Ryan
Member
Calgary, Alberta, Canada
Posts: 2,722
What I collect: If I have a catalogue for it, I collect it. And I have many catalogues ....
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Post by Ryan on Jul 7, 2023 0:15:53 GMT
I rather like this anniversary 'double head' design - classical looking. I like the design as well, and am always very happy to find the higher face values in kiloware. My collection is generally underrepresented in modern British stamps above the 1st & 2nd class rates (except for Machins - I found some kiloware strictly composed of above-letter-rate Machins once, yay me!). Here's an image of the full set of "double head" Machins, nabbed fom an eBay seller. Ryan
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Ryan
Member
Calgary, Alberta, Canada
Posts: 2,722
What I collect: If I have a catalogue for it, I collect it. And I have many catalogues ....
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Post by Ryan on Jul 4, 2023 5:02:44 GMT
One other thing I would like to learn is how to subtract a specific colour in photoshop. If I’m able to do that it should be able to enhance the cancel in difficult to see areas. Once upon a time there was online software known as retroReveal which allowed the user to upload an image, and then offered a number of choices based on twiddling of graphical colour values. The various altered images which were produced would often include one or more which strengthened the image of the postmark, allowing it to jump out with greater contrast when compared to the original scan. That software has since gone defunct, but two of our members here on TSF have come up with replacements meant to reproduce the functionality of retroReveal. Have a look at these two threads, they might offer you some help with enhancing cancels. Postmark-Reveal.com, a Retro-Reveal AlternativeImageSleuth - another retroReveal replacementAnd for completion's sake, here's the thread which originally introduced us to retroReveal. Revealing Lost Content - retroReveal.org SITE NOW DEFUNCTRyan
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Ryan
Member
Calgary, Alberta, Canada
Posts: 2,722
What I collect: If I have a catalogue for it, I collect it. And I have many catalogues ....
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Post by Ryan on Jul 1, 2023 2:16:40 GMT
How are you keeping the images true to the real size of the postmark when scanned? One thing to keep in mind here is that you can't automatically assume that your scanner is accurate. One way I've tested my scanner in the past is to scan something on both the vertical and horizontal - in my case, I used a machinist's ruler (this also allowed me to figure out how many pixels per inch or centimeter when trying to extrapolate image size from a scan). If the scanner is accurate, the pixel size of the vertical image should be just the same as the size on the horizontal image, but in my case the scanner was out by slightly over 1%, if I remember correctly. It's not a lot, but the difference between a 25mm postmark ring and a 26mm ring is only 4%, so there isn't a lot of leeway available in your measurements. Ryan
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Ryan
Member
Calgary, Alberta, Canada
Posts: 2,722
What I collect: If I have a catalogue for it, I collect it. And I have many catalogues ....
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Post by Ryan on Jun 29, 2023 3:04:26 GMT
If Ryan Ryan is on line....he will certainly give us his take of this wonderful book (by Marler....who wrote on the Admirals) - René Marler's book has a very short section on shades for the 10c with no illustrations of the shades - here it is in its entirety: Ryan
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Ryan
Member
Calgary, Alberta, Canada
Posts: 2,722
What I collect: If I have a catalogue for it, I collect it. And I have many catalogues ....
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Post by Ryan on Jun 19, 2023 18:01:52 GMT
At the bottom of each Marianne de Gandon stamp is the name of the designer (Gandon) and the engraver (Cortot); my question is, what is printed after Gandon (looks like 'Del') and after Cortot (looks like 'Sc' or S5') and what do they mean? These are abbreviations for Latin words which are commonly used in printmaking and, by extension, on stamps. "Del." is the abbreviation for delineavit, which means "he / she drew it" - it's used as the credit for the designer of the stamp. "Sc." is the abbreviation for sculpsit, which means "he / she carved it" - that one is used as the credit for the engraver of the stamp. www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/delineavitwww.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/sculpsitRyan
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Ryan
Member
Calgary, Alberta, Canada
Posts: 2,722
What I collect: If I have a catalogue for it, I collect it. And I have many catalogues ....
