Franklin Has A Funny Face. Scott #40

Which is why I said:




Perhaps my point would have been more clearly articulated If I had said "electronically spliced"

Here's a 600 DPI scan of the back side of this stamp. Same scanner and resolution as the first scan of the front. I didn't do any photoshopping or anything like that. The image is just as it came off the scanner.

I don't see any sort of a seam where the stamp has been cut and pasted.

Fascinating.

I've re-scanned the front here. Also the same scanner at 600 DPI. The stamp is being scanned while held in a 102 card.

The problem with the face is why I posted this. It really has me puzzled.

Also, I'm sorry I wasn't around yesterday after posting this originally. My 94 year old father is having some medical issues and it's taking up quite bit of my time. Sorry about that.

This came out of a collection we bought over in Europe a couple of months ago. With the holidays and the medical issues I mentioned, I just took this out of the album it was in yesterday. and, yes, we are collector-dealers down here in Texas. I see a fair amount of altered and repaired material, particularly with the old US stuff that comes out of Europe. This one was strange enough that I thought I'd share it. I thought maybe somebody had dabbed some blue ink along the face. But I don't see any extra ink showing up in transmitted light. And, they would seem to have done a pretty good job of matching for color.

The part that has not been altered is position 20 from the reprint plate. No doubt.

http://www.slingshotvenus.com/Frank...5_Pos20.html

One more datapoint - the reprint plate was of 100 subjects only. There was no centerline.

Position 20 will have a right sheet margin.

I don't just from memory, recall seeing any re-issues with straight-edges. If this started as a #40, I suspect it was not a straight-edge originally. FWIW. If it were a proof, it could have had a large right sheet margin.

If one scans a circle (or an oval), and your scanner somehow 'skips' a couple columns of pixels, to the right of center, you will end up with a downward step up high and an upward step down low. I don't know the details of how a scanner works, but geometrically, this explanation could result in what we see with the original scan.

This is only a guess: the deformed face could be caused by an extra 'glob' of ink, or an ink-soaked dust bunny, and then when the next sheet is placed on top of this sheet, the 'glob' or dust bunny would smear ink around. The color match between the 'good' part of the stamp and the 'bad' part of the stamp appears to be perfect, so it seems like it MUST be an original printing problem.

The stamp is clearly re-perfed at right. Many of the rest of the perfs almost appear to be gum-soaked. I wonder if this stamp was (VERY) mistakenly regummed and subsequently had the regumming soaked off, but the gum soaked discoloration wasn't completely removed.

I don't doubt this is a #40, but the reasons why it wasn't put up as an individual auction lot are fairly obvious. I would call this an interesting printing oddity. I also think it has seen more doctoring than a hospital.

Would be interesting to see scanned in fluid, might reveal if / where it was spliced. I have good luck with this by sandwiching the stamp between two pieces of poly film.

I suspect a repair because both the front and back scans are very sharp in places and unsharp in others, as though the scanner was unable to focus across the surface. Looks like a fun little investigation.

oldurn - Sorry, I meant to welcome you to the board. I'm also in TX and fully understand going through eldercare issues.

The stamp you posted is entertaining.

I may be in the minority here but I don't have a problem with the right side perfs.

I strongly suspect trolling and will just say it. As for color consistency that can easily be done by Photoshop. I had a case a couple of years ago where the video was photoshopped. I tell you a 13-year-old could do it. This is nonsense in my humble opinion and just cooked up by a troll to get attention. I find it offensive.

I don't think this image is made by Photoshop, it's just looks like a normal stamp to me.

I just wonder what should be a mystery or special about this stamp, it's just a bit more ink there (is this called overinked, I think?).

So isn't it just another normal plate variety ? Look at my recent thread about plate varieties! :-) I saw many very interesting plate varieties in US stamps of the 19th century not mentioned in Scott and not getting much premium (and in this case it's even not a constant variety in this thread).

Can we get a look at it in fluid (face-up and face-down)?

I suspect the image became damaged after sticking to the gum of another stamp, and its surface hurriedly ripped away in this spot.

The resulting white areas were colored-in, but the added coloring is not an exact match as a close-up reveals.

I drew a line just below where there appears to be a repair across the entire face of the stamp.