New Zealand 1934 Trans Tasman Air Mail - Help, Please

A little help, please? The "Faith in Australia" New Zealand airmail stamp from 1934. SG 554 Scott C5

I bought these two in the past, ostensibly because one is a variety. Through passage of time, and lack of notes, I don't recall the difference, and I certainly don't see it now. Anyone see what I might have seen, or been told?




There is a slight difference in the overprint ink, but that can't be it. (They were scanned at the same time.) The only variety listed in my version of Campbell Paterson is a broken N, and that isn't it.

Thanks for looking.

New Zealand Stamps (at http://www.nzstamps.org.uk/air/stam....html#trans) only mentions the overprint in Sky Blue and the broken N. So, no help there. I do happen to agree, though, that your overprints appear to be ever-so-slightly different in color. (But, then again, the background also looks a bit different.)

I gave them the "Toggle Test"
Both stamps look identical, only difference I could spot, was the full stop
after "Australia" was a little larger. (Far from being a variety)

Have you checked perforation guaging? (The Perforation Pin diameters differ)
Design dimensions?
Paper?
Gum?

Bib Stanley Brit Comm 1993 Part 1



Just a thought
perhaps your memory is playing tricks
Both your stamps are Varieties, the original stamp was chocolate

I think I see a smudge or some thickness above the "..IT.." in the word Faith...The thicker smudge is in upper photo, there are some other subtle shading differences in background....

I am not sure by what, exactly, you mean by "(They were scanned at the same time.)" If they were scanned together, there is a considerable difference in the blue colour of the overprints. The top one shows a dark blue overprint. The bottom one is a much lighter blue.
If you mean separate scans around the same moment in time, little can be said about 'shades' from the pictures.

An inch apart on the platen glass, same scanner pass. Here they are together. NB: Top one above is bottom one here - quick way to tell them apart other than ink color or perf quirks is the thickened bottom right ornament on the top one.

The bottom one ( on the original scan ) seems to have a "spiderweb" in the right bottom corner, under the ornaments. I have seen similar patterns on some of the U.S. Transportation Coils that were overprinted with a flexographic mat


Peter