Japan Revenues - Hand Engraved Documentary Issues

I know this thread is old but I found this and told me they were nice despite my ignorance about them. We find the letters EP sign of revenue stamps it seems.

And for those I don't know where to put them and what they could be used for, maybe for state organizations

racatrien

The black revenue with Fuji in the center is a stunning looking stamp!

A quick Google search of Japanese revenue stamps and I found this site again. A few months ago I was searching for information and found this site at that time. isjp.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/07/Japanese-Revenues.pdf

Bookmarked and downloaded thank you

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Japan Hand Engraved (Etched) Documentary Revenues

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Hi all,

During my long hibernation I have been mostly concentrating on accumulating the old documents with hand engraved documentary revenues, focusing on the most popular and abundant 1 Sen Black revenue stamps (4th Issue, late printing,  Plate XV and XVI by Furuya, which was reorganized and categorized as "5th Issue, multiplicative printing" by Hasegawa in his 2019 catalogue) to gather enough material to commence the plate reconstruction study. 

Unlike the other classic stamps of Japan (such as Dragon and Cherry Blossom series) where full sheet images are available, there are no reliable reference resources for plating - the only clues are that

1) there are two plates in this issue, and

2) Plate II, Position 8 has a notable etching variety - "one stroke missing on left Sen character".  

So it is like a set of two 5 x 10 piece puzzle, with only one piece shown in the board...

According to my study memo, i started tackling the puzzle on July 24, 2020, and after about two years, it seems the journey is getting close to goal and thus would like to share my progress 

This is the unfinished reconstructed sheet of Plate I, with the images of revenue stamps shown for confirmed positions (note: different shades are artificially added onto images to distinguish the individual multiples combined and used for plating).   Plate II is in better progress , with 47 positions confirmed and thus 3 positions remaining to be identified 



Through the course of this plate reconstruction, I have been also able to identify several etching variations - some of them might have been previously described in this thread but now the plate & positions confirmed - and would like to share images and notes in the following posts as well.  

Thanks, and please stay tuned !

- Hironobu


 

Thanks JeffS, the reconstruction process is like a logical puzzle, chain of inference and deduction, which I do enjoy - here's some excerpt from my study note, it may look like some math study

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Japan Hand Engraved (Etched) Documentary Revenues

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Progress report on reconstruction work of 1 Sen Black hand engraved documentary revenue, 4th issue, late printing (5th issue, multiplicative printing by Hasegawa).

Succeeded to locate three (3) new positions in Plate I; Pos. 24, 34 and 44 using a document with two 3-stamp vertical strips.  

The two 3-stamp vertical strips were luckily rejoined by perforation to form a 2x3 block, and the 3 stamps on the right side matched the known positions 25, 35 and 45, thus confirming the left side strip as positions 24, 34 and 44 - which was a big hole in the puzzle.   

Now 42 out of 50 position (5x10 per sheet) in this plate (Plate I) have been hitherto identified, with a couple of individual stamps which do not match any of the fixed positions.   I bet the pieces of the puzzle is pretty gathered, and just looking for a couple of nice clue to put those pieces into the board :-)



- Hironobu

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Japan Hand Engraved (Etched) Documentary Revenues - 5th Issue, 1 Sen black: plate reconstruction completed

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Plate reconstruction work of 5th issue, 1 Sen black (normal paper, perforated), finally completed - 3 holes (Plate I/Pos. 31, Plate II/Pos. 4, Plate II/Pos.24) filled with existing non-matching single revenue stamps, one hole (Plate I/Pos.1) with rejoined block.  Plate positions finally confirmed through comparison with large block photos in Hasegawa, "The Documentary Hand Etched Revenue Issues of Japan", recently published by Narumi co. (2022).  





The final hole, e.g. Plate II, Position 24 turned out to be the mysterious stamp with an apparent plate flaw (now also confirmed as a stationary plate flaw by observing identical flaw pattern in three stamps in my collection);



Although still needs pair/strip/block to complete the "puzzle" for the 3 positions (currently filled with single stamps), I am delighted to complete this reconstruction after some three years of work. Not only being able to assign plate ID and positions for the variants (engraving errors, plate flaws etc), I managed to understand the variations in paper, shade and perforation through the reconstruction work by observing hundreds of examples - really enjoyed this common yet fascinating revenue stamp from the Meiji era.


- Hironobu