1 Cent Coil 1912 Washington Stamp

Anyone know the scott no. for a 1 cent coil Washington(1912?),green,12 vertical perf. Can't even find one on the net.

The only 1-cent perf 12 coils are Franklins.

Here is a 'visual finder' on Stamp Smarter
http://stampsmarter.com/1847usa/was...ankmain.html
Don

Got three answers, thanks. But to be clear; the stamp is a 1 cent green Washington with vert perfs (12); not a Franklin. Top and bottom of the stamp are imperf. It is canceled with a football shaped cancel with vertical lines inside the football and says Chicago and a clear 1912 date is also there. the stamp is perfectly centered and the perfs are very clear an concise. Don't think the download of the stamp worked. Stamp Smarter dose not show this stamp.

If it is close to a 12, say 12.5 Maybe a 536 with cut perfs.? 536a it can't be. No used ever seen or known, so nope. It must be a 10 vertical perf not 12. you need to determine paper and printing type....

Note: it has to be a 10 vertical perf as indicated below. 536 and the rare 536a offset printed coil did not come out until 1919.

I work full time as a marketing exec, am a mom and am very new to collecting - it really only takes a few minutes to jump to the stamp smarter or similar site, and you can use a little deductive reasoning and boom. Its fun. :) good luck.

camp742

From the link provided:

The picture helps! Definitely perf 12, or very close. This leaves two possibilities, in my mind.

1. a Scott 405 sheet stamp which has been trimmed to resemble a coil type which never existed.

2. A Covel coil, see very end of the Vending and Affixing Machine Perforations section, which lists both 408 and 481 as having a perf 11.75 added to make their own coils with a Rosback perforator. With the Chicago cancel, this seems to be a real possibility.

A Covel Coil, that's a new one for me :) need to look that up.

The perforations on each side of the stamp are not parallel to the design frame or each other. The distance between them widens from top to bottom.

Again gents; thks for the great info. Now things are getting interesting. It is most definitely a perfect dead on 12 perf; not a 11.75; not even close to 11.75 (and 10 perf is absolutely a negative)in those old days of good quality control!!! So the covel is probably out of consideration as well. AS for a possible fake trim; at the bottom of the stamp with the black 1912 date; the ink does not border the cut (done a under a microscope and not a lupe)so it would have had to been a trim before the cancel. As for the border dimemsions; there is no room for perfs to have been trimmed from the top and bottom. And since this is a valid cancel; to fake it in 1912 and then use it to mail a letter doesn't make sense and a fake today by someone made it to perfect to detect as a fake (No is that good). Any suggestions? This truely may be the only one of its kind which makes it a little scary to say the least!

As for the top and bottom perfs being out of balance; thats due to the angle of the picture. The widths at top and bottom from the perf to stamp image are the same to within hundreds of millimeters under microscope as well and not a lupe; and thats with ink bleed off from the print of the stamp. (nice way a of saying their the same). Thks for looking though.

Being a flat plate stamp, 19 of every 100 has at least 1 natural straight edge. So quite possible the bottom edge is natural from its production and the top is trimmed, or vice versa of course. The point being "not all straight edges are equal"

Similarly, not all perf 10's, 11's, and 12's are equal, only rounded, very close approximations. I would recommend using a Kiusalas specialty gauge to find the exact perf rate.

A scan would be better than the skewed photograph.

That's the exact gauge I'm using. If you go from the stamp portrait to the imperf at the top and bottom; to shave off the perfing; the portrait would have to be off. That means the inked portrait would have had to been faked at production. That would make this stamp the perfect fake that can't be detected.

Could we see the back of the stamp too?

I'll try to get you that as well. There is slight bleed through of the green ink from the portrait line area but not much. A little bleed as well from the cancel. Some dope put 490 then 410 and crossed them out and then put 409. All in lite pencil. The back surface has the mottled feel to it; no shine of gum at all.