Washington Coil With A Nub

This intrigued me. A 1 Cent Washington coil pair, looks to be machine cut on the right side with a nub. What's the purpose for the nub?

Since, as you said, these are coil stamps, my guess is that what you have are the first two stamps of a new coil. The nub acts like the thin strip at the beginning of a roll of tape, making it easy for a person to grip and unspool when loading into the vending machine.

This is what coil 'leaders' and 'trailers' look like.
Don

Fascinating......"nub" (Great descriptive word)

Perhaps it was created to confound future stamp collectors.

Vote yes: Looks like evidence of passing through a vending machine. Insert a nickel and get a strip of 5 stamps cut nearly-through except for most of the nub area, which may have "held" onto the stamps when ejected to they did not fall on the floor. Typical for dispensing machines to be slightly out of sync to the perforations.

Vote no: The coil ends are cut square and have the brown leader paper, which has no resemblance to the pair shown.

classic_paper, interesting idea. Though I think the nub might be too small to grip.

Don, thanks for providing a picture showing the leader end of coils.

John, I vote yes. I'm sure that the nub end is machine cut from some sort of vending. So, somewhere out there is the matching "notch" end of a coil stamp.

bookbndrbob, sure confounded me! =)

Rod, can we consider adding "Nub and Notch" as descriptors for particular machine cut coil stamps to the Philatelic terms library?

Certainly!
For the time being, "Nub" in my material, just came up Nubian, or Danube.

That is the the worrying point in your example.
If this was a coil leader or guillotine, then why have we not seen more ? it is such a curious (but handsome) cut.
Nub will remain in my Lexicon.

I remain sceptical.

My Canadaian Leaders

Curious, John,
this is the first instance I can recall where (perhaps) a stamp coil has been Guillotined, I thought stamps from leaders were just ripped off, at the perforations.

Rod,
I do not believe the OP's stamp is a leader item at all, but from a normal customer purchase from the middle of the roll through a vending machine in a post office lobby or other location. Well, yes, it was the lead or trail stamp in the customer's purchase. For my two cents.

Moyock13 - I have never seen a coil strip with that pattern come from a vending machine before. I suppose it is possible, but "why the nub?" as you say. It does not seem to serve any purpose to help in tear-off.

Shown below are what I call "teeth marks" from coil vending machines, from my collection, from Great Britain and Ireland.

Linus

In my hobbyist opinion the nub appears to be too well formed to be accidental (near centered cut) and appears to show some 'pull' fibers around the nub itself. It does not have the normal gripper type mark on the stamp(s) face but there is some kind of surface mark on one stamp? On the other hand I agree with Linus's observation; it makes less sense in terms of a tear off design. I find it odd, interesting, and have not ever seen another one like it.
Don

nub (nubbin) : Noun : First used in print 1692

Moyock's stamp with a normal leader from John.
https://goscf.com/t/59154#519573 br /