New Member From Honduras And I've Got A Question Already

Hello fellow stamp buddies! I am a stamp collector from Honduras, consider myself a newbie although I have been collecting since about 15 years ago but never got too much into the hobby since it can be quite intimidating at first with all the information and stuff one has to learn and collect to truly enjoy the hobby.

Now that I have more time, knowledge, and money to invest in my hobby I am taking it quite seriously. These last months I've been organizing my physical albums and now I'm working on making a digital database of my stamps after having read a lot of posts on this forum.

I've been reading and studying A LOT of very good posts full of great info on this forum these last few weeks and this has been by far the best source of info I've found online, even though I already have a good amount of bookmarked links in my browser, so many many thanks to everyone in this forum that lends their time and effort to share knowledge and help others.

Currently I only collect Honduras, Costa Rica, and a few USA ( inherited) stamps. For some reason USA is very intimidating for me to start on so I think most of my efforts will go to collecting Central American countries in the long run.

Now to the question, I was organizing my stamps and found something I don't quite know what it is. Searching in the forum I found it may be something called" double perforation" although the pictures I found don't quite look like mines since my double perforation is on top of each other. So without further ado here are the pictures of my normal stamp and one of my, allegedly, double perf. Comments, tips, everything is welcomed!

Oh I almost forgot! Any tip or comment regarding the quality of the post and of the images I uploaded is GREATLY appreciated. Are the images good resolution? My scanner only goes up to 600dpi with tiff extension. Are the black borders good or should I make them thinner or wider? Thanks!


normal stamp, Honduras 2003


Allegedly double perforations mounted on each other, Honduras 2003

I found a reference online (link below) to a 2003 set of stamps commemorating the 50th anniversary of OIRSA (Organismo Internacional Regional de Sanidad Agropecuaria), but I don't know anything about Honduran stamps. Hope this helps.

https://www.freestampcatalogue.com/...ars-oirsa-5v

Welcome!

Dale

I believe your 2nd stamp is simply a badly centred stamp, as are some of those shown by Walkman82.

You can see an extreme case of double perforation on this thread:

https://goscf.com/t/57814

To your question about photos, I think the black border on the second is better. Otherwise for the scanner that you have these are fine.

It seems strange only the horizontal perforations have been affected. The "doubling" extends to the right of the righthand perforations that show no sign of doubling.

It is difficult to see how this could be a genuine perforation error.

Agree it seems odd. Could the machine perf normally, then begin doubling, then resume normally, all within the horizontal space of a single stamp? Hard to envision (but what do I know?)

Thanks for the replies!

I agree with all of you, I don't know how could that even happen. I've thought of all the possible ways but it is weird that only one section of the horizontal border is reperforated and not all of it.

Which stamp should I keep for my personal collection? The normal or the abnormal one? The other one will go to my trading stock although I really like the shark-like teeth on the abnormal one.

I shall ask my local stamp federation, maybe they have a block of these that could better show what happened.

The question has been up for less than half a day, so be patient. Don't dismiss what we don't fully understand yet. For the moment, I would recommend they both should be retained.

If you can determine the type of perforation, you might get a better picture of whether this can be due to doubling. Modern stamps, often, are rotary perforated. If the paper slipped or got stuck, this could happen, but then you would expect the stamp to be wider or narrower than normal, depending on whether the stamp or perforator slipped. Also, it would require the stamp to have been perforated sideways. You could check this by looking at the back of the stamps. The edge of the perforations on one of the sides may show swarf. However, as I said before, it seems strange the perforations on the righthand side do not show any sign of doubling, when those at top and bottom that align with those on the righthand side do.

An old comb perforator that perforates sheets by row or column should have shown doubling on the righthand side. But the length of the doubling does not coincide with the width of a stamp. Since the doubling does not continue throughout the margin, it is unlikely the stamp was perforated twice with an ordinary comb perforator.

I would definitely keep both items. If nothing else, the reperfed one is a curiosity, and they always add interest to a collection. Look at the discussion it's already prompted. It certainly leads to further reflection about the perforation process in general: something that concerns all collectors all the time.

Hello Honduras! Welcome! I'm JIM HAY and I am brand new as well. I am interested in the "Americas" primarily south of Mexico with, like you, a US collection as perhaps a tertiary focus - I'm intrigued by grills, especially. In any case, I look forward to conversing with you as I navigate through the Central and South America's and ultimately narrowing down my collection to just two or the countries there.
Cheers!
JIM