Two Scarce "Imperforate Between" Revenue Errors (Scott R173B, R174A)

Both Scott R173b and R174a are horizontal pairs that are imperforate vertically between the stamps. I have yet to personally see an example of Scott R173a, which is a vertical pair imperforate horizontally. The only example I can find record of is from the 2006 Cunliffe Collection auction held by Spink.

In the global scheme of things these don't catalogue for very much ($325 for R173b and $500 for R174a respectively), yet one doesn't encounter them frequently. I've only seen them come to market a handful of times in the last 20 years. If they were "front of book" stamps, you likely could add a zero to their catalogue values... a perfect example of the difference that demand causes. There is still much more interest in postage issues than back of the book issues.

Cool stuff Dan. Thanks for sharing. By any chance is there any info on how many of these are out there? How many stamps were there to a sheet and were the sheets individually rouletted? I assume that the neighbors to the left and right of the pairs you show are also imperf horizontally?

No idea on populations. If you look at the exterior vertical edges, they're scissor cut rather than rouletted, so who knows how far across it went. I do know that strips of 3 of both stamps exist.

As a revenue fanatic, I would love to have those in my collection. All I have so far are 2 examples of R163a and 1 example of R168a.

Yeah, some of the imperf-between battleship pairs are much more accessible and affordable, although some are quite scarce as well.

Dollar value sheets were of 128 stamps; 16 horizontal rows of 8 stamps each, per the Boston Book. So there are probably relatively few of these pairs to be found, since the likelihood is that few error sheets existed to begin with. And pairs would have had to be collected and saved as such. Using the Boston Book quantity of 4,299,000, that works out to about 33,585 sheets total. Did someone forget to roulette them, or was it simply some broken roulette wheels? We will never know.

Not to be overly picky, but technically they are imperforate vertically, not imperforate between.
If going by the strictest of definition, if they were imperforate between the outer two edges would be rouletted.

Yep. You're correct. The battleship pair above is imperf between, the original items are imperforate vertically.

The battleship pair is imperf horizontally, not imperf between.

Dadgum it, you're correct; I only looked at the left and right sides because we were discussing the imperf vertically. Need more coffee...

From the Joyce sale back in 1991 the following:
Lot 2754 R173a vertical pair, P/R $480
Lot 2755 R173b horiz pair, P/R $ 270
Lot 2756, R173b horiz strip of 3, P/R $360
Lot 2757, R174a, horiz pair, P/R $320
Lot 2758, R174a, horiz pair, P/R $150
Lot 2759, R174a, horiz strip of 6, P/R $ 1050

Was it really 31 years ago!!!!!!

Heh. That was a full decade before I even started collecting revenues. In fact I wouldn't return to stamp collecting from my childhood at all for another 7 years or so...

I was in full swing at the time, although I did not get anything at the sales. I did spend a fair amount of time discussing the sales with friends who did get several lots; I wondered how they could decide which lots to go after in such huge sales.