Question About An Offset 2 Cent Washington

Hi

Came across this stamp and noticed something amiss about the letter N in cents. What would this be called?





Scott mentions a line through certain letters in Cents but I'm not sure they refer to this.

David Bennett authored a multi-part series of articles in the United State Specialist in the early 1970s under the title "Constant Minor Varieties on the Offset Printing Issue of 1918-20". This seems to be a good description for these. The offset plates were made photographically and many hundreds of these small flaws are cataloged in the article series above and then a few years later in Loran C. "Cloudy" French's "Encyclopedia of Plate Varieties on U.S. Bureau-Printed Postage Stamps". French illustrates variety #123 similar to yours also noting a dot in the top gutter above the E in Postage, which your stamp seems to show also. The Scott catalog is completely inadequate for these - the next level of specialty literature is required.

John

Thank you. I will keep my eye out for those two references. With any luck I'll manage to find one or both of them.

If you are, or become a member of the United States Stamp Society, you have full access to all past issues of the United States Specialist/BIA Journals. They are digitized and searchable on the USSS website.