SC 179 With Odd Markings At Bottom

Any ideas what the markings at the bottom are? I have never seen a 179 with a plate number though I assume there was one. Could it be a plate number? There are a few other odd marks too in the bottom tight of the stamp. Possibly just stray ink marks too.

Looks like part of a light blue cancel to me. I also see some blue markings in the lower right ribbon areas. Perhaps part of a French CDS.

orstampman - I'm not familiar with a French CDS.
I probably should have added that I have examined it using a USB microscope and the color on the stamp's bottom perfs and lower right part of the stamp appear consistent with the stamp's ink color. I have searched all places I know to look and have found -0- examples of a 179 with a plate #. Per Stamp Smarter the plate #'s were 243,244,247,248,284, and 306. With the exception of the one mark that resembles the top of a '4' I can make no sense of the others. I ran it thru Retroreveal, and the results were inconclusive (see below). Without a similar example of a French CDS I'll likely never know for sure.

I do not think that #179 used punched plate numbers but rather used
the Continental 'E1' and 'E2' two line imprint script font similar to this

(Image from Siegel Auctions site)

I am leaning towards orstampman's opinion and think it might be a blue cancel.
Don

Don, I wonder how the curl of the 'N' in 'No.' in your example would look overlaid the curl at the bottom of the stamp (more visible on the bottom of the last retroreveal picture)? Just wondering.

Oh, and thanks for the picture! Where'd you find it?

Judging by the loose fibers at the perf tips, how sure are you that it is a 179? A 185 was produced by American and its imprint capture has quite a few points. Not sure that they would line up though.

How thick is the stamp?

Actually, Don, Continental used both a cursive and a block numeral in their number imprints, but the latter is somewhat hybrid inasmuch as the lettering for the abbreviation of "number" is cursive in both cases. (added: not sure which is E1 and which is E2 in your nomenclature.)




As long as I am uploading images, let me pass along some ABNCo imprint captures to stimulate some thinking about something like this in connection with your mystery marginal markings. I do not have good examples of the ABNCo imprint or number for the 5c, but here is a group for a later 10c which will illustrate the point. The same type of imprint or numbers you see here were used earlier on the 185.



Just throwing a different kind of light on the mystery.

Essays- honestly, I'm not sure it's a 179 and am out of town now and can't check. I Norco a flick test and at times a check with a micrometer for paper thickness. Fuzzy perf ends is an indicator too. Interesting the different style of plate #'s between the two.

Durland notes that 179 used imprints E1 and E2, solid non-italic block numbers and large italics numbers respectively. 185 used E1 and the ABNC imprint F1 which has solid block italics numbers. None of the plate numbers on any of these iterations would appear to produce what we see in this patient.