1893 2c Columbian Exhibition "Broken Hat" Variety

Terrific idea Steve. Here's mine.
The notch in my man's hat would seem a little wider than yours. If the progressive theory holds true, perhaps a later printing?

I guess there are at least 3 different states of progressive wear. also frame-line breakage but more on that upon request.

The Broken Hat variety was a progressive flaw, according to Brookman (Volume 3, page 57) but that does not mean that a wider gap came from a later printing. The reason is that the variety did not originate on the actual printing plate. Instead, it was a flaw in one of the images on the transfer roll. If the transfer roll had 6 images, which was typical in the late 1800s, then many of the positions on the plate had this flaw. And there were many different plates laid out for this issue.

Since the flaw was progressive, we can safely assume that later plates had a bigger gap, because the flaw causes a filled area to be void of ink. That is, the hat feature on the stamp consisted of a raised metal area on the transfer roll (and made an indentation on the plate, which would capture ink during the printing process) and the flaw occurred because some of the raised metal was missing. So, as more metal wore off the edges of the raised metal on the transfer roll, the gap became progressively bigger.

But we cannot make the final step; that a bigger gap came from a later printing. The reason is simple; the plates may not have been used in the order they were laid out.

Also, with this type of flaw, we can also expect that the flaw got smaller as the plate wore out. This is because the cuts in the plate are wider at the top than the bottom of the image (a V cut), or else the transfer roll would not release from the printing plate. As the plate was used, it was wiped down after each sheet was printed. This wiping action would strip layers of atoms off the plate, making the steel thinner and thinner, closing the gap. When the plate was finally replaced, the gap was restored.

So there were two competing processes during the printing of these stamps. Successive plates had wider gaps but they shrunk over time as the plate was used.

The broken line variety, on the lower right hand side of the stamp, was also a transfer roll variety but it must have occurred on more than one relief. A lot more stamps have this variety.

This is an interesting thread...I always wanted to find out a bit more about the broken hat variety of this stamp. Thanks!