Scott 137 With Late State H Grill?

Thank you very much, this helped me (also before you added the last part).
Also, by reading the Scott text and this thread and your answer I learned more and have a good overview over this now.

essayk

Thank you for your answer. It has helped me also. I am finding grills difficult. Another stamp I'm looking at has unusual features. Reference is made to grill points that are horizontal and vertical. In the stamp below I am seeing what appear to be diagonal points. Maybe it is just gum that has settled in or some other unknown factor. These points are most visible on the left side of the grill. Should a feature like this be disregarded as an anomaly or is it helpful in classification?

Not an anomalous appearance but rather a normal looking F-grill. The grill points on the F-grill, among others, consisted of pyramidal bosses that naturally form small diagonal valleys in the paper. Lighting angle can accentuate some features and mute others.

sinclair2010

Thank you. I've seen a number of different features on grills. This is the first one I've seen like this. Sadly the bottom of this stamp has been trimmed a bit. I'm going to use this stamp as a reference example of an F grill.

gettinold,
More information including drawings of "what appear to be diagonal points"

http://stampsmarter.com/learning/ID...8Grills.html
Don

Don

Thank you for the link. I love the way it has been organized. To know that some grills are so rare that most people will never see one simplifies the process. I came across something on the page that was useful today while looking at some grills. I have a grill where the bottom row wasn't straight. I believe it is a fake. Earlier in this thread John Becker raised a question about whether a cancel or grill came first. In this stamp I think the cancel came first.







I noticed the fibers in the cancel which had no ink on them. Leads me to believe the paper was punctured from the reverse side with something. What I see on the reverse loosely resembles a grill. No grill I've ever seen but I haven't seen all that many. Biggest feature is the bottom row. It isn't straight.

Definitely not a legitimate grill. (Also note the secret mark is present.)

I am certainly not an expert on grills, but to expand on my earlier comment:
Beyond the basic ID of the stamp/grill, look at how the grill and the cancel interact with each other. Here is a scan cropped from a full cover, note how the cancel does not quite hit the bottom of the points. I did not see this feature on your initial post and knew it needed closer examination, which came very fast from others.



The point being to be skeptical of grills and look at every aspect of the stamp in determining its ID and genuineness. Both grills and cancels can be faked of course.

Lastly, I like your images showing normal exposures of the front and back, then an exaggerated scan of the back. The good images make for good responses!

John

Thank you for the compliment. Images are worth 1000 words. Glad they help. I have encountered some dubious material and appreciate the warning regarding this. Unfortunately the underworld of the hobby seems to exist unchecked. Education and information is our only defense.

Found a couple more dubious grills. Dimensions don't match known examples.

@gettinold

Your last two stamps both appear to be on soft paper, which rules out any grill. The stamp on the right is Scott #209, and is definitely not a candidate for a grill. The stamp on the left has the secret mark and looks to be on soft paper hence Scott #188. The American Bank Note Co did not revive the use of Steel's grill patent, so these are out.

But even if the stamp on the left had been hard paper, it would have been produced by the Continental Bank Note Co whose experimental revival of grilling had a radically different grill format and is not believed to have seen postal use (the known examples in collector hands having come from Steel himself.

essayk

Thank you. They seemed suspicious to me due to their unusual dimensions. The 209 in Scott didn't include a Grill making it a candidate for the fake file. The 188 could have had a Grill but not one that looks like this. Another candidate for the fake file. My reference file for fakes is getting larger all the time. Might as well make use of them that way. Hopefully, by posting them here, someone else has learned what fakes look like.

@gettinold said:




This is a curious remark. Given the soft paper and a secret mark, what makes you say it "could have had a grill?"

essayk

Sorry for the confusion. I should have been sleeping instead of posting.