Z Grill With New Possible Grill's Variant.

Hello everyone I suspect I have found a z grill specifically a 1 cent Benjamin franklin 85A with a peculiarity in the grill, already found in 2008 in a different stamp, a 10 cent sold by Siegel Auction.
I say this as it is important evidence and especially recognized by experts , the grill has both horizontal and also vertical ridges.
I measured my grid carefully with a digital caliper and it measures 11x14mm and has 14 vertical and 17 horizontal columns.
I have contacted several experts, for example from the renowned David Feldman, and he too suspects that it may be a z grill.

I also made a map in which I highlight in blue the exact points where the forty two horizontal ridges are located in my stamp.
I also transcribed the coordinates so that you can find them more easily.


Thanks for your help!

You've found a Z grill, but you're clutching it in your fingers?

Nice photos!

However, you must be seeing something I am not. I don't see a "Z" grill. The best way to conclude topics like these is always to send the stamp for certification. Best of luck.

For what it is worth, the known 85A examples have a double grill.

Also, the grill must be determined as genuine, not added after the fact to a non-Z grilled stamp. Such action can produce "confusing " grills.

#86. Zooming in on your "14.0 mm" photo shows that the caliper jaws are not tight to the grill perimeter. The right jaw also has metal burrs on the edge, suggesting it's one of the cheap Chinese makes of questionable accuracy. The images also are not taken straight on, suggesting that you set the caliper to 11.0 and 14.0 and then took images with the stamp and caliper angled and separated by distances engineered to produce a convincing image.

The Feldman firm didn't have the stamp in their hands for expert inspection, correct?

The stamp appears to be a normal E grill.

Ok correct, exactly from the Feldman looking at the photos they inferred that it may be a z grill.
Now being poor quality photos, it deceives the eye.
I spent an hour inside a dark room armed with 60x lens with ultraviolet light, and I counted and saw as many as 42 horizontal ridges, clearly visible under ultra violet light, that's why I was surprised.
I studied on the specialized Scott Catalogue of 1992 and that of 1999.
It cannot be a simple E grid by having all these ridges in the horizontal direction. I have done a lot of research and conducted studies in recent months and they say that these variations can happen due to different kinds of factors involving the machinery and the pressure applied for printing. Over time some would get spoiled by undergoing changes which is why they would come out with both directions.

It's 17x14 points. If you need UV to see horizontal points, then something is wrong, and I doubt that they are actually there. I suggest that if you are convinced, send it in to the PF for a cert.

Agree ^^^

You've taken good preliminary steps towards an identification of a grill type. But just because you have measuring tools and have spent a lot of time examining it doesn't mean that your conclusions are accurate. My feeling is that you're trying way too hard to convince yourself and others.

Also, most critically, you have to have a basic understanding of the theory behind how grilling was accomplished, how the rollers were made and modified, and whether your understanding of that process fits in with your observations. Question: how would a grill roller have been machined so that some random number of points are vertical while others are horizontal?

Taking another approach, let's go into philatelic fantasy land for a moment and imagine that that particular area of embossing points got damaged at some point. Then it was repaired in a way that resulted in a unconventional pattern. How would that type of metal work have been accomplished?

The answer to questions like these must be pursued in order to arrive at a meaningful conclusion about grill type and/or authenticity. It may not be possible to definitively answer such questions, but they must be investigated nevertheless.

In the case of Z grills, it's best to have some of the lower value examples, like the 2c/3c, to use as a reference. Size of the grill grid alone is not going to provide conclusive identification, the grill point type is what is most important.

Regardless of what the stamp is, all the photos seem to be *cutesy* and *artistic* being taken at angles, rather than scientific and square.
Any argument toward proper ID would be stronger with better images or scans.
No doubt the calipers were set to 11.0 and 14.0 and placed on the stamp rather than showing actual measurements of the grill itself, the bias also decreases the usefulness of those images.

I apologize I must have expressed myself wrongly. The stamp in question shows signs of time, of course you can see the horizontal lines, but they appear more obvious under UV light. However I do not need to convince anyone, I have already contacted a high profile expertise and am waiting to hear back so that this will happen in my presence, I do not trust myself to send this stamp. I live in Sicily and there are no high resolution 1200dpi scanners. I have looked everywhere for them but we are backward with technology unfortunately.
However I thank those who have been kind to me without glimpsing malice or deception.
Then again I am not an expert, I just asked for help, and living far away I tried to get busy with the material at my disposal.
As for the peculiarity of the grid similar to mine I attach a photo as official proof that apparently, these are things that really happened and not a figment of my imagination.