I Want This But What Is Wrong With The Perfs?

I never saw perfs like this before, what is wrong with them the way they cross over each other and run into each other?

Quite normal Louise,
They are "Line Perforated" as many early stamps are.

"Comb perforated" usually are recognised with a similar "dent" at each corner. (Australian idiom)

Comb Left, Line Right.

This is normal for the time period in which these were issued. It wasn't until much later (maybe the 80s?) that "bulls-eye perfs" were introduced. Before that, the horizontal & vertical perfs did not normally meet at a common point. The older technique was called line perforation, the later stroke perforation.

Thank you both so much for the information.

In the interests of broadening the conversation, I would differ with JLL's comment about the frequency with which line perforating was used in the past. I don't collect US at all, so I can't comment about US, however comb perforating was the norm for foreign stamps at least as far back as the early 20th century. Certainly true of British, French Spanish, Portuguese, Italian, and Dutch areas. You do find stamps with line perfs in earlier stamps for these areas, but in my experience less commonly than comb.

Shermae,

you are right as far as stamps produced in typography are concerned. However stamps printed in recess - most of the pre-1970 stamps of the USA and Canada - could not be perforated by comb apparatus as the stamp paper got moistened before printing [wet recess] which made the paper stretch and shrink and so unreliable for combs! In the 1930-ies, however, dry recess was introduced and since then comb perforations were the norm. Still in the USA and Canada the printers stuck to line-perforation till the end of the last century.

Rein