The majority of 1 green Benjamin Franklin stamps are common and cost less than $1, but two rotary press variants that resemble common flat-plate issues almost exactly are rare and cost thousands of dollars. Ken Lawrence explains how to recognise and comprehend the uncommon ones.
Which US Scott Number Does Your Stamp Have—594 or 596?
Most likely not. These are the scarce (Scott 594) and uncommon (Scott 596) 1924 Benjamin Franklin 1 green rotary press stamps with gauge 11 perforations on both the horizontal and vertical axes.
Among all the United States stamps released between 1922 and 1938, the 1 green Franklin stamps are among the most widely used. They resemble rare stamps at first glance, but seasoned stamp collectors can distinguish them from the rare ones.
A155 engraved design is a design type that appears on 16 different stamps in the Scott Specialized Catalogue of United States Stamps and Covers. This sum includes stamps printed on flat-plate and rotary presses, coil, booklet, sheet, and overprinted varieties, as well as imperforate and imperforate issues.
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Typical Look-Alike Franklin Postage Stamps
The typical 1 Franklin clones are as follows: From flat plates, Scott 552 was printed. The printed design is smaller than either of the rare ones, but it has gauge 11 perforations in both dimensions. Despite having identical perforations on all three stamps, it is shorter and narrower than Scott 596 and 594, respectively.
Looking at the back of a flat-plate stamp is another way to recognise it. Typically, it will have set-off, or green ink specks, that were transferred from the printed sheets that were stacked on top of one another to dry. Rotary press stamps rarely have set-off on the back because they were dried by running the printed web through a heated chamber before being rolled up.
It is simple for collectors to recognise the typical rotary press sheet stamps that feature this design if they use a perforation gauge correctly and take accurate measurements. Scott 578 has perforations that are 11 by 10 gauge, Scott 581 is 10 gauge, and Scott 632 is 11 by 1012 gauge. But when so much is at stake, always be meticulous with your measurements as they can result in incorrect identification.
Production of Rotary Press Coils
The 1922 series’ coil stamps were all printed using Benjamin R. Stickney’s invention of small intaglio rotary presses. Curved plates with 170 subjects were used to print horizontal format coils with 10 subjects across the plate and 17 subjects in the rotary dimension. Because of the curved nature of the plates, the engraved images were stretched in the horizontal direction, resulting in printed images that are wider than those of sheet and booklet stamps made from flat plates.
A line of ink was printed in the area where the plates adjoined. Two plates were printed simultaneously, forming a cylindrical surface 34 subjects in circumference when mounted together on the press. The two stamps that cross the joint line are referred to as “line pairs” and are valuable collectibles. The Scott 597 designation is given to the 1 Franklin horizontal coils.
According to the catalogue, Scott 594’s stamp design measures roughly 1934 by 2114 mm, while Scott 596’s stamp design measures roughly 1914 by 2212 mm. Unfortunately, novice collectors are rarely taught how to take consistently accurate measurements, and they frequently have a tendency to read rulers positively. Disappointment is always the outcome. They frequently mistake a common Scott 552 for either a 594 or a 596, and many don’t want to hear it from experts who point out their errors.
Understanding how and why these various stamps were created would, in my opinion, be a better approach. Positive identification then becomes a test of applying those lessons to the examination of each stamp.
500 and 1,000 Stamp Rolls Wound With The Gum Side in Were Available in Both Formats
To accommodate users of Mailometer high-speed office mailing machines, horizontal coils were also offered on special order in 3,000-stamp rolls wound with the gum side out. However, smaller rolls weren’t produced until much later, so the perforated web pieces at the start and end of the webs that couldn’t be finished as 500-stamp rolls were discarded and labelled “waste.”
However, smaller end pieces left over from threading and disengaging the perforator had no perforations at all. The majority of those leftover pieces of coil waste had gauge 10 perforations across the paper web width. However, each of these scraps had a legitimately engraved $1 Franklin print. They were too small for coil pieces, but if they were divided into panes and perforated on both axes, they might work as sheet stamps.
Coil Waste From a Rotary Press
When the 1908–21 Washington–Franklin series stamps were still in use in 1919, the Bureau of Engraving and Printing started a policy of salvaging coil waste. This policy was maintained when the 1922 series stamps took their place. This spared the BEP the expense of treating the waste as spoilage and allowed it to bill the Post Office Department for those finished stamps.
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Large amounts of horizontal coil waste accumulated due to the high demand for horizontal format coils, which the BEP then processed into finished sheets. Each sheet, which represented the horizontal coil plate layout, was made by dividing them at the joint lines so that it was 17 subjects wide and 10 subjects high. (Since there was little vertical format waste, finished sheet stamps were never made from it.)
11 by 11 Rotary Press Coil Waste Perforated
Scott 594, the rotary press coil stamp with gauge 11 perforations in both dimensions, was first described in April 1925. Rotary Press Coil Waste Perforated 11 by 11 There were no more to be had and none were offered for philatelic sale at that point because coil waste production had stopped.
Although the BEP had not kept separate records, the quantities produced must have been modest. Gary Griffith provided an estimate of 51,000 in the book Linn’s United States Stamps 1922-26.
