Scott 703 With Pre Printing Paper Crease?

So am I correct that this was done pre-printing?

Since the size of the perforations look normal, I would hazard a guess that you have a slight pre-printing crease. Good eyes.

thanks! anything odd I try to collect!

If you run a finger gently over it, you should feel the distance of the crease.

That is a really nice cover

thanks everyone!

If it were a preprinting crease, wouldn't the printing look correct despite the line through it? If I look at the W and the O at the top, as well as DeGrasse's nose, I can see a shift in the images. And the two "s"s in DeGrasse seem awfully close together. But maybe I just don't understand what "preprinting crease" means.

Alan

Two printing operations.
The red was printed normally, then likely the paper buckled slightly forcing a small crease as the press closed for the black printing. Then off to gumming and perforating.

Add: If this stamp were soaked and ironed-out, the red would appear perfectly correct. The black printing would show a very narrow white unprinted streak along the opened-up fold

Further to John's

The black ink (as well as the red) was printed normally then the paper buckled between printing and gumming as well as perforation. If you look at the nose when the SCF image is clicked to enlarge you will clearly see the missing due to creasing section of black on the bridge of the nose. That is where the black creasing stands out due to image design and is less obvious elsewhere in the black design. The upper and lower perforation holes where the crease exits the stamp look normal.

Edit:
Gum bend, Gum crease or Gum wrinkle: A natural occurrence in flat-plate printed stamps where the paper has shrunk and the gum did not shrink at the same rate, causing the stamp to wrinkle.

I stand by my proposed printing chronology. Note the continuous engraved lines of the jacket as they cross the crease. The small gap in the bridge of the nose caused by the extra thickness of the multiple layers of paper, as the crease gets slightly larger as it runs toward the top of the stamp. (Or in other words, the red shows a shortening of the design, the black does not.)

I think I agree with JB.

As for "Gum bend, Gum crease or Gum wrinkle", they are rarely tis extreme.