Show Your US 1851-57 Imperforate Stamps

jaxom100, I agree that that is a nice 88L3. I like the color.

On page 86 of this thread, red, blue, and green Lancaster hand stamps are shown, likely all from PA.

Also on page 86 is a black Lancaster, Massachusetts CDS. The A at the top of the PA cancels appears to be centered, but the A at the top of the Massachusetts CDS is right of center. Since the cancel on your stamp shows the A right of center, this may indicate you have a Lancaster, Massachusetts CDS.

The spacing of the letters on the Lancaster, Massachusetts CDS looks inconsistent to me, with the spacing between N-C and S-T appearing to be wider than the other spacings. This may explain why the middle letter of the town name is not centered.

That is a nice 3 line above with Philadelphia Cancel. I wonder if it is a better color? Lets see what the others offer on that subject.
As to Lancaster, there also is one in Ohio which might be a possibility as well. Is there a place to index for the town CDS? TIA

Yes, the Philadelphia stamp is from position 68L3, a "Three Rows" variety, with one extra line at right.

#11A position 48L2L tied to piece with STEAM cancel:

Here's another example of the side frame line transferred very lightly from the master die via the transfer roll being visible alongside the recut right frame line. In this case, the frame line was cut with such a big S-curve, that the original line shows to the left near the top, and to the right near the bottom.

This shows best in the third image, a 4800-DPI scan compressed to 10 percent vertically.

I especially like that this is an earlier plate 1L printing (13R1L) because so many plate 1L stamps don't show fine details well.

Got a 10A on trade! Was told plate 0, 1 line recut ULT, Relief A. No idea what any of that actually means, and don't really need to know since I'm not a plate collector, but considering the source, I take it as gospel.

Hi Magsus,

Nice stamp! Thanks for showing it. Are there any markings written on the back of it indicating the position number? This is important.

One of the plates that was used to print the 1851-57 3-cent imperforate stamps bore no plate number, so it was designated as plate 0 by philatelists.

After the 1851-57 3-cent stamp design was transferred to the printing plate, many of the details, especially the frame lines, had to be strengthened with an engraving tool to make the impressions look better. This "recutting" was done by hand to all 2600 positions on the plates. As a result, each of the 2600 positions is unique to the trained eye, and each stamp can be identified as being printed from a specific plate, and a specific position by its recutting features.

The single line recut in the upper-left triangle on your stamp is one of those features.

Here is a closeup of a stamp with three lines recut in the upper-left triangle for comparison. This stamp is from sheet position 49R1L, which means the 49th position from the right pane of 100 stamps printed from plate 1 in the late state. Each sheet of 200 stamps had a left and right pane of 100 stamps each.

Nothing on the back, but have confidence considering whom it came from. I received it from a person named Charles DiComo who has many complete plates of this design. He has also written papers on the design. So my confidence in him would actually be higher than if I sent it in for a cert.

Magus, I agree with your comments about Charles.

Gary that's an excellent post giving a quick explanation of plating.

Thanks, Stephen.

Magguss, Yes, you can absolutely have confidence in stamps from Charles DiComo. I've been corresponding with him for over 20 years, and he was very influential in my early studies of the issue.

If you haven't done so yet, I invite you to check out the U. S. Philatelic Classics Society's web page on the issue.

https://www.uspcs.org/stamps-covers...51-3c-issue/

Here's an early plate 1L printing - position 12R1L. The color is 1852 late claret.

It has a tiny dot below the upper left diamond block. While it is very clear on this stamp, I can barely distinguish it on the Chase print and in the online images.

Does anyone have a 12R1L that shows this dot? If so, I'd appreciate seeing it posted here, as it may help confirm the consistency of this marking.

On both of the images at stampplating - which includes the Chase one, it shows up well, I think. It is shaped like yours, thus unmistakeable but certainly not as strong.

Hi Classic Coins --

Further your post about the dot below the ULDB on 12R1L -- here is a scan of my copy -- not the best impression -- but the dot is clearly there.

The dot would appear to be a consistent plating characteristic -- as in addition to the Chase and Lund copies on stampplating.com (as noted by txstamp) -- the StampSmarter copy and the two copies on Steve Ruecker's website -- Stamps4Collectors.com -- also show the dot.

Regards // ioagoa

txstamp, Thanks for your comments.

ioagoa, Thanks for posting the images of your 12R1L showing the dot.

I appreciate the collaboration. I added a note about the dot to the Stamp Smarter plating database.