Reversed Paper Or Reversed Watermark ?

Fluorescent paper varieties can also be detected by using the damp paper method.

An experiment discovered by me a couple of years ago.

When the paper is damp with some stamps the opaque paper is non-fluorescent but when translucent the paper is fluorescent.

I can now report on finding two distinct papers used to print the 22p Dinosaur stamps, the variations was discovered whilst using the damp paper experimentation procedure, the like of which can be seen in the following two attachments.
Please note that all stamps depicted in the following two attachments were damp at the time the shots were taken.

Attachment 1: as seen under normal fluorescent lighting.

Attachment 2: as seen under long wave ultraviolet.

The magic is in the water !!!!!! WM.

The same principle applies to these 1990 17p Christmas stamps, once the paper has been dampened.

The opaque paper is non fluorescent.
The translucent paper is fluorescent

See the next two attachments.



Every picture tells a story !

The difference in the papers have never been listed in any specialised catalogues But they do exist! WM.

This thread is completely off-topic from the original watermark title. Please start a new thread when changing the subject.

Apologies for the diversion John, as that was my original intention, but one thing lead to another in my explanations with 51 studebaker.

A new topic has been created by the name of "The Machin paper varieties"

Please remove my last two postings as they are now on the new topic.

Thanks, WM.

Wow, I go have emergent dental work and come back to see this thread has exploded. The first two pages which took five days and two hours to fill had all of four posters, the forth just with one post. Now the next two pages in 18 hours with mote posters than I wish to count.

Good!

That "good!' said, I must agree with John Becker and say this thread needs to stay on the focus of watermarks.

Now to go explore the other, new thread.

[parcelpostguy]........... You say watermarks

I say...........reversed striped paper.

There is a difference! WM.

"Or" means one or the other and your text body indicates watermark.

Perhaps you should have used "And" rather than "Or" in your title if you now insist that it is about the paper not the watermark. If you wanted to be even more clear on that point, why have "Watermark" in the title at all. Take as rhetorical, no reply response intended. Due to symmetry the watermark has no useful information about face nor back side printing on the paper of the stamp image. But, which side of the finished paper upon which the stamp image was printed is your focus. If your watermark was asymmetrical such as "USPS" you could quickly see the difference. The fact that there was no production requirement for which side of paper is printed in the US likely is why there is little interest in such with US stamps.

Since paper is produced between two different surfaces, so-called web and felt, there is always a difference discernible between the two finished sides of paper if one desires to look closely enough. That is true with or without watermarks in the paper.

What?




We're not talking about US stamps, are we! WM.

SG Specialised Range rewritten in a few days.

No [NSK], just filling in a few gaps!

[parcelpostguy]............ You obviously appreciate my postings by giving a remark such as "good" and

Who knows !! For a guy that knows everything you might even learn something new, as your comments and punctuation is superfluous.

Whenever topics like this appear I always evaluate what new thing(s) I have learned after a good number of comments have been made and there has been a healthy discussion. This one has me scratching my head. Kind of like a plate of starchy carbs that leave you still feeling hungry.

If one had to summarize the topic what would it be? The paper was not always fed into the printing machinery in the same way? Is there more to it?

An amazing deduction rogdcam. Join the eggheads !

If that was the case then the watermark in some instances would have been reversed. WM.

In John Easton's "Postage Stamps in the Making" published in 1949, the following appear under a section on Paper problems and remedies:

Irregularities in the felts between which hand-made paper is pressed, or the cylinders coverd wth felt in the case of machine-made papers, frequently gives the impression that a paper is ribbed.

The so called ribbed paper on some early Austrian issues were caused by the newness of the felt on the cylinders.

Something for you to investigate.

Good morning mikyh, thanks for the additional literature referring to problems and remedies written in 1949.

The type of stamp paper that I have found sounds similar to the case of the Austrian variants as you have described, I have checked these reversed (single ribbed) papers under long wave UV to find that some are on a cream type of paper whereby others are of the whiter variety, therefore the paper must have been produced sometime around 1962 during the change-over period.

It's this single reversed type of ribbing that creates a kind of "Rosetta stone". If it had been a normal mesh (weave) with both lines crossing, then a reversal could not have been detected, but due to the impression being single-sided it's possible to make some evaluation as to what may have happened.

Thanks again for your positive input. WM.