Plate Varieties Of The 14¢ American Indian

Over the years, I've accumulated a number of copies of my favorite stamp, the 14¢ American Indian from the Fourth Bureau Issue. Along the way, a few interesting plate varieties have turned up.

I've never invested any significant money in acquiring these varieties, nor am I by any means an expert on plate flaws on this or any other stamp; far from it. But some things are just so obvious that they scream, "Look at me!" I'll share some examples from my collection here and encourage anyone else who has interesting varieties to do the same.

One of my favorites is this copy with a strong diagonal scratch running from the "E" of "United" through the vignette to the left of Hollow Horn Bear's face. It looks as if there may also be a diagonal scratch in the left margin at roughly the same level as the top of the oval containing "14."

Here's another variety, but this one has two more or less parallel diagonal scratches in the vignette to the left of Hollow Horn Bear's face. One of the scratches appears to extend into the margin to the left of the stamp's design.

Next up, we have what I believe to be a cracked plate. The crack runs from the final "S" of "States" through the "P" of "Postage" and then at least to the frame surrounding the vignette.

The selvage indicates this stamp is from the bottom row of one of the lower two panes of a sheet of 400.




I'll post additional examples as time allows. What do you have?

Philatelius,
Is there a reason why we can't have all the discussion on this stamp in 1 thread instead of having a different thread for each design/feature/use?
And to include Scott number in the title?
My point/opinion is to make threads a lot more findable in the distant future - and to have all the information in one place. Just saying.

@John Becker - I was thinking separate threads would make it easier for folks to zero in on the material in which they might have an interest (e.g., solo use covers vs. plate flaws), but if general practice around these parts is that there be a single thread for a given stamp issue, that won't hurt my feelings.

I don't think I have the tools as a general user to merge two threads together, but if the moderators agree it would be better for all posts related to the 14¢ American Indian to live in a single thread, perhaps they would be kind enough to do that for us.

In Philatelius's defense, the other thread that I think you are referring to is "Exact Rate Solo Uses Of The 14¢ American Indian", which is in the "US Covers" forum, and this thread is in the "US Classic Stamps" forum.

I appreciate how these topics are separated and I think it might feel cluttered to mix flyspeck plate varieties into a discussion of covers rates and routes.

To your point, I do think that the recent "Scott 651" thread is good as a single comprehensive thread including broadly everything known about that one stamp. The 14c stamp Solo Uses thread is different because it was such a deep dive into postage rates and usages, of more interest to collectors of covers and postal history than the stamp varieties.

I do agree though that adding the Scott catalog number(s) would help with future searches.

I realy have no dog in this fight, but are we soon to get a "non-solo use" thread? How fine should we dice this?
Regardless, I will do little participation as I have greatly reduced my overall participation in the community the past 6 months.
It would be useful to have some insight on the thread/topic philosophy from the moderators.
And true, I understand the moderators cannot combine threads, but I thought it best to bring this up ASAP before this one got too long to manually combine, etc.
Good luck.

@John Becker - Thank you again for your input. I'll defer from adding any additional images until we have feedback on this topic.

Well, while the stamp, off cover, counts as a US Classic Stamp, I must point out [ ] that the actual subject matter of this thread belongs in the EFO forum as the plate varieties being discussed are all solidly in the EFO camp.

Oh, if EFOs is what you want, then here are some.

A dry printing, a full gutter margin, an inverted precancel, and a phantasy cutout. If you have anything better, please post them.

Bringing the thread back to non-EFO territory, here is a variety of used plate number singles.



And a used block with Daniel W McCallum sideographer initials.


Now that I have stretched the thread past its original topic, maybe the OP or a moderator can change the thread title to something more general like "The 14¢ American Indian (Scott 565, 695)".

I understand that the original topic of this thread could more appropriately have fit in the EFO category, but I'm still a bit fuzzy on when it's appropriate to create a new thread and when all posts related to a specific stamp design have to go in a single thread.

For example, as of this writing, the very first page of the US Classic Stamps forum has no less than four different threads all dealing with the 1¢ Benjamin Franklin from the 1851-57 issue. Why is that okay, but all posts related to a different stamp (e.g., the American Indian) need to be placed in a single thread even if unrelated to the original focus of the thread?

(I'm not trying to be cantankerous, but as the new guy in the room, I really would appreciate being pointed to the rules/guidelines that explain this.)

Philatelius, That's my favorite stamp too. I also like the idea of searching by Scott number.

Jack Kelley

Possibly because the 1¢ Benjamin Franklin stamp of the 1851-57 issues can be 18 different stamps?

As one of the moderators, I can add my thoughts to the topic of "When do I start a new thread?"

When I consider that, I always use the Search Function first to see if anything was ever written about my issue. Sometimes I find a perfect thread that actually answers my question, so I don't need to go any further. Other times I find the perfect thread, and just add my further comment/question at the end of that one. I especially like doing that if the thread was active in the last year.

But, in some cases, I have a "different" question than I find in previous threads. In that case, I start a new thread, but make sure the title clearly explains what I need. Put it in the right forum, put the Scott or other descriptor in the title, put a short question or statement in the title, and go from there. I've even put in the first thread links to previous threads that dealt with part of the question, but not the exact issue. In that way, someone can just click on those links, if interested.

What I am not a fan of is combining threads. You lose all continuity of the original issue, and then you really can't figure out what to title the thread, other than, "Combined threads about Scott XXX". I've seen other forums do this, and it still makes searching a pain.

Anyway, just my thoughts.

* * * Edit. I usually would not change the title of the thread unless the OP requests it, or there is some major misspelling or other character that shouldn't be in there (like emojis)

Is this in the right forum, as the focus is on plate varieties, a large area with in EFOs?

With the addition of the Scott numbers in the title, this subject would be easily found using the a SCF search page.