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Saturday, 25 March 2023

Some snippets: through the microscope and get handy with scissors!

I've been sent a couple of emails which don't really fit in with any other blog post and are too small for one of their own, so I'm going to use this to post these here.

First a look at the screens used in plate/cylinder production of modern Machins.  My thanks to CH in Austria for sending these pictures through the microscope showing the screening dots.  I know some people are very interested in these.  They are both 20p stamps, but the angle of the lines of dots is different.


Colour mix variations.

Still on the Flying Scotsman prestige book, one would have thought that the print run was so low on these now that colour consistency would be easy.

But I happened to fan out a few panes and noticed the significant variations as shown here.

Flying Scotsman PSB Definitive pane colour variants.

Litho/Gravure?

From the same reader, who is getting some really good pictures from his microscope, these two show the two printing methods on the £1 definitive from recent PSBs.

£1 definitive from X-Men prestige stamp book, printed in litho.

£1 definitive from Transformers prestige stamp book, printed in gravure.

Next is this blatant piece of fraud.  I am sorry to say I cannot find the email that sent this, so I cannot credit the reader, but thank you all the same.  

We know that the Victorians had trouble with people using the clean parts of two previously used stamps to send another letter.  But they would not have matched a 1d black with a 1d red, which is virtually what has been done here - successfully!

Both halves self-adhesive, but one is pre-security!



4 comments:

  1. That fraud is absolutely astounding! The gall of some people.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I would be apoplectic if someone used this on anything addressed to me, and I'd make sure they knew about it.
      Whether or not it was surcharged.
      The sheer cheek of it is breathtaking.

      Delete
    2. Great piece of postal history though, but better as a complete piece. I'd be rather pleased with it!

      Delete
  2. Amazing that someone went to so much effort just for a 2nd Class stamp!

    ReplyDelete

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