Spot the difference

So its actually a different stamp. I thought it might be. The crossed arrows on mine seemed a bit of glaring mistake if they were missing from the ($$$$$) stamp. Can you shed any light on what the "inverted groundwork" means? Or the inverted crown at the bottom. I can't see it for the life of me.

The stamps were printed in two stages , the background mesh , and the frame and crown in a second process.

Inthe exceptional Cherrystone 11.000 item the mesh and the crown are not lined up . One is upside down so the crown does nor fit correctly . Look closely there are white areas under the posthorns , behind the Russian letters for ONE KOP, is a white area where the crown should have been, and upper left oval. Some of the groundwork mesh pattern intrudes into the little circle for the “1” top left .

So the expensive stamp is an error with the background mesh inverted in relation to the main features ……a scarce rare error in printing.

in addition yours is also a different stamp. The crossed arrows are referred to as “thunderbolts”: and there are two series of these stamps, one with and one without thunderbolts. 


The catalogue description also says the error stamp is “ex Faberge”. Agathon Faberge, the son of the famous Imperial court Jeweller, amassed a world famous collection and stamps with his provenance invariably have prestige which also boosts the price.