What Is A Gutter Pair

I looked at a few auctions on ebay and came across something I have neve heard before in my time collecting. Its gutter-pair. What is that referring to? Is it a bad thing? Thanks in advance.

Most commonly, in U.S. collections, you will find gutter pairs in the 1935 Special Printings.

A gutter pair, as the name implies, is created when a stamp from one pane and a stamp from another pane have a wide gutter between them.

Here's some examples from the 1935 Special Printing:





These are your standard pairs with the gutter between. To obtain these you needed a full sheet of panes, which were available to collectors in 1935 when these stamps were released. Another popular configuration is a cross-gutter block of four. Here's an example:





To give you a better idea of the configuration possibilities, take a look at this next item. It is a single pane of the souvenir sheet surrounded by parts of eight other panes. You end up with four cross-gutter blocks and several gutter pairs.




There are perforated gutter pairs, as well. These are generally the result of a problem in the production of the stamps, such as a foldover, and are usually an EFO as a result. In the modern era, there are die cut gutter pairs created from press sheets as well.

Hope this helps.

This refers to a pair of stamps connected by a plain, unprinted strip between them. They are common on British stamps ever since early in Queen Elizabeth's reign. They occur because Royal Mail generally prints its stamps in two panes with a gutter strip in between. You may also come across the term "traffic light pairs (or strips or blocks)" These are an extension of the gutter pair phenomenon in which circular spots of the various colors are printed in the gutter, sometimes suggesting the three consecutive round lights in a set of traffic lights

Here's an example of a traffic light gutter pair

Here's a copy of a sheet of em….

Askphil:

Gutter: the blank space between the panes of a sheet of stamps; gutters can be found on many of the "Farley's Follies"
stamp issue of 1935.
Gutter ornaments: ornamentation in the colors of the stamps, printed in the pane gutters to use unprinted official paper.
Gutter pair: two stamps with the selvage or gutter remaining between the pair.
Gutter snipe: miscut of the pane leaving the entire gutter and occasionally a portion of the adjoining stamp.
Me.
Note the gutter between 2 panes, can be referred to as an "Interpanneau Pair"
Interpanel: (Sp.) gutter, space between stamps on full sheets.
Interpanneau: (Fr.) gutter.

Thank you everyone. I learned something today.

I was wondering about the colors used in the gutter of the stamps. If I'm not mistaken the colors used appear to match the colors used in the designs of the stamps. Is it possible this was a tool used by the printers to determine when certain colors were running low or had run out? I've come across stamps where a particular color was missing from the stamp. These error stamps usually sell for a premium. I think the colors in the gutters may have served a practical purpose as a quality control safeguard during production.

Yes, Tom, that's how I see it.
I recently posted an example on Australia thread, the missing colour in the selvedge being proof of the missing colour in the stamp.

(In that case it was just a small dot of yellow in the bird's eye)

Otherwise one can debate whether the colour was removed chemically.

Thanks for the answer Stampman2002.

There is always the very helpful glossary at stampsmarter.com for your future questions about philatelic terminology

http://www.stampsmarter.com/Learnin...aryHome.html