Maybe Scott 594 Beginner Needs Help Please

Only been doing this a few months but I'm trying.
I have a Scott catalogue and spends hours on Swedishtiger, Google, Linns, and Stamp smarter.
What I lack is experience and most of all technique. Please tell me about these pics. Am I using the perf gauge wrong? measuring from the wrong spot? Using the wrong Flat Plate as an overlay? Any help would be appreciated. JoJo

Hi JoJo, you are doing pretty good! The perforations on the stamp are copied on the gauge. Lay the stamp on the gauge and try to find the picture where the indentations match up


Peter

LOL Just did it the way you described. A lot easier! Thank You!

Yes, you are doing fine with the perf gauge. I would suggest that if you are going to use a stamp as an overlay to check design size that it be of the same design as the stamp you are checking. You are overlaying a 1908 Franklin over a 1923 Franklin. Don't bother trying to measure design size with the perf gauge. The flat vs rotary size differences are in the fractions of a millimeter.

Thank you. I didn't realize about the design size differences. So I trimmed a 552 and overlaid it and big surprise to everyone it's another 552! lol. I have another one that is slightly wider using the overlay method and measures maybe a 1/2 mm wider. This stamp is imperforate on one side so would have to be another 552, correct? Thanks in advance! JoJo

JoJo,
You are making huge strides! You are also very observant of the fine details.
Although not detailed enough in Scott, there are two "flavors" of 552, those from a sheet and those from a booklet. The paper was dampened before printing stamps in this era. Paper expands/contracts at different rates with-grain vs cross-grain when dampened/dried. The grain of the paper for sheets and booklets was printed 90 degrees to each other. The result is that 552 sheet stamps are slightly taller and skinnier than the shorter and wider booklet stamps. 19 stamps in each pane of 100 will have 1 or 2 straight edges, while all of the booklet stamps will have one or two. There is an extremely high probability the wider, straight edge stamp will be slightly shorter and thus from a booklet.

And I agree with previous posts, having a template from the same issue removes complicating variables. I have about ten, some of which do the same thing but in contrasting colors:

Thank you! I'll trim some up this afternoon. Great information. JoJo

Go slow since this is not reversible. I was careful to select damaged stamps and ones which I was very sure of the ID.

JoJo3391 this is great to see. I'm working up to these since I've been given 100+ Franklin's to figure out. Good luck!