26A Left Line Placement

I've been trying to make sense of this and would appreciate input from the community. I'm confused by the placement of the outer left line as it almost appears to be where the inner line should be. It's difficult for me to see if the lines extend beyond the design of the stamp but both seem to have a pretty jagged appearance. I also wonder if the bottom perfs should be considered suspect.

The unfortunate reddish tinting is due to a prior owner's annotations on the back ("1860" and "VF") in red ink.

Hello RK1468 --

I believe your stamp is not a type IV Scott #26A, but rather a type III Scott #26 -- as the side frame lines are perfectly straight and show no breaks at either top or bottom.

By way of background, with regard to the type III Scott #26, the vertical side frame lines were engraved onto the plate as a single continuous line from the top of the plate to the bottom of the plate using a straight edge as a guide. Conversely, the side frame lines on the type IV Scott #26A were engraved by hand for each individual stamp -- resulting in breaks in the line between each stamp and lines that are not perfectly straight.

By the way, one thing to look out for on these stamps is that top row and bottom row Scott #26 stamps are often mistaken for the scarcer Scott #26A -- as the "end points" of the side frame lines are mistaken as a "break" in the frameline.

In terms of the distance between the side frame lines and the design of the stamp, there is a very wide variety seen on this issue -- sometimes the line being way too far from the design, others times way too close, like yours.

Hope this answers your question.

Regards //ioagoa

edit -- add on comment -- on the perf question, I am not a perf expert, but I have seen thousands of these 1857 3-cent type III stamps and the perfs all look good to me.

Many thanks for the input, u/ioagoa! My challenge is that I only have an handful in my collection at this point and don't have a good appreciation for all the variants that exist in the wild. Easy to search online and find "good" examples that can be readily identified but definitely need more experience in understanding those that deviate from the norm. One of my goals is to develop a small study collection so that I can better understand the 10/11/25/26 issues. May eventually delve into plating but realize I need to crawl before I can walk or even consider running!