A Comment For Modern US

I bought a modern mint US collection in the fall/winter of 2021, mainly to get me from 1985 up to the self-adhesives. But the mint collection went to 2011. I finished going through it a couple months ago. As I never looked at the US specialized past 1985 before, I was surprised at the number varieties. Now I am also finding how difficult it is to find the Scott listed varieties that the collection did not have.

I found that these were some of printing varieties possible to collect. All on same stamp design:
small dates
medium dates
large dates
red dates
black dates
micro printings present and absent
color changes
denomination changes during rapid rate changes
die cut differences

Plus, many more other collectable differences.

It's as much fun as working on the modern US as on classic issues, without the cost. Of course, the modern is currently without the catalog value either.

I have not attempted post 1985 used, but the challenge would really be difficult. So few issues were even made available at post offices, let alone finding someone actually using a stamp to mail a letter or package.

A new low-cost US area to collect.

The varieties make it a challenge, can be enjoyable if you like that sort of thing. the G stamps, Flag over Porch, etc.

Took me years to assemble the stamps in the image. I hesitate to post this because memory says the G and Flag over Porch are complete, but someone will likely spot one or more I missed.

Thanks for posting your stamps, I might desire having one of each design but have no desire to try to get all of the varieties.

Nice effort and success 'perf10'.

I am not surprised it taking years to get all in used condition. I don't think there are many dealers online or in store that would stock these identified in used condition. Did you sort through lots of mail or kiloware to get them?

I did a combo of family giving me incoming envelopes, kiloware, and a few individual purchases. My goal is period-appropriate light cancellations.

the First Class and 37 cent Flags around year 2002 present more varieties challenges. I think I got them all, for coils I strive for plate number examples

Perf 10: I dusted off an ancient spreadsheet that I put together quite a few years ago. I used it as a checklist to verify that I had all of the varieties (mint in my case) for the various flags. The spreadsheet has 22 entries for the 37-cent flags ... well, actually 23 but there are two entries for Scott 3636 due to the two booklet formats (VMB & CB20). You have 21 flags in your photo. If you are interested in determining what, if anything, might be missing, shoot me an e-mail ... I can send you a text file with my info (I use Quattro-Pro as opposed to Excel, otherwise I could simply send you the spreadsheet). Might well be more trouble than it's worth at this date ... but I'll let you decide.
By my count, I ended up with 27 "different" 37-cent flags ... but this includes all of the various tagging (solid, grainy solid, uneven) possibilities.
... John L. ...

John, very kind offer, thanks, but I'm content as the set exists now. I use the USPS Guide to Stamps as my reference. I generally arrange the collection in the order presented in that Guide. Happen to have the 2013 Guide handy, and it lists 20 of those 37 cent Flags, so I'm not sure why there's 21 in my set, and my eyes are too tired to check for duplicates right now.

For anyone interested, most of the flag issues of that period have plenty of formats/varities to hunt down.

I too would likely forego trying to identify all of these varieties after 20 years has passed.
For your info, my 22-stamp list includes two minor catalogue numbers ... 3634b & 3634e ... which might explain why it is longer than the USPS guide list. Also, as an educated guess, the stamp on my list that isn't among yours is likely to be 3634e. 3634b had a 2003 date while 3634 had the original 2002 date. 3634e was die-cut gauge 11.3 as opposed to the original 11.1 gauge of 3634 & 3634b. It is otherwise identical to 3634b. All of these 3634 varieties were from booklets.

Morning all,

Wow, has quality control been lost in the stamp printing process. Did not have this issue back in the days of engraved stamps.

Hoosier - first of all we now have multiple printers, not one.
Secondly, in the case of the Washington-Franklins, we did have this on engraved stamps.
In the case of the year date sizes, there were n year dates on the old engraved stamps, and on the modern one the large dates came as a result of deciding the small ones were too small, not as a result of someone at the printers not paying attention.

There was a seller on ebay who created some neat identifiers. I had saved a few of these.

These are the denominated 37¢ Flag, I do not recall. I am not sure if these had additional valley-variations.

angore: I recognize those stamp identifiers. They are the creation of tbrstamps (Scott Hoppis) of Phoenix, AZ. When I had questions about details for modern definitives, I would often visit his eBay store to see if he had any such identifiers for the stamp(s) in question. His info was frequently more informative than what I could find in my Scott catalogue.
Hmmm ... maybe more informative is not quite right. But you must admit, having all the details for stamps of the same basic design gathered together in one location certainly beats having to search them out of the catalogue.
Added: Hah ... just noticed the TBRstamps in the graphics. As I recall, he didn't include any peak/valley info.

I believe Scott should be creating similar summaries. I had proposed this to Linn's some time back.

angore's "saved" 37¢ flag stamp summary taken from TBR's eBay listing has an error regarding Scott No. 3629F. Scott No. 3629F is perf 11.25 and not 11.75 as shown on the summary provided by angore. TBR's current summary of the 37¢ flag stamp has corrected this error.

Thanks for the image
I nearly went around the twist with these fellows.