Signoscope T1... great product! Only missing one thing...

The Detectamark arrived this morning - I thought I'd try it with a Cape of Good Hope Edward VII stamp (Stanley Gibbons #71, Scott #64, Michel #54), which has an anchor watermark on it. I took a picture of the stamp when on a dark background which shows the watermark is virtually invisible in normal light. I then took images of all the different colours the device can use (using a single brightness setting, although that is adjustable as well). It does show it works better in some lights than other, as I'd expected. Overall I'm quite impressed with it.

Normal light:


Colours:

Hi Mike

One reason I thought of going back to Electronics Engineering before I retired. I like the idea of designing hardware and making it work. Since you work on Aircraft, you'll like this. We installed a new nav system on a C54 for testing. The company made a lot of changes to the system. To save a few bucks the case was left alone. To originally connect the avionics there were the monster 120 pin connectors (mil type) of which only 10 or so pins were used after the modifications. So that the wires used did not break from the pins, we ran about 60 to 70 additional dummy wires. The military inspector, a 2nd lieutenant, went ballistics over the dummy wires. He had his people cut them out of the connecting cable. On the test flight some of the wires broke loose. The inspector got into trouble and, probably, was transferred to some remote air base. Those connectors were heavy and 10 or so #22 wires was too little.

Jerry B

Hi Jerry,

Here's shots of the dark and light blue setting on minimum brightness setting. Although to my eyes it was still visible, the camera seems to have made it look worse. I've played with several stamps now and there are some that show best on low brightness with white light, and some (for me anyway) are easiest with the pink light on high brightness. I suspect it's more to do with my eyesight than anything though.

Indeed Jerry B - having played with it some more during the day it's been a little random, especially with some of the Indian stamps. Admittedly some of those looked like they'd been thinned and might have lost any watermark they once showed.

Overall though it's allowed me to catalogue a bunch more stamps which I couldn't figure out before, so I'm pleased with it.

(and I don't really want to mess with fluids if I can help it )

I ordered a new RGB light with controller that should be here today or tomorrow. I am going to install it in the Signascope T1, to see if it is as good  as the Stanley Gibbons Detectamark. The only thing that is better with the Signascope T1, is that you can tighten better than the T2, and it it looks like the Detectamark is also not able to tighten as much. When I use my T2, I tighten it as much as possible with the knob and still can't see hte watermark sometimes, but I can see the watermark with the T1, since it can smash the stamp more. I know I am going to give in and buy the Stanley Gibbons eventually, just because, I now want to know the difference. LOL.

Well, I am trying to do this so that anyone could easily duplicate it. I actually found a small 12 volt light that has a remote with it. I have it installed, but don't have a good stamp to try yet. I ordered the Mexican stamp you listed earlier. Got it for $1.50 on Ebay, so it will be here in a day or so. The controller has 16 colors and dims really nicely. I will post some pictures soon, but it looks pretty good so far.