Job Lot Finds

OK that makes more sense. 👍

Here I have a 1909 Gibbons # 450 (I believe). I know taking raw photos of the watermark ain't the best, but I do believe the watermark could be mirrored? NZ over a star.

OK lol, did not know that.

Purchase also contained 68 penny reds.. So far this is the most interesting one. On the back is, Copestake Moore Crampton & co London

They were all pretty curled up when I got them. I'm guessing someone hunting 77 or building a plate? Anyway, the first thing I wanted to do was get them all flat again and see what's there. They are all now back of the book.

I know they're not worth much but these stamps are ~160 years old. Honestly, it still amazes me that such delicate little things have survived this long!

They all got a dip last night for that very purpose. What I did notice was that the lighter coloured stamps seemed to have paper that was much 'thinner' than the darker coloured stamps.

I haven't properly sorted through them so i'm guessing it could related to the printing date of each stamp and the paper that was used?

So i received a new job lot today... There are literally four shoeboxes of stamps. 🤯 Anyway, I've skimmed half of it and below are the items that u have picked out so far. 

Also, the 2 cent washington. Is this a Scott 519 11 perf? I have a 12 perf in my book already, but this is smaller. Could be wrong, or it could be a fake? 

It's tough to provide an accurate perf measurement based solely on a handheld camera pic due to angular distortion. A scan together with a perforation gauge is needed.

Missing the 12th perf does not affect the measurement. The gauge is not determined by how many perfs you can count on the stamp, but how many perfs there are per 2cm. Getting a perf gauge is suggested, as it would be more accurate than counting.

That being said, I can reasonably provide a fairly accurate guess that your TWO CENT Washington with the Ohio cancel is perf 12 and not perf 11.

Beryllium Guy, this common misunderstanding is a direct result of Scott's inconsistent method of sample illustrations.

Type 138 is "ONE CENT", the only denomination
Type 139 is "TWO CENT", the only denomination
Type 140 is "# CENT #", where # is the digit(s) and "CENT" plural as needed. This type applies to all denominations (of course, the dollar value is not CENTS but DOLLAR)

Type 139 does come in other perforation varieties, not just perf 12, and this includes perf 11 and perf 8½ coil.

Scott #519 is Type 139; however, the stamp posted by gotstamps85 is not perf 11. His stamp is not #519 because the perforation doesn't match, not because it is "TWO CENT" because #519 is "TWO CENT".

Just for additional information, there is also Scott 344 imperforate 2 CENTS Carmine, also Type A139. Scott 519 is stated to be 'the result of an old stock of No. 344 which was returned to the Bureau in 1917 and perforated with the then current gauge 11.' According to Scott Specialized Catalogue. As noted by khj.

Beryllium Guy, it's easy to misunderstand on those Washington-Franklins, and as I stated before, quite frankly I blame Scott inconsistency in how they present their illustration types. This Scott-caused confusion has affected many collectors.

Scott should have made it Type A138 and A138a for the "ONE CENT" and "1 CENT 1" stamps, respectively,
then A139 and A139a for the "TWO CENTS" and "2 CENTS 2" stamps, respectively,
and finally A140 for all the 3c denominations and above, which only appear in the format "# CENTS #".

I would think that would easily eliminate both the need for the footnote that most people don't notice, and the resulting confusion.

But it is unlike Scott to try to reduce confusion...

For U.S. issues, I confirm the Scott design number and then proceed to the Identifier of Definitive Issues at the front of the Specialized catalog. Then, it is just a process of elimination to complete the identification.

On the subject of US stamps, here's my collection of US stamps after sorting through my recent job lot purchases.