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Post by Ryan on Jun 11, 2023 17:18:44 GMT
Heading off for a Viking funeral, a sad quintet of early Hong Kong. The Kindest thing to do is remove them from the philatelic scene and give a decent cremation. If I can think of a suitable Hymn ....................." Abide with me " it is not !I have been a member of TSF since the earliest days in 2013 and I have been able to hold myself in abeyance, completely avoiding any and all Ren & Stimpy idiocy. However, a thread on execution and a concurrent search for a hymn unavoidably leads to this particular idiocy. Apologies in advance for those about to listen to this, apologies in retrospect for those who revisit this thread in the future ... Ryan
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Ryan
Member
Calgary, Alberta, Canada
Posts: 2,722
What I collect: If I have a catalogue for it, I collect it. And I have many catalogues ....
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Post by Ryan on Jun 10, 2023 15:38:14 GMT
Arrived today from Barcelona ( a Catalan dealer in Callus) It adds up to €2.04 but if I am correct that €2.00 is not Spanish ! I think it could be Montenegrin , what do you think Joan? This brings up a mildly interesting point. Eurozone coins are valid in any country which uses the Euro - Spanish Euro coins can be (and are) used in Germany or Ireland or wherever. Why not stamps? Ryan
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Ryan
Member
Calgary, Alberta, Canada
Posts: 2,722
What I collect: If I have a catalogue for it, I collect it. And I have many catalogues ....
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Post by Ryan on May 25, 2023 2:04:55 GMT
I was trying to think of other trendy/descriptive words for GB definitives, but not much luck - we call the early George V low value naval uniform stamps 'Admirals' - I wonder who first coined that one? The first definitives issued for King George V are known as "Downey Heads" after the original photographer. The 1911 Chapter of the Noses Permanently In the Air Club absolutely hated these stamps and maybe every designer / photographer / engraver after that hoped his name would never be associated with the stamp he worked on, as it led to an injured reputation ... Ryan
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Ryan
Member
Calgary, Alberta, Canada
Posts: 2,722
What I collect: If I have a catalogue for it, I collect it. And I have many catalogues ....
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Post by Ryan on May 22, 2023 21:24:23 GMT
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Ryan
Member
Calgary, Alberta, Canada
Posts: 2,722
What I collect: If I have a catalogue for it, I collect it. And I have many catalogues ....
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Post by Ryan on May 22, 2023 20:07:29 GMT
I am surprised that even when the face value of the stamp is reduced, this is called a surcharge. The syllable "sur" in the word surcharge implies, at least to someone who is not a native English speaker, that the face value/selling price (the charge) after the overprint is higher than without the surcharge. (In the French language "surcharge" even stands for an overstrain or excessive demand...)
But apart from that: What is the generic term for the cases where both the face value of the stamp is changed and at the same time e.g. another country name is printed or another text is added on the stamp? Taken by itself, the one is a surcharge, the other an overprint. But how are both named together? Is the specific issue overprinted or surcharged? Note that the "sur-" prefix can also mean "above" or "over top of". This would be the usage for "surcharge"; it has been printed over top of the existing face value. I would guess that to be exact, your example would be an "overprint with a surcharge". "Overprint" will be the generic term for the majority of collectors for such stamps, I expect. For me, anyway, the new country name is far more important than the new face value. Ryan
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Ryan
Member
Calgary, Alberta, Canada
Posts: 2,722
What I collect: If I have a catalogue for it, I collect it. And I have many catalogues ....
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Post by Ryan on May 21, 2023 4:02:00 GMT
You can also read a book entitled " The Story of Everest" written by Capt. Noel about the expedition. Ryan
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Ryan
Member
Calgary, Alberta, Canada
Posts: 2,722
What I collect: If I have a catalogue for it, I collect it. And I have many catalogues ....
