1851-1861 3c Washington Compression/Dot Charts

I have decided to continue my efforts to make these charts. I have been developing different resources for images. The work that I had previously completed will have to all be scrapped but they offer me guidelines to work with. The progress will be much slower but it is what it is. Hopefully I will have some work to show in the future. Completeness will be a big issue but I will do what I can. The project will take many months to complete. I hope others will find the charts useful.

jaxom -I was so sorry to hear (in the other thread) that you were considering scrapping the project. Your current post is heartening, though. I think we all understand that there is a ton of work needed to complete this project. Take your time and do it right. Nobody wants to see you burn yourself out by rushing to get it done and then have you not want to see another stamp ever again.

If you need scans of particular positions, please let us all know. There are a lot of us out here, with many 1000's of this issue, probably each of us wanting to do what we can to help out.

ETA, because even the obvious needs to be said sometimes: Thank you for your devotion to doing this project!!

Excellent!

Please let me know what I can do to help, jaxom100.

I offer any help or position scans that might be needed if I can!!

School is open.

Can someone please explain what is meant by compression/dot charts? Will eventually work on my US collection and am sure that these informations will eventually be useful to me and others.

Dan

mirman - this thread, started by jaxom100, is a continuation of a topic raised in another thread. Although the subject is discussed sporadically throughout the latter part of that other thread, it is discussed more intently on pages 93 and 94 of the thread:

https://goscf.com/t/72775&whichpage=93

Simply put, it is easier to see some plate details of early US stamps if they are compressed vertically - squash a 1" x 1" jpg of a stamp down to 0.1" (tall) x 1" (wide) and the relative spacing/straightness/etc really pops out. jaxom's project would ultimately create vertically compressed images of each position of the USA 3c 1851 issue - a HUGE undertaking.

This information is only useful for those who specialize in the plating of this stamp. Plating is the determination of which sheet and which position on that sheet that the individual stamp came from. On the 3c 1851 Washington stamps there were guide dots to align the stamp placements on the sheet. These dots occur on the first, third, fifth, seventh, and ninth rows. These dots fall in an approximate location but not an exact location. Where the dot actually falls on the sheet can help determine the position. The frame lines on this stamp were done by hand and were not straight. To see this line variation you have to compress the stamp in the vertical dimension only (compress). This enhances the frame line deviation and shows how the line curves. This helps to verify the plate position. Here is an example of the guide dot charts and of the compression images.

Hi, Dan,

Compressing images of US 1851-1857 3-cent imperforate stamps to 10 percent of their original vertical size has proven to be very useful for analyzing the curves in the side frame lines and inner lines of a stamp, enabling philatelists to determine which position on a sheet of stamps that each stamp came from.

After the stamp images were transferred from the die to the transfer roll to the printing plate, the frame lines and other parts of the design had to be strengthened at each position by hand on the plate with an engraving tool before printing to make the impressions look more presentable. The result was that each position displays unique "recutting" characteristics that can be analyzed to determine the sheet position that each stamp was printed from. There are a total of 2,600 sheet positions from 13 plate states of 200 stamps each.

The post below shows how compressing both the stamp image and the Carrol Chase Smithsonian reference image to 10 percent of their original height amplifies the curves in the side lines, helping to match a stamp to a sheet position. Notice the curve in the bottom half of the right frame line.

https://goscf.com/t/72775&whichpage=94#674394

Thank you all for your answers. Had seen the term recut used in certain threads in the past but had never read up on it.

Not sure that I will go in that deep with these stamps but can appreciate the amount of work involved in such a project.

Dan

I have a question. Will we just need two charts per plate? Or will we need one pair for each recut state of each plate? I do not think the guide dots will be any different between plate 1 early and plate 1 late.

You would need to do a chart for every state of the plate including charts for guide dots. Think double transfers... while the guide dots won't move, the design will, relative to the guide dots.