US #566 Or 696, But Imperforate?

Pretty much what the title says, I've been scouring the usual sources of info and I keep coming up bupkis on this. Any insight would appreciated.

It's a trimmed perforated stamp.

I am curious about that black line at the top of the stamp. It's not there on mine or any I've seen, was this stamp ever issued as a coil?

Lines mean different things on different U.S. stamps. Some lines are on the plates and some are created by ink accumulation in joints between plates. Each line/issue has its own explanation. Lines can appear on sheets, booklets or coils.

In this case, the line is on the plate and is a cutting line on the press sheets of 400 as a guide for cutting into panes of 100. Thus this stamp above is a flat plate printing, Scott 566. The rotary version will not have such a feature, having selvage/selvedge surrounding each pane of 100.

And yes, I agree, this is a perforated stamp which has been trimmed.

I was hesitant on just saying it was a trimmed perforated because the margins just seemed too big. Plus, I did not detect any perf remnants like I have on other trimmed stamps. However on greater magnifying I do see perfs along the bottom edge. Thanks for the thoughts guys, greatly appreciated. Here is a scan of the back and a scan along side some perf 11 566s (top row) and 11x 10.5 (bottom row)

Looks like the right side (opposite of franking) of the stamp has an unequal margin, Vertical margin is narrower on bottom versus the top. My minimal experience should be suspect...

These flat plate stamps often come with unequal margins, and when you are lucky you can get jumbo margins on all 4 sides. It is sad to see when someone trims the perfs off a jumbo stamp. Here is an example (from ebay) of what your stamp might have looked like with large margins before the cosmetic surgery.

As for the line at the top of your stamp, here is part of a sheet showing the guide line at the top. Actually, this is part of a pane of 100 stamps, the lower left pane from a full sheet of 400 stamps, which is how they were printed. The guidelines and the arrows in the margins are there to show where the big sheets of 400 stamps are to be cut into 4 panes of 100 for retail sale.

p.s. that's a beautiful stamp in the middle of the bottom row of your picture. Rarely do the rotary press stamps come with wide margins like that, and nicely centered. That's a keeper. If it is a 696 and sound, I would definitely send it in for grading.

mikef1018Here is a scan of

No. Here is a cellphone picture is the correct description. A scan is an image made with a flatbed scanner. Those are cheap nowadays....

JoannehasstampsLooks like the right side (opposite of franking) of the stamp has an unequal margin

Unfortunately the pictures are just bad. Cellphone images are in general not suitable for discussing anything. Like in these pictures, the stamp is curled almost hovering on a surface, a gray stamp on gray background, lense distortion, we get the full program of unsuitable images..

Honorable Dr. Kohler,



We're not trying to do plating here or flyspecking looking for double transfers or anything. I think the cell phone pictures from the OP were quite suitable for conveying the topic under discussion. Though flat bed scanners are cheap and fairly easy to use, cell phone pictures are often easier and faster for posting a general purpose discussion. I wouldn't shun the new member for not following Best Practices for posting a basic question.

* * * Quote fixed by Moderator * * *

Thanks folks for the support and sharing your insights. Not only is this my first post here (been lurking a while, figure it's time to participate. And I was stumped.) but also my first time on any discussion forum.

drkohler: I literally just got here dude. But, since you feel correction is warranted, allow me to correct you:

drkohlerNo, Here is a cell phone pic

No. Here is a resized 1.83 MB image file from a 50mp digital camera of a mobile device that has been resized down to under 300kb to meet forum image upload limitations.

drkohlerCellphone images are in general not suitable for discussing anyth

And yet, here we are. Perhaps some useful information, such as pointing the new guy to the "Best Practices" that were referred to in ZebraMan's thoughtful comment may have been a more constructive use of time. But what do I know? I just got here.

Have a great evening everyone. Even you drkohler.