Help With Plating For A Novice

I had what I thought to be a Sc 10 for sale on ebay. A prospective buyer told me it was an 11 so I pulled the auction. Then I was reading the many posts about plating the 1 and 3 cent 1851-55 issues and kept reading until I found the link to the US Philatelics Classics Society and the Plating wizard and associated articles. After reading through the guide relief article and the plating article and "wasting" most of my day (instead of working from home--I'll have to make that up) I gave the plating a wack. The kicker is, my color discrimination was never very good so I was hoping for some ID with the plating but sure it would be an 11.

However, my efforts with the plating wizard leaves me with 53R1E. It is an A relief, I think it has a recut in the LL triangle and extended frame line on LL. I'm not sure about the single vertical recut to the LL triangle.

Sorry for the long story but I learned a great deal and I'm hoping to learn more...

ehall928,

You should post higher resolution scans of each corner and/or the whole stamp. You should be looking for what is distinctive about your stamp to compare to images from the plating site.

You can also start reading through an active thread where a lot of plating is being shown and discussed, "Show your U.S. 1851-57 Imperforate Stamps"

More 3 cent plating information here
http://stampsmarter.com/features/SQ...Plating.html
Don

I can't say definitively by your scan but it looks like your stamp is from plate 4.

In my opinion that's not a recut line in the LL triangle. What you see is part of the original design.

That is helpful. Thank you. The post about 1851 imperfs is what started me down this plating journey. Here is a new scan. Based on color with my eyes it is an 11 but I am still intrigued by the plating. And there I go again, spending time away from the emails I should be answering...

What are the defining features that I am missing?

I can read and study all I want but the trained eye will always rule and my conclusions will probably be wrong.

I have become a bit fond of this little piece of paper and it will go into my collection rather than ebay even if it is pedestrian--though how can anything that old be considered pedestrian?

Thank you for the help!

It is a pretty stamp but please use a black background ?

Peter

With a black background...

Hi ehall928, Your stamp is a #11 and, as stampcrow indicated, it was printed from plate 4.

I downloaded your large image and straightened it in an image editor. I then compressed it to 10 percent of its original height to enhance the curves in the side frame lines. Using this technique, I was able to compare your stamp to the Carroll Chase Smithsonian plating prints for plate 4, and the plate 4 images on stampplating.com and plate your stamp to position 76R4.

Here is the compressed image of your stamp overlaid on the compressed 76R4 image from stampplating.com to show the matching right frame line. In addition to the curves matching, the right frame line is thinner in two places; near the middle and near the top:

Thank you so much! You have been doing a lot of this lately. I saw you do this for another stamp in the imperforate thread and should have thought of doing it myself. Next time I will need to push my bounds and dive in. The stamp has a home :)

You're welcome, ehall928. I'm glad you decided to keep the stamp. It has nearly four margins, is lightly canceled, and would look fine in any collection.