Australia Postage Due, Scott J52, Acsc D107

This is the CofA multiple watermark, upright. Not well centered, but Mint, Never Hinged. The question is around the S of Australia. There is a version listed in ACSC that describes a Frame Plate Variety, (FP2)i as "White flaw on top of S of Australia". However, my copy looks nothing like the very poor example in ACSC. Any comments?

Great thread title Steve.
I only have the 1999 Catalogue, and not listed.

Opinion.
it is a "state" of the listing you offered, possibly an "early state"
Whatever has attached (or chipped from) the plate, has moved or grown.

Thanks for checking Rod. The odd mark lines up with an "A" from the CofA watermark, so could be just a one-off fault. Still interesting.

There is a member here on SCF that is a Postage Due specialist,
perhaps search this forum for him ("postage dues")
Then email him.

I think yours qualifies for interest, email Brusden White.

Hi Steve,

Season's Greetings to you and yours.

The 1½d stamp pictured is from 1925, and Crown over A (3rd) wmk.

It is definitely the 'flaw on S' variety, this appears in position 9 (3rd stamp, 2nd row) of the left pane of 60. Two frame plates were used and this is from frame plate 1.

It does not appear on sheets without a central gutter so the flaw appeared after the introduction of imprints and the central gutter in c1918. I suspect yours is an earlier stage of the flaw and the flaw worsened over time until the frame plate was removed from use in 1938.

The red value plate shows a white dot in the solid colour at the right of the '1' near the top. This confirms the position of the frame plate flaw because this flaw appears on stamp 9 as well.

In most values the red value plate was comprised of blocks of either 20 and 10 that were disassembled and reassembled for each printing (so the value plate flaw would not always correspond with the frame plate flaw), in the case of the 1½d value, the value plate and frame plate remained intact so the frame and value plate flaws are constant in relation to one another.

Although issued in 1925, this value remained on issue and in use until the late 1950s.


John