Secret marks for the large banknotes Continental B.N.C.

Some of these secret marks are so secret that I can't find them even when I'm told where to look! No luck finding the mark on the 2c stamp...

Ryan

That explains the note in the Scott Specialized: "This mark seldom shows clearly."

Thanks for this great post I head to Mom's every Thursday and she has asked me to help with these issues.I always panic with these as it takes quite awhile to identify one stamp and just don't make much progress in our short visit.Mom is 95 in November she works on her stamps everyday.I try to bring something every week for her to enjoy,be it W/W or U.S.

The reason you don't see the secret marks on the higher denomination stamps (24c, 30c, 90c) is that the Post Office had plenty of these on hand when the printing contract was given to the Continental Bank Note Company. The dies were altered but there was never a need to use them, at least not for creating more plates and printing more postage stamps.

In fact, we would not have known about these secret marks except for one thing. The Post Office decided to dust off the dies and use them to print the Roosevelt small die proofs in 1903 and the Panama Pacific proofs in 1914. And these proofs all show the secret marks.

We know they did not alter the printing plates; just the dies. This is because, in 1881, for the International Cotton Exhibition in Atlanta, Georgia, the Post Office had sheets of all the stamps printed in 5 different colors (scarlet, green, blue, brown, and black) from the plates in the possession of the American Bank Note Company. These are the Atlanta Trial Color proofs and the higher denominations of the bank note stamps (164, 165, and 166) do not have the secret marks.

The American Bank Note Company also prepared special proof albums for an executive dinner in 1885. I have seen two different bindings of these albums; a green album for the top executives and a red album for the lesser executives. The pages in both are identical; with one proof per page. (A green album was sold in a Robert Siegel sale last year.) I had the good fortune to see the red album when I visited the National Postal Museum last year. The owner brought it in to help identify it and to get assistance on preserving it (Some of the proof images transferred to the back of the preceding page. It must have been stored laying flat.) The proofs all look like cut plate proofs, with almost no margins. I did not think, at the time, to examine the upper values of the Bank Note stamps to see if they had the secret marks. That certainly would have determined if the proofs were plate proofs or die proofs. (I may contact the owner and suggest he check this, or send me scans of the three proofs so I can do it.)

165 is tougher to show.  First the full size Roosevelt proof 165P2



Now the lower area around the shield (with the 5 mm margin intact so you know all I did was crop and enlarge the picture above)



I don't have the normal or Atlanta proof of this issue