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Post by Ryan on May 21, 2023 3:53:39 GMT
This interesting postcard sent in 1924 from India to the UK sports a Mt. Everest Cinderella (a fundraiser label, perhaps) tied with a magenta cancel from an expedition. It reads "Mount Everest Expedition *1924* /Rongbuk/Glacier/Base/Camp" and ties the label nicely to the mailed postcard, which pictures the world's highest peak in a black & white photo. The card was signed rather illegibly by the team "captain" (not the "Gen. Hon(orable) C.G. Bruce" who is listed as "leader"). Your signature is from Capt. J.B.L. Noel, the expedition's photographer & filmmaker and the man responsible for a very large part of the expedition's financial backing, for which he received rights to the photos and films. A film entitled "The Epic of Everest" was produced and it has since been exhibited after its restoration. Here's the trailer for the film. Ryan
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Ryan
Member
Calgary, Alberta, Canada
Posts: 2,722
What I collect: If I have a catalogue for it, I collect it. And I have many catalogues ....
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Post by Ryan on May 19, 2023 19:55:46 GMT
Thanks for your reply Ryan I tried to "enlarge" the scan before posting without success. Yes, it can be a bit tricky to get zoomed-in looks at large images - the TSF board software will auto-scale any large image down to a maximum of the screen width (at least on desktops, I don't know what happens on a phone). So, I clicked on the link in your image to go to the ibb.co image host, but they also limit image size to the maximum of the screen width. So, I right-clicked on the image and chose "Open image in new tab" - when I click on that I can toggle between an image limited by screen width and a full-sized image. From there I did a screen capture snip of a full-sized image and then posted that, hopefully saving a few other interested readers from jumping through the same hoops in the same order just to be able to see the picture! Ryan
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Ryan
Member
Calgary, Alberta, Canada
Posts: 2,722
What I collect: If I have a catalogue for it, I collect it. And I have many catalogues ....
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Post by Ryan on May 18, 2023 22:44:44 GMT
I was astounded at the amount of flaws on almost every stamps of the sheets many of which could be easily seen with the naked eye. ... Check out line 3 on the scanned sheet. Here's a look at two of the stamps from the 3rd row of that sheet. Ryan
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Ryan
Member
Calgary, Alberta, Canada
Posts: 2,722
What I collect: If I have a catalogue for it, I collect it. And I have many catalogues ....
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Post by Ryan on May 18, 2023 20:23:10 GMT
... these definitive stamps were overprinted (or surcharged? The difference between overprint and surcharge is for me as a non-English native speaker very difficult to understand....) An overprint can be for any number of different uses - perhaps a nation released stamps celebrating the World Cup of soccer / football and later released an overprint to commemorate the winner. Or maybe a new nation came into being and before they had their own stamps produced, they overprinted the new country name on some old stamps from the previous country. Or any number of other possible reasons for releasing a "new" stamp by printing some text over top of an old stamp. A surcharge is specifically a change to the face value denomination of the stamp. Sometimes a country runs out of stamps of a particular denomination, so they might take a bunch of surplus 50 cent stamps and overprint them with a new 10 cent face value. Or they might release a charity stamp to help pay the costs associated with a natural disaster - "+10c flood relief". Or perhaps the currency has changed, as is the case with your Saar stamps here. Ryan
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Ryan
Member
Calgary, Alberta, Canada
Posts: 2,722
What I collect: If I have a catalogue for it, I collect it. And I have many catalogues ....
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Post by Ryan on May 16, 2023 3:08:16 GMT
I had a well-intentioned aunt who always saved stamps for me when I was young and who always ran her scissors into those ugly pokey teeth things around the stamps. A member of the extended family had some reason for living in Upper Volta (now Burkina Faso) and of the few postally used copies I have from Upper Volta, virtually all of them have had a number of the teeth trimmed off by my aunt ... oh well, not so tragic since I wasn't paying for them but still, I'd prefer to see the stamps with teeth!
Ryan
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Ryan
Member
Calgary, Alberta, Canada
Posts: 2,722
What I collect: If I have a catalogue for it, I collect it. And I have many catalogues ....
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Post by Ryan on May 15, 2023 1:43:19 GMT
If my calculations are right, they got the year slightly off — Virgil died in 19 BC, and 2000 years after that was 1981, no? 2000 years after 19 BC was in fact 1982, because there is no year zero in our calendar. The 18th anniversary of death would have been in 1 BC, the 19th anniversary would have been in 1 AD (or BCE / CE for all the modern kids out there). Ryan
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Ryan
Member
Calgary, Alberta, Canada
Posts: 2,722
What I collect: If I have a catalogue for it, I collect it. And I have many catalogues ....
