Show Your US 1851-57 Imperforate Stamps

This March 17, 1852 cover from Charlottesville VA has a good example of docketing, showing that the addressee received the letter on March 20 1852 and answered it on March 24 1852. The stamp is from position 29L2e, so it's a fairly late usage of a #10A. There are no contents.

Nice cover Classic - and very nice stamp.

Hi Classic --

That is a very nice cover -- a great example of docketing -- and a really nice stamp. Thanks for showing it.

Here is another cover showing an example of docketing -- this one sent to a lawyer -- and docketed with side-bar annotations seemingly about the matter to which the contents relate.

Another interesting thing about this cover is that the stamp is position 1R8 -- (although a perforated Scott # 25, not an imperf) -- which shows another previously undocumented recut variety #39 -- (the other undocumented position being 32L8 as discussed in this thread back on November 20 and 21, 2021).

At the risk of being repetitive -- Recut #39 was announced in the USPCS Chronicle by Bill McDaniel and described by him as follows "Variety 39: Line joins lower right corner to upper right comer of stamp below."

McDaniel mentioned in his article that he identified the applicable positions by a "cursory examination of the Smithsonian Chase photos" -- and in the case of position 1R8, (just like the 32L8 previously discussed) he understandably missed it.

Link to the Chronicle article is here (hopefully this link will work -- but if not, see Chronicle #188 / Nov. 2000 / Vol. 52 / No. 4):

http://chronicle.uspcs.org/PDF/chro...88/12115.pdf

Regards // ioagoa

That's an excellent cover, ioagoa. Thanks for the useful information on the recut varieties.

Another great thing about the Middletown cover is that the docketing shows that the letter was posted, received, and answered on the same day. Although Middletown and Meriden CT are only about 9 miles apart, the USPS wouldn't match that service speed today.

Gentlemen, those are very nice covers. Thanks for sharing.

Seriously nice covers!

So, here's a little different subject. I picked up this grungy 3 cent imperf for sort of an experiment in cleaning.
First, please give me your grungy stamp cleaning ideas.
Second, I'll try the most reasonable.
Third, I'll report findings.

Hi Moyock,
Good stewardship (which is what we like to promote); clear cool water only.
Don

Distilled water, preferably.

Bathed my grungy 3 cent in a cool bath of clean, distilled water for roughly 5 minutes. I'm hesitant to let 170 year old stamps soak for a long period of time. The back cleaned up nicely, removed old hinge remnants and got quite a lot of grunge off. However, the front seems unaffected by the soak.

Grungy and unsoaked left, soaked right

On really dirty or grungy ones I'll sometimes take a soft paint brush and gently wipe the stamp right after I pull it out of the water. Sometimes you need a little bit more help to get the glue, dirt, mildew, mold, etc to release. They key word here is "gently".

Harper1249

Reporting on the recent cleaning attempt. I tried Harper1249's suggestion to "lightly" wipe the grungy imperf with a soft paint brush. Thought my wife wasn't too happy at the prospect of me using one of her paint brushes for my stamp stuff, she begrudgingly offered the prerequisite tool.

So, here you go. No significant improvement.

Left pic stamp as received, center after bath, right after bath and light wiping

Short of repeating your process or lengthening your soak time, this may just be the patina this stamp has acquired. Still looks to be a good margin copy though.

All --

A bit of "show and tell" this evening -- as working through the "unplated pile" came across this stamp -- with a boxed West Hartford, Ct. cancel -- (see Simpson's, page 18, tracing #35, b-arc-39x23, rarity factor 6) -- and even better, the cancel looks genuine to me.

As a bonus -- I plated it to position 67L5L -- which is probably one of the absolute best examples of how the rust spots from plate 5L showed up on the printed stamps. More specifically, in addition to the classic rust markings in the white space at the bottom of the medallion oval -- check out the area near the toga button and the shoulder where the rust spots show up as unusual shapes.

Regards // ioagoa

ioagoa - it almost appears that the toga button has been doubled. What a cool effect!

And, nice snag on that cancel!