Possible Cracked/Scratched Plate On R54

Greetings all. I came across this specimen today and it appears to show a plate scratch or crack in the upper right corner. I looked on Revcollector's web page for plate varieties and didn't see one listed with similar markings. The line(s) on the left are very straight so I would suspect scratch. The one on the right might be a crack but could be scratch as well. Thoughts?

Harper1249


Added a close up

Very nice scratches Harper. If I may take a guess, these are scratches - a plate crack is seldom that straight


Peter

i concur, they are plate scratches.

There are two parallel scratches, the one on the right being rather faint. The one on the left continues into the stamp above for a good fifteen mm. The positions in the plate are 54 and 71 in the plating guide.

Thanks for the insight folks. That looks to be same position as mine. Where does one get this plating guide? I'd be interested in looking it over.

Replating of the 50¢ Conveyance Civil War Revenue Stamp by Steve Rorer. Published May 1, 1980 by Cuero Publishing Company, Cuero, Texas 77954.

I've had the book forever, and have no idea where you might find a copy. It has sketches of each of 85 positions, with identifying characteristics of each - guide dots, extraneous dots, plate scratches and the like. Plating isn't easy to do even with the guide. I tried to do it and probably have about half the positions, plus a lot of unidentified stamps. Not having looked at it for quite a while, it was interesting to get back to it for a bit.

Just looked - I see that Eric Jackson appears to have a copy for $25.

Nice scratches.

Harper, I do not know where a coy of the book is availabl, but you might try Abe books or another seller of second hand books. If you google "philatelic books" you will find several sellers.
If everything else fails, and if you are a member of the APS you may borrow their copy ( and maybe copy the relevant pages ).


Peter

Thanks for the leads on the book. I'll see if I can track it down.

Harper1249