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Post by Ryan on May 9, 2023 3:55:40 GMT
A recent re-sorting of already-sorted stamps has turned up a few more examples of cutouts with stamps from two countries on them. First, this clip of stamps from Luxembourg which had (I presume) an address redirection added to the envelope, along with a British stamp cancelled in Lymington, Hampshire (Hampshire with its odd abbreviation of "Hants."), all slapped directly over top of the stamps originally cancelled in Luxembourg-Ville. Next, two American stamps sharing space with a Thai stamp, all cancelled in Seattle, WA. And finally, stamps from USA & Canada share a Canadian spray jet cancellation. I have to admit to being relatively surprised that I have found so many of these things in the past few months - I certainly don't remember seeing so many of them in the past. Ryan
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Ryan
Member
Calgary, Alberta, Canada
Posts: 2,722
What I collect: If I have a catalogue for it, I collect it. And I have many catalogues ....
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Post by Ryan on May 9, 2023 3:40:05 GMT
most of us would not be aware how critical the dates of use of the postmarks are on these issues. Some of these temporary surcharges had very short period of use as events moved so fast INFLA-Berlin is a German philatelic society which is largely (but not entirely) focused on the hyperinflation-era stamps of Germany. There is a lot of information available - if you have a large bookshelf, you can fill a good chunk of it with the literature available from them (better be able to read German, though). I have a couple of their volumes, #13 & #48, both of which deal with forged / false postmarks on the hyperinflation stamps. #13 is simply a list of all the known false postmarks found on the stamps (and the Berlin / Südende cancel noted by salentin is included in the list), whereas #48 is filled with text descriptions and example photos of stamps with postmarks both good and bad. Ryan
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Ryan
Member
Calgary, Alberta, Canada
Posts: 2,722
What I collect: If I have a catalogue for it, I collect it. And I have many catalogues ....
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Post by Ryan on May 5, 2023 22:29:42 GMT
AbeBooks, a site for used book sellers, among other things. Ryan
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Ryan
Member
Calgary, Alberta, Canada
Posts: 2,722
What I collect: If I have a catalogue for it, I collect it. And I have many catalogues ....
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Post by Ryan on May 2, 2023 3:53:45 GMT
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Ryan
Member
Calgary, Alberta, Canada
Posts: 2,722
What I collect: If I have a catalogue for it, I collect it. And I have many catalogues ....
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Post by Ryan on Apr 30, 2023 18:05:25 GMT
hello all, I have been offered this stamp. I am curious on opinions on the colouring.... ... I am seeing some yellow streaks that may be a scanning issue and hopefully not a revenue cancel that someone tried to erase. I'm fairly certain that the purple & yellow streaks are moiré artifacts from scanning. The "V" is unaffected (no engraving lines in the middle of the V, so nothing to set up a moiré pattern when scanning.) Ryan
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Ryan
Member
Calgary, Alberta, Canada
Posts: 2,722
What I collect: If I have a catalogue for it, I collect it. And I have many catalogues ....
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Post by Ryan on Apr 26, 2023 22:51:20 GMT
This is the statement in the Wikipedia Commons regarding the copyright on Stevenson's book. This is not the paragraph I read, which I thought associated the book with a copyright in South Africa. It's common for different countries to have different copyright laws, and one country's laws can not supercede another's. In Canada, up to the recent copyright law changes which were a part of the recent NAFTA renegotiations, our law stated that copyrighted works reverted to the public domain 50 years after the author's death. So, George Orwell, Ernest Hemingway, Ian Fleming, John Steinbeck, Winston S. Churchill, etc etc etc, are all in the public domain here. D. Alan Stevenson's books would also be in the public domain in Canada, as his death was in 1971, just before the cutoff to our new life+70 years copyright laws. But public domain in Canada has nothing to do with US copyright laws, nor does South Africa's copyright laws have any effect on copyright status in the US. I can do whatever I want with a George Orwell book here - I can publish a complete edition of it, I can take out every second word if I want, I can mix up all the sentences if I want, etc. But I can't sell that edition in the US or in any other country that doesn't put Orwell's work into the public domain. It also means that Orwell's books can be downloaded free of charge here. But I can't then e-mail that file to an American, for example. Or I could go to the Canadian Amazon site and download a Kindle version of everything he ever wrote for a dollar and get something that's full of scanning errors or missing pages or who knows what. Like this, with the random italicization of half of a village name and a missing apostrophe in "Commissioner's". Oh well. Ryan
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Ryan
Member
Calgary, Alberta, Canada
Posts: 2,722
What I collect: If I have a catalogue for it, I collect it. And I have many catalogues ....
