Trying To Identify These Centennial Envelope Pieces.

Trying to identify these centennial envelope pieces on white wove paper - appear to be trial color proofs but can't find any info on them - would appreciate help - Thanks

'Cut squares' from postal stationary
Blue ones are unknown to me, one of our experts will weight in and offer more information.

Don

Counterfeits of these also exist.
It would be much more useful to have individual scans at higher resolution so we can see the fine details.

Thanks for help - definitely need it - paper is same on all 4 pieces so guessing not U218 and U219 as all came together when I got them.

PLEASE post hi-res scans of each individually. There is an extremely high chance the blue ones are forgeries, which will make interesting discussion. As you say, "as they all came together", there is a good chance they are all forgeries.

Add: The genuine and forgery dies are discussed in Ellis & Maisel's "U.S. Commemorative and Special Printed Envelopes: 1876-1965."

It's also possible that the blue examples started life as green, and were exposed to some chemical that bled out the yellow.

attached are the front and back scans as requested sorry it took so long - had to get used to the cropping tool. As a note the paper is much thinner than normal envelope stock of this issue and tend to curl. In Album Weeds it noted that in the forgeries the U of US touches both inner and outer frame - It does not in any of these examples. The above are why I was thinking possible trial color proofs. Could not find anything in my ref library on these. Any help would be appreciated.

I appreciate the note on Ellis & Maisel's "U.S. Commemorative and Special Printed Envelopes: 1876-1965, I was not aware of this - I will look into it. Thanks for your help. Been away from stamps for about 30+ years so a little out of date on many things.

One thing I notice is that the telegraph wires on the paler blue stamp (with the boxed cancel)are different from the others. A better scan of that stamp might help. Of course, that might just be the scan.

E&M's (poor) illustration of their type 2 forgery and description of the 7's seem to match your items, although I cannot conclusively make out the USM vs UBM on yours:




Hopefully the in-depth postal stationery collectors will correct anything I might have going astray here.

Thank you for the info - checked - all of them have the UBM embossing on the mail car - so it appears they are the forgery you note. Thanks very much. Now I know how to write them up in my collection.

The 19th century UPSS catalog has 2 1/2 pages, including color pictures, on forgeries of this issue. Or see the articles in Postal Stationery journal of the UPSS whole # 395 "Fakes and Forgeries of the 1876 Centennial Envelopes" and whole # 410 "Updates to Fakes and Forgeries of the 1876 Centennial Envelopes". Both the UPSS catalog and the UPSS journal articles go beyond Elliot and Maisel.

Thanks for info - Found great info on some essays I have (Bullseye type and Shield type) in this exhibit on the site - Dan Undersander US Envelope Essays and Proofs. Thanks for this info - I have started to add to my ref library - stamps not touched for 30+ years. Past 2 months starting to get back into them. So much ref materials since I last worked on my stamps. Thanks again.