Please Help Me, What Am I Doing Wrong?

As you know I inherited a small collection and have been trying to understand the aspects of identifying them. So I took a general 2 cent Washington stamp to measure, check perfs and so forth. This way I would know I'm doing it correctly. It's a common no value stamp that has many topics and discussions just because of others thinking they have a valuable stamp, I've been reading a lot. So what in the heck did I do wrong. This one has a vertical perf., stamp design is 19.5mm x 22mm which is all normal. So here is where my problem comes in. I have the Precision US Specialty Multi Gauge and the closest I can get the perfs is 9.5 not the normal 10 or 11. This was supposed to be practice for me and I do not understand what I'm doing wrong. 10 just does not fit at all. Here are photos. Be brutal as I really am confused and need to be set straight. Thanks all. Got as close with the pictures as possible so you could see. First is the 9.5 then the 10
Thanks for any help

I can't see what you are doing wrong. Try with other stamps and see how they measure up. If they come out as you would expect, you're the gauge is measuring correctly and the stamp is indeed 9.5. Then the question is, why...

I wonder if the stamp has been reperforated?

I was wondering the same. Please check the other side.

Scott rounds-off the perforation rate, which creates confusion like this. The true value is somewhere between 9.5 and 10. Someone will share a more exact value for us no doubt. Don't sweat it, you have a normal Scott 599 coil.

Thanks all. I thought I was losing my mind...too late, ha ha. I really appreciate the feedback. What would looking at the back do? What should I be looking for? Thanks again.

Here are the back images. What do you think? Was it re-perforated?

No, your stamp is not altered. This thread may be helpful:

https://goscf.com/t/69080

Maybe it is the new gauge I just got. This stamp is rotary, 11 x 10.5 perf. When I measure it does not match. I measure from outside to outside as shown in the photos. It starts normal with 19mm, but then I get 22.25mm. Do those get rounded up also? You can see a definite gap before the 22.50mm mark. Does this seem right? Some come out perfect just like they are supposed to and others just do not match anything I can find. Thought these would be good practice stamps Joke is on me it seems

Hey John, just read the thread. Very informative and confusing all at once. More reading to do. I'll get there.

Am I doing the measuring correctly? I know some measure from all points, but I thought it best to go from outside to outside as some of the stamps have a wide boarder. Just have time on my hands and figured I would get to know this inherited collection. Oh, and is it just me or does anyone else find that the flat plate stamps seem messy close up? Splattery, if you'll forgive the non-word. At least I think that is the type I'm looking at. If this gauge is off on mm it may be off on other parts too.
Cheryl

To ID US stamps of this era, follow these steps.
1. Determine the design
2. Determine the perforation gauge
3. Determine any watermarks (if watermarked)
4. Determine print type (flat plate, rotary, offset)

For #4, there is no requirement to measure; dimensional tolerances really limit the usefulness of any published catalog dimensions.

Please note that we typically see folks trying to measure when they think they have stumbled across a rarity and are using the design dimensions as 'proof'. We strive to instead steer collectors towards learning how to identify US stamp printing types (flat plate, rotary, offset) by other criteria. You can learn how to do this, and avoid the frustration of measuring anything, in the many threads in this community and/or on Stamp Smarter.
http://stampsmarter.com/learning/Ma...methods.html
http://stampsmarter.com/learning/ID...arities.html
Don

Love that site. It is saved in the favorites and I'm reading through the articles. Slowly but surely. This is so helpful. Thanks for the info. For my purposes I took just a common variety of stamps to verify this gauge. If it is off then I needed to know. It seems the perfs are the best and that at least I know is right. Fun stuff and thanks again.

So I just read through those two sites specifically given. Very informative as always, but now I'm really confused. Here are two very different stamps from two different printing years. The two cent with leaves I was under the impression is a flat plate (common and don't care about the Scott #), correct? The other with the two circled is rotary, correct? The reason I ask is because the literature says that ink on the back of a rotary is virtually unheard of, so does that mean this is a flat plate stamp? Or possibly, I think maybe it collected some of the envelope or package it was on, that would be more likely right?
Thanks again.

The second stamp, with the 2's in the ovals at the bottom was a workhorse stamp for about 15 years and was printed by both flat (early) and rotary (late) presses. And with several perforation rates. And in sheet, booklet, and coil formats. Fortunately, there are not many actual combinations of these variables. In your case, the stamp shows red ink set-off on the reverse side. This positively indicates a flat plate printing, almost certainly a Scott 554, from a sheet, note the remaining perforation at the lower right that wasn't cut off by the scissors.

Neat. I'm slowly getting it. This is fun.