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Post by Ryan on Apr 23, 2023 20:35:49 GMT
The Scott's catalog suggests that removing this stamp with water may damage the holographic image. The hologram on this stamp is very thick and I have never seen any damage when soaking this issue off a paper cutout. Thin holograms, as are used for the vast majority of holographic stamps, are fairly fragile and are prone to wrinkling during the soaking process, and I do use a method for those. They are always the last ones to go into the sink - I don't start working on them until all the other stamps are finished. I remove them from their backing paper as soon as they will come loose. They then go under a flat smooth thing (my stamp sweatbox, as it turns out) on the formica countertop while I am filling the drying book with the current batch of stamps, going straight from under the sweatbox to the drying book as the last stamps I put in before closing the book and stacking weight on top of it. This gives me the best results for getting a holographic stamp off without the hologram wrinkling during the soaking & drying process. But as mentioned, this particular Canadian stamp uses a non-standard holographic image and it's very robust. It takes quite a bit longer to soak that stamp off of backing paper, since the hologram isn't water-permeable it takes longer to get enough moisture through the backing paper, similar to the extra time needed to get a stamp off of a postcard with a plastic film covering the image side to make it glossy. That extra soaking time will mean that the non-hologram stamps will be quite a bit softer when it's finally time to get the backing paper off, and I think it's much more likely that you'll accidentally pull apart some stamps at the perforations. You won't need to worry about damaging the hologram, it will be the rest of the piece that will be the limit for how fragile it is. Here are examples of damaged thin holograms due to soaking, nabbed from a HipStamp seller. Ryan
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Ryan
Member
Calgary, Alberta, Canada
Posts: 2,722
What I collect: If I have a catalogue for it, I collect it. And I have many catalogues ....
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Post by Ryan on Apr 21, 2023 7:40:47 GMT
Ryan , if not too much trouble, I'd appreciate a camera pic (or whatever is easiest) of the "Enemy Issues" statement from the 1945 Scott catalog. Ryan
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Ryan
Member
Calgary, Alberta, Canada
Posts: 2,722
What I collect: If I have a catalogue for it, I collect it. And I have many catalogues ....
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Post by Ryan on Apr 20, 2023 23:17:02 GMT
For those of you feel your philatelic life could not possibly be complete without this, here are the snippets from the 1940 Scott catalog explaining the renumbering and prefixes. Outstanding! I had wondered when the change came into effect. I have a few scattered old Scott catalogues, not that I do much with them but I am happy to let them do their part to help fill up the bookcase. I have editions from 1927 and 1945, and there was no mention in the latter of when the numbering changes were made. (For what it's worth, the 1945 edition has an explanation of "Enemy Issues" being left out of the catalogue, all stamps from Axis countries which were released after Dec. 7, 1941.) Ryan
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Ryan
Member
Calgary, Alberta, Canada
Posts: 2,722
What I collect: If I have a catalogue for it, I collect it. And I have many catalogues ....
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Post by Ryan on Apr 14, 2023 4:27:34 GMT
There are catalogues which list Canadian postal stationery - I keep an older version of the Unitrade specialized Canada catalogue (2018) because it still listed postal stationery; those listings were removed to save space a year or two later. Webb's Postal Stationery Catalogue of Canada & Newfoundland gives more detailed listings for postal stationery than Unitrade does (or did).
Your cutout is from a 1938-1949 series of pre-stamped envelopes. Purple 3 cent issues can be tricky to identify because there were two different printing processes used, typographed & offset, but the red ones were only issued using typography.
