kind of. The 3c stamp, with all of its re-cutting on various plates, lends itself to classifying positions by the nature of the recut(s). Bill McDaniel carried the torch for this methodology by authoring numerous Chronicle, and other articles (Philatelic Congress book as well) basically sorting plate positions into buckets based upon the nature of recuts - and a few other points. That helps one narrow down a stamp to a discrete list of positions based upon criteria. It is certainly useful.
I should point out that not all 3c platers use this method. Some I know, just estimate the plate or set of plates to look at based upon general characteristics, and then do an exhaustive search of positions on that plate that match the relief. That is a thorough method, which is probably a bit less error-prone, in case you incorrectly 'categorize' the stamp you are looking for. Some combination of both is probably a good compromise, I would think.
The 1c stamp has always been a different critter, relative to the 3c stamp and ways to plate it. In part, this is because there have been more 3c platers over time, and methodologies for it are quite well developed now. Also, like I said, the 3c extensive re-cutting is a pretty obvious datapoint to grab onto, to form an elimination chart.
Several people, including njs, have devised some of their own datapoints on 1c stamps, to help categorize them, and allow for a similar experience with the 1c stamp. As of now, I think they keep their data in spreadsheets. This type of data could help plating A reliefs, from Roll #1 significantly, and also make Plates other than Plate 1-Late (which has recuts) much easier to plate.
The owner of the stampplating website is a registered user here now, and has done philately a great service by constructing it. I could not be more impressed than I am with the fact that someone finally took the initiative to actually program in these decision trees to help people plate the 3c stamp. This is the type of thing that could really help more people get engaged with 3c plating, since they can go to a website and push buttons, and maybe get an answer. In practice, it isn't quite that simple - as there are usually nuances to this -- making plating as much of an 'art' as it is a science, but this is a good start. |
Posted 10/25/2018 3:36 pm
