Roosevelt Album Page With 1861 "First Designs" Is Finally Mine

If you've been here awhile, you may remember that I've spent a lot of time on Roosevelt Album proofs. There's an article on Stamp Smarter that is now out of date since we successfully convinced the Scott catalog to make a number of changes. I owe an update. One of these days.

Anyway, I've always harbored the idea that I would like to actually own a page. And this particular page is the one I always thought about. What is unique about this page is that several of the stamp dies were modified to make them look like the premiere gravure, first printing stamps. Since the original dies weren't available, they modified later dies to looks like the originals.

As far as I am aware, those dies were never used again. So the copies made for the Roosevelt album are the only stamps made from those dies.

I've had a few of Roosevelt Album stamps, but never a complete page. It's making me happy today.

Historical, rare and scarce and just gorgeous.
Congratulations on a wonderful piece for your collection!

Marvelous, and congratulations! What a great page!

RLSNY, could you list a few things about the stampsmarter page that are now outdated, or what kinds of changes were made to the cataloging as a result of your influence?

The dies were used again to print SDPs for the sets of 1915 Panama-Pacific proofs, though some of those proofs were actually pulled in 1914. If you don't already have a copy, you might be interested in getting Ron Burns's BIA Research Paper #7 (1994). Ron went to the BEP and chronicled production of the 1903 and 1915 SDPs.

Last thing... I find it interesting that the BEP didn't go so far as to alter the 10c die for the page of "First" designs. I'd think that the BEP could have at least removed the upper frame line, one of the two major identifying characteristics of the 10c Type I design. Alas...

Congrats.
I was very seriously considering bidding on that (but I didn't), as I think that may be the best page to get out of a Roosevelt album.

Very very nice item.

PhilaFactor, yes, the Panama-Pacific proofs - makes sense - only 3-5 of each stamp were made for that. Regarding changes to Scott, almost all the changes we requested were made. I worked with James Lee on it.

42P2 corrected from type II to type I

They added "Specialists have questioned the existence of 64P2 and 65P2 (there are three 3c Washingtons in the album, but five listed in Scott. They should be the first 1861 color (deep rose), the scarlet (same page) and the Lake on the next page.)

They added a comment on 69-E6b to mention that the die was modified to make it look like the premiere gravure issues (same comment was already on the 3c and 5c)

They added a dark green option on 62BP2, though I think all of them are dark green, the 68P2 is the regular green color

They eliminated 72-E7c - it's the same stamp as 72P2

Changes they didn't accept include slight color differences between the two 1861 pages in color of the 78P2 and 71P2. Also, there is a lot of documentation about the the 1847/1875 varieties of the 5c and 10c stamps. One of them usually looks a little fuzzy, like a double transfer - but it was intentionally done. This hasn't been officially recognized yet. Last I heard on that is James Lee had gotten some detailed scans, not sure if that one will move forward or not. I think it needs to as people occasionally try to sell the fuzzy one as more rare - an error or something.

Here's an example of a fuzzy 3p2 that was sold as a rarity:



from the description: "On original gray card backing, showing distinct doubling of the design in the form of a kiss print, this is especially evident at top, fresh and Very Fine, a rare and desirable variety"

Maybe they were right, but a number of articles have been written about this effect saying it was done intentionally to make the 1847 stamp look different from the 1875 stamp. Hopefully a clear determination can be made.

Last year I saw this, and I had hoped it would be the Rosetta stone for the 3P2-4P2 issue you bring up.



In this the 3P2 is somewhat fuzzy, as expected, but the 4P2 appears clean to me (under 1876).

So, I guess the jury's still out, but the fact that the one that is blurred is in the right place for that, according to speculation, is encouraging.

Oh, and I was unable to upload a scan big enough to show the differences, so you can go directly so Siegel sale 1305, lot 2014.
https://siegelauctions.com/power-se...SortOrder=-1

Excellent!

I see you have one of the 47 Roosevelt pages on your stampsmarter writeup.
Both of the 4P2's on that page seem to exhibit the blurring/doubling.

RSLNY, thank you for taking the time to recount all of those details.

From Ron Burns's transcripts of BEP production records, both 1847 denominations were engraved on a single die (compound die), "P.O. Die 88," and both the "1847" and "1876" representations were printed from it. In other words, the BEP records do not indicate the existence of a duplicate (but altered) die created for printing the 1876 representations.

TXSTAMP, I downloaded the image from the Siegel site and to my eye there isn't a substantial difference between the 10c proofs. But the fuzziness of the "1876" 5c proof compared to the "1847" proof is quite clear. I've edited the Siegel image to make comparison of the two 5c proofs easier.

I'll have to dig up one of the articles. The way it goes is they used the same die, but they shifted during printing to make the effect. My suspicion is that correct, but they were inconsistent in doing it.

OK, the best article is the one in the Chronicle Nov 2013. It is a long article covering the whole album. My article was focused on the Scott numbering. The Chronicle article is much more detailed on the album production. Here is a extract about the 1847/1875 confusion.

The BEP printing records for these and other proofs have been compiled by Ronald Burns.7 Printing of the proofs started on January 12, 1903 with Scott numbers 1-4, using a compound die with both the 5¢ Franklin and 10¢ Washington designs on the same die. To make the 1847 issue appear different from the 1875 reprints, half the printing was intentionally blurred. Burns reported that, when mounted in the albums, the blurred 5¢ and sharp 10¢ were paired together as the original 1847s, and the sharp 5¢ was paired with the blurred 10¢ to represent the 1875 reprints. A total of 388 impressions were created for these first four examples, 97 copies of each. An examination of two albums in the National Postal Museum shows that the placement of the sharp and blurred 1847 proofs was not consistent. The album presented to Claude Swanson (see below) shows the proofs switched as Burns described, while the one presented to E. E. Clark does not. With most of the albums now broken up, we will probably never know if the sharp proofs were intended to represent the 1847s and the blurred ones the 1875 reprints, or vice versa. But collectors should be aware that there are two different varieties of each, created in equal quantities, and that the blurring on half of them was intentional.

(I had forgotten some of these detail - I'm glad you asked)

@RLSNY, you mentioned your article on the Scott numbering. Where was your article published?

It's in StampSmarter https://stampsmarter.org/proof/Home_proofs.html

Beautiful. My acquisitions have all but dried up because I buy from so few sources. I don't have my sights on a full album page, so I will be satisfied with the 1894 Postage Dues that I do have. All seven and picked clean from a page.

Heck of an addition to your collection! Congrats.