Orange River (Scott #42) Inverted Surcharge?

Long story short, I received an Orange Colony lot today, one was #42 folded. I put it aside the only of Orange River I had in my collection, and realized that mine had bar on top.




Question may be strange, is that an inverted surcharge (#42c.)? Text isn't upside down, just the bar... If it is, funny to realize that the one I had was 'rare', and that would tell me that I still can find interesting stuff in my old pages!

How would an upright surcharge make an inverted surcharge?

Have you considered the surcharge may have shifted vertically, making the bar appear above, instead of below the overprinted value?

This site shows a lot of overprint errors, including with the overprint inverted.
http://www.orangefreestatephilately...epublic.aspx

Someone is selling same inverted bar as 42c on ebay, that is the only picture I found... But I don't trust everything I see on internet! Maybe it is another type of minor error, but it wouldn't be listed. Maybe surcharge is on 2 steps, first the bar, and second, the text, so it would be 1/2 inverted surcharge! I was faithfull that someone has it and could confirm...

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/124095015428

Edited : I saw the samples in your link, it is not inverted as shown, and ebay sample wouldn't be a 42c. either, thank you!

You could measure the distance from the bottom of the overprinted value to the bar. You need to do it in two steps on your original stamp. My guess is you will find both stamps would show the same distance (taking into account the bar may be a bit narrower on one than on the other). That would fit the overprint on a single stamp being done in one operation.

Yes you are totally right, it is just shifted. So the #42e. (without bar) could be the top row of those shifted overprints. Problem solved, the overprint is done in a single step, and bar can shift outside the stamp!

Exactly. One must think at the production level with an overprinting plate made to print the entire pane at once. With this crude mock-up, when the stamp and overprinting plate are aligned, the old value is obliterated as the new value is applied, while a misalignment can produce the effect seen in the lower stamp.

Fascinating, thanks for the plate picture, it explains it all. Distance should be always same between text and bar, but position of bar may change.

I need to keep a best overall picture of the problem, I was focused only on the single detail, but we need to consider the production process too!!!

So you have a minor shift to an overprinting operation, which creates an interesting variety by what the bar now obliterates. Your stamps also show the overprint variance in centering horizontally

We can also explain why in NSK's link, for the double overcharge, one has one bar dow and another up, and the other is almost more special with double bar down... In the ones with 2 bars down, overprints are overlapping, one was right and the other shifted and inverted!

Extrapolating, there must be double overprint overlapping and a single bar down, it would be the top row of the picture's sheet!

edited : the bottom row if it is inverted

Usually, overprints are done in one go. Sometimes, the plate used for overprinting is smaller than the overprinted sheet. Examples are the Middle East Forces stamps of Great Britain. Using multiple plates is rare. It is costly. But it has happened.