One For The Fly Specker.

Here are some more revenue stamps that came out of the same lot that I found the R164 with the embossed and manuscript cancel in. After sorting through close to 800 stamps in the lot. My best swag estimates that 10% of the lot was revenue stamps and a lot of them are perfins. Which really isn't all that un-common but what is un-common was the care with which they were removed from the original documents they were affixed to. All of them are in remarkably good condition which has made identification relatively easy.

It has been my experience that revenue stamps are treated by most collectors with great bit if neglect and distain. But there are those who revere them and go through great efforts to save them from making it to the land fill. This had been the case with whom ever originally owned them especially to the care given to the perfins.

Early in my collecting years not much thought was given to making any real effort to collect them and I can honestly say that was because I was taught to seek out the trendy fashionable commemoratives, air mails, definitives and all of the popular fodder of the day and honestly I didn't understand why because the 19th century U.S. revenue stamps are in my opinion some of the most colorful and beautiful stamps every created.

After some careful consideration to the best place to share another fly specking discovery. Here it is an R502. The word series is clearly mis-spelled.


Here is a better image with 2 more stamps from the same series that have the same cancellation date. The 3 stamps in the photo are from the same lot and I can only presume that they came from the same document. We will never know because they were removed long ago prior to becoming my property.


Here is a close up of the date.



Jeremy

That's clearly an uppercase "I" instead of lowercase "i". It's a common typesetter's mistake, known to the professionals as "foul case".

Is it my imagination, or is the erroneous "I" taller than the "S"? It might be (for example) 10.5 point type instead of 10 point type.

It would be interesting to know how many stamps were in each sheet, in order to determine how uncommon the error is. And it would be magnificent to find a positional block to show where in the sheet the error occurred.

If you'd discovered a similar error in an overprint on a postage stamp of the same period, the whole world of philately would be thrilled, but nobody cares about revenue stamps, alas.

My theory about the origins of the relative popularity of postage and revenue stamps is that people enjoy posting letters but don't enjoy paying taxes.

and add that I am also certain the first vowel seem to be an "a" not an "e" but I would want to be able to enlarge the illustration with the three stamps first. Alas, that cannot happen.

As to this specific stamp, R502, there are type setting mistakes noted in Scott, specifically a "6" being substituted for an "8" and where the wrong"1946" must be in a pair or greater with the other stamp(s) with the correct series year, "1948" to qualify. The pricing difference is none listed for mint (meaning none known) and a "--" for used.

Also, "Series" (or "SarIes" or perhaps even "S8rIes") seems to slope slightly downwards, in comparison with the other two stamps, so that the final "s" is noticeably lower than the "1" of "1848". But for all I know that may be normal for the $5 value.

The close-up is too blurred to be useful!

Thank you guys for the unique insight and opinions about my stamp. I happy to know that it isn't just me who sees this as an error. I'll have to send it in to be expertised which might make it the first one reported. Then giving everyone a reason to find one of their very own.

It isn't the only error that I own that I need to send in. I do have some others however this is my first revenue that has such a dramatic visible error in the type set.

Thanks again.

Jeremy

This is just over inked. They are not uncommon, and can be found in various years if one takes the time to look for them.

Could over-inking of a lower-case "i" produce such a perfect upper-case "I"?

Here is some more that arrived today.


Check out the vignette shifts in the 702's and the color shade varieties in the rotary press issues.

Jeremy

Nice variety of colors and vignette shifts, Shakey 7!