Show Your US 1851-57 Imperforate Stamps

Thank you, Sir. No homework tonight! Woo Hoo! =)

Hello All --

I agree that Moyock's stamp with the Elyria, OH cds cancel is 22R6.

This was a great group exercise to demonstrate the process of elimination -- the GD helped narrow down the possibilities to a few stamps -- but then each possibility needed to be further studied to either either eliminate it or to definitively confirm it.

These plate 6 and 7 stamps can be tough to plate -- especially the A relief's without GD's or other unusual varieties of recutting - as in many cases there is not much to go by except for the relationship of the 4 frame lines to the diamond blocks, the rosettes, the label blocks, and the tessellated work.

That said, in the case of Moyock's stamp, there is one additional confirming feature worth mentioning -- and that is the crossed frame lines at the upper right corner -- more specifically, the TFL extends a trifle beyond its intersection with the RFL.

Regards // ioagoa

edited to correct typo in reference to the crossed frame lines -- original post said upper left corner -- but should have said upper right corner.

Thanks ioagoa. Somehow I feel like saying, "wax on, wax off!" =)

That was a great exercise!

Moyock13, Getting back to this observation on your Elyria (22R6) stamp, I looked at some of my clearly-printed stamps, and it appears that the top dot in the upper left rosette may just touch, or impinge slightly into, the upper label block. This appears to be consistent with this issue, and not something that can be used as a plating characteristic.

Where a bit of ink pushes into the U on your stamp, is almost certainly just a one-time inking anomaly (not part of the rosette).

Here's a closeup of a clear printing:

Interesting. Wish I could get a scan that clean. I was curious of a consistent plate flaw, but I guess it's been debunked. I'll keep looking.

Thanks Classic Coins.

You're welcome.

Here's a horizontal pair, Sacramento CA.
Been trying to plate this. Banknoteguy! Need your assistance!

This is a hard one.

Not much distinctive to latch on to. The resolution of your image is not great. So, a couple questions. Do I see a double line recut in ULT of the right stamp? Looks like B profile but I can't really tell. What do you see?

The inner and outer frame lines on both stamps are virtually parallel. Maybe the left side of left stamp narrows a bit but not much. The right inner frame line on the left stamp is connected to the URT which will eliminate a lot of possibles.

This seems like plate 5L do you concur?

I think there are no guide dots -- I can see none at bottom of either and there is not one at top on right which implies not a top row stamp to me. Correct?

Cant really tell the spacing between UFL and ULB so that is out as a discriminator.

You can see the top frame line of the two stamps below but I don't see anything useful there.

Anything I missed before I start looking?

What relief do you think they are?

edit: I see it looks like you suggested B

Suggestion: Relief A tend to not have guide dots, and look a lot like this.

Well I agree, could be relief A. Can't really tell.

A scan of just the top left corner of the right stamp would tell and could be done either by rescanning just that piece of the stamp or possibly by just cropping that portion of the original scanned image and reposting.

Hi Banknoteguy and Moyock --

I agree that the stamp on the right definitely has 2 vertical lines recut in the ULT.

While the inner lines do look a bit weak -- which logically points to plate 5L as a starting point (maybe) -- there is only a single position on 5L with the 2 line recut in the ULT -- 63L5L -- which is a B relief -- with double dots at lower right -- and with noticeable rust marks -- and on the basis of the double dots alone is not a match to the right stamp in Moyock's pair. So plate 5L is now eliminated.

I agree that the scan resolution is really not sufficient for plating -- plus the stamps are sulphuretted which makes it hard to tell the color. While at first glance the pair does not look OB by way of either color or impression -- given the poor scan quality in combination with the sulphuretting -- I would not automatically rule out the possibility.

Moyock -- is there anyway you could rescan at a higher resolution and repost the image?

In any event -- here are my initial observations --

-- stamps are both relief A -- no break in the oval at top -- and no "B hump" at the bottom of the oval on either one. Resolution is too low to definitively rule out relief C -- that said, I do not see any "gash" on the toga button on either stamp -- so if by chance either of these were a C relief, the gash would have to be very faint. In any event, based on what I can see, I believe these are both relief A.

-- no guide dots at bottom of either stamp for sure (which generally speaking, is consistent with the Relief A rows). As an aside, the pair cannot be misplaced A reliefs in a bottom row as the TFL of the adjoining stamps below is visible.

-- using the Plating Wizard" on stampplating.com -- filtering through all 13 plates -- (i.e., using the following filtering criteria: relief A -- two inner lines recut -- and 2 vertical lines recut in the ULT -- the universe of possibilities is only 6 stamps.

Regards // ioagoa

Hints:

Yes, two lines recut in the upper left triangle of the right stamp, as mentioned.

Eighth row

I looked at those six possibilities only 75R1L looks possible and checking the stamp to the left 74R1L, still could be. Need to spend some time looking closer but a better image would help.

I noticed one more discriminating feature -- the left inner frame line on the left stamp ends clear of the rosette.

The 2-line recut is annotated in the left margin on the Chase print. However, the 2-line recut isn't attributed to this position in online guides.

The left inner frame line fades out about two thirds of the way down on the left stamp. This is consistent for this position.