Double Grill (?) On A Scott 88

I recently found this unusual grill on a 3 cent Washington that appears to run almost the entire length of the stamp. As best I can count, the grill appears to be 14 points wide, and 30 points long, which would put it at exactly double the height of an E grill. Would this be a double grill?







Am I understanding the concept of a double grill correctly, that it is just a double-sized grill, as opposed to two grills that might overlap? I've searched through the PF database for images of double-grilled 88s and they aren't particularly helpful since they just show the front of the stamp and don't have oblique lighting.

I also thought that my stamp is similar to images of end roller grills I have seen, but Scott doesn't list an end roller grill for 88. There is one listed for the F grill variety, but mine is wider than an F grill.

A double grill does not mean a double-sized grill. It means the stamp (sheet) got grilled twice. And normally they don't line up exactly like yours. Here's an example of an 1869 (from ebay) with a double grill nicely offset from each other.

Sometimes the second (or perhaps first) grill impression is 'split' across the perforations, described in the catalogs as a "double grill, one split".
Hard to tell from the photographs but yours looks to me like a double grill that is very nicely aligned and that is unusual.

But that does not mean your stamp, VanishingCave, is not a double grill.

Ok, thank you for clarifying that for me, ZebraMan. "Getting grilled twice" makes more sense than being a double-sized grill. That's a great example photo. I did find it odd how seamlessly the two apparent grills line up on my stamp. That's what led me to the idea of an end roller grill, but like I said, there's none listed for the E grill, only the F.

I'm curious what other opinions and insight will come up on this thread.

Be careful what you wish for, especially with some of the recent threads.


As an aside you are in good company the two known 85As are double grill errors.

Indeed an unusual stamp, thank you for sharing. There is an article about similar grills here ("miracle grills"):
https://chronicle.uspcs.org/pdf/Chr..._94/8231.pdf

Perhaps we could say more about the grill with the photos a bit less bright and more detail (sharper) und oblique light, so that one could guess where / if there is overlapping. (the grill row at the chin could be a candidate, or being a "partial" row as it looks a bit different)

Might this be an end roller grill?

All of the end roller grill examples that I have seen go completely from end to end, and they are hanging off the edge of the stamp. This one appears to have a border surrounding the grilled area, which apparently measures exactly 2x the size of a common E grill. A unicorn to be sure but still in my opinion the most likely explanation is a well-aligned double grill.

Littbarski, that article is fascinating. The description of so-called "miracle grill' matches my stamp almost exactly. It's the normal width of a known grill (14 points), almost exactly double the height (30 points), and it goes almost right up to the edge of the stamp without going over. I'll try to get some better photos shortly so we can better assess any overlap between the two grills.

Somedays I get grilled twice, once at work. and then later on at home. lol That was a terrible joke, my apologies.

Alright, I took a couple more images of the grill.

The first is another with oblique lighting and then I boosted the contrast a little bit. I don't think this is really any better than the earlier photos I posted, but it was worth a shot.



The second is the stamp covered in watermark fluid. I think this image is showing us the answer. To me, it seems that the top half of the grill is ever so slightly shifted to the left compared to the bottom half of the grill. The difference is small--less than half of a grill row. But this leads me to believe this is indeed a nearly perfectly aligned double E grill.

Holy crap that is a pretty perfectly aligned double grill. That is amazing! Thanks for posting this VanishingCave