The Decimal Equivalent For Kiusalas - Dekker After Jan Dekker (1919-1989)

The Kiusalas gauge being the distance between the centres of two adjacent perforation holes in 1/1000 of an inch, the decimal equivalent would be the same distance in 1/100th of a millimeter.

For instance the 13 1/3 Legrand gauge corresponds to 150 [= 2000/13 1/3].

Let 150 be the Dekker gauge and L the Legrand gauge, then:

K = 2000 / (L * 2.54) and

D = 2000 / L or K * 2.54

Jan Dekker was a Dutch philatelist with a special interest in the printing technical aspects of philately. He wrote a series of articles about the stamp production in Haarlem, the Netherlands, by Joh. Enschedé and Sons, the printing history of 19th century Dutch and Colonial stamps and the subsidiary production for Belgium, Luxemburg, Transvaal, Persia and Guatamala. Later on he continued to describe the 20th century production.

Jan Dekker discovered that the most frequent gauges of Dutch stamps had to do with the decimal system.

The heart-to-heart distance [between two adjacent perforation holes] often was:

1.4mm => 14.28
1.5mm => 13.33333
1.6mm => 12.50
1.75mm => 11.42
1.8mm => 11.11

D being 140, 150, 160, 175, 180 etc...