The Unitrade catalogue says cutouts are worth only 10% of the listed value, which is for entire envelopes. A big discount! US pre-stamped cutouts are usually listed in Scott as being worth at least 50% of the listed value for entires, often more than that. Your copy is common, #8 entire envelopes are listed for only 75 cents in my 2018 Unitrade.
The cancellation might be more uncommon than the stamp image - Bethune, SK has a current population of about 400 people, so it's not like finding a Toronto postmark!
Ryan
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Ryan
Member
Calgary, Alberta, Canada
Posts: 2,722
What I collect: If I have a catalogue for it, I collect it. And I have many catalogues ....
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Post by Ryan on Apr 7, 2023 3:20:44 GMT
Soaking:Do they soak stamps in: (container type) Metal: I use my kitchen sinks (one for soaking, the other for rinsing)Typically how long do you soak stamps: >30 minutes: I start soaking stamps with them segregated according to backing paper - if it's coloured, I get the stamps off as soon as they will come loose - the stamps on uncoloured paper usually get 25-30 minutes soaking before I start working on them. The size of my batches (40g on paper or 16g off paper) takes on average 75-90 minutes.Do you use: Tap water: Our city water is treated with chlorine so soaking too long will bleach / brighten the paper - my batch size means soaking takes me some time, but I limit that as much as I can. I won't leave the stamps soaking unattended for an extra hour while making supper, for example.Do you use: Warm water (can comfortably place your hand in): It starts off about body temperature and by the end of the soaking session it's at room temperature.Do you routinely follow soaking with a separate soaking in Hydrogen Peroxid? No - only for those clearly affected by sulphurization.Do they routinely use hydrogen peroxide separate? Full strength (3%): For those stamps which need it (relatively uncommon for me). How long? As little time as I can get away with - I use a Q-Tip to help rub off the sulphurization and get the stamp out of the hydrogen peroxide as quickly as I can - I've never timed it, perhaps it's around 2 or 3 minutes. If left too long, the stamp will look bleached. Ryan
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Ryan
Member
Calgary, Alberta, Canada
Posts: 2,722
What I collect: If I have a catalogue for it, I collect it. And I have many catalogues ....
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Post by Ryan on Mar 16, 2023 0:33:52 GMT
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Ryan
Member
Calgary, Alberta, Canada
Posts: 2,722
What I collect: If I have a catalogue for it, I collect it. And I have many catalogues ....
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Post by Ryan on Mar 2, 2023 23:57:44 GMT
One of the really interesting tools used during the 19th century to create those intricate geometric patterns you’ve seen on stamps, money, stock certificates etc. were created using a tool called the “Rose engine lathe”. The book shares a lot of detailed information regarding its use.
A rose engine lathe is a specialized kind of geometric lathe. The head stock rocks back and forth with a rocking motion and/or slides along the spindle axis in a pumping motion. A rosette or cam-like pattern mounted on the spindle is controlled by moving against a cam follower(s) while the lathe spindle rotates. Rose engine work can make flower patterns, as well as convoluted, symmetrical, multi-lobed geometric patterns. No other ornamental lathe can produce these "rose" patterns. The decoration produced by a rose engine lathe is called guilloche.
The patterns of the United Kingdom's first postage stamps (known as the "line engraved" series), including the Penny Black of 1840, were based on rose engine patterns.
Years ago, on the thread for St. Vincent stamps, I posted some videos after a comment on the rose engine work of the earliest St. Vincent issues. I'll re-post that reply here, as it fits in perfectly with your comments on what you read in your book. I'm a fan of such geometric engravings so this post reminded me of some videos I've watched in the past on YouTube. Guilloché work is still quite common in the high-end watchmaking industry and is also used for such items as pen barrels, money clips, jewelry boxes, etc. But I've never before seen the kind of machine used for engraving currency, stamps, passports, stock certificates and so on, and after digging around a little bit, I found one. I had always wondered how the gearing arrangement worked - I remember reading somewhere that the US Bureau of Engraving & Printing had a 10-gear machine for engraving their currency (go ahead, try to work out the math needed to copy a pattern with 10 wheels!). The first video gives a better look at how this style of work can be done without electricity, and the second one, although it doesn't have too much footage of machines actually cutting something, finally lets me see how those machines used for currency and stamps worked. Ryan
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