1898 Revenues: Philatelic Expertizing and R192A

Saturday, January 7, 2023

Philatelic Expertizing and R192A

Current Ebay listing for a copy of R192A without gum. Stamp is accompanied by an expertization certificate.

Over the years this site has featured copies of R192A in addition to the range of R190-R194s in various states of color and varnish conditions. A current posting on ebay for a copy of R192A with an expertization certificate by William T. Crowe raises questions about how experts understand these stamps and how they were printed.

The stamp above appears to be a normal copy of R192A. There is no numeral overprint, and no sign of varnish, as is typical on these stamps. An owner of the stamp acquired a recent certificate in November, 2022:

"****It is Genuine, Unused and without gum. While the Ornamental Surcharge is partially water soluable and could have dissolved when the gum was removed, there was no evidence under my UV lamp of there having been an Ornamental surcharge on this stamp.*****"

Mr. Crowe describes the overprinted version of the stamp as having an "ornamental surcharge that is partially water soluble". This description is inaccurate, in a significant way. The ornamental numerals are not soluble in water, partially or otherwise. The varnish square, which is unmentioned on the certificate, is what is soluable. The cert needs to say that there is no evidence of a varnish square or the numeral ever having been added to the stamp, which is consistent with the typical copies of this stamp. At this time there are nearly a dozen R192As on ebay, and none appear to show varnish or the overprint. The Scott catalogue does not mention that the varnish square is also absent on R192A, which is an oversight, as it speaks to how this error involved sheets of the stamp missing both the varnish pass and the overprint pass through the printing process. The varnish squares never were made large enough to make the entire numeral wash off with water.

The last of set of 1898 series dollar revenues are the most complex of the 1898 revenue stamps, requiring three passes to print the main image, apply the varnish, and apply the overprint. Experts accustomed to certifying "normally" printed stamps probably need to spend a little extra time understanding these unusual stamps.

No comments:

Unusual Ink on the 1898 Series Dollar Values

THESE STAMPS ARE BOTH SCOTT R191! From fugitive ink to color changelings with unknown origins. These are both copies of R191. Can only exposure to light produce the color changes you see in stamp on the right? Or possibly a soak in bleach or other chemical? I doubt it. These stamps have so many examples of changelings that there must be something else happening. The ink used on this dark green series of stamps was different than that known on any other BEP printed stamps, never mind the varnish square. It is likely the BEP was experimenting with ink on this issue. Inks are discussed further if you click on the stamps.

Collecting Cancels

Welcome to 1898 Revenues, a website that features the stamps used to pay the Spanish-American war taxes imposed by the US Government starting in July, 1898. But while this site features those stamps in general, a focus is on their cancels, and on the firms that applied them. Unlike US postage stamps, which were canceled by the US Post Office and now Postal Service, revenue stamps were ordered to be canceled by their users in such a way that the identity of the user and the date was included in the cancel. This makes the collecting possibilities nearly endless, so that a single variety of stamp, for example, the 2 cent battleship stamp intended to pay documentary taxes, had potentially millions of different users, and therefore as many different cancels. Please browse the site and discover the collecting possibilities, made so much more accessible now through online sales. Cancels on these stamps have become much more interesting and accessible with the massive amounts of archival and historical data available on line. Rather than hours spent in libraries or with heavy volumes to identify cancels, search engines allow for cancel sleuthing at home.

Battleship Proprietary Printed Cancels: Updating the Joyce/Chappell Lists

In the 1950s, Morton Dean Joyce updated a list of printed cancels on the battleship proprietaries compiled by Clarence Chappell. Joyce's is a very long list consisting of more than one hundred companies and thousands of cancel dates. In the years since Joyce completed his list, many new cancel dates have been demonstrated to exist, and an update of the 1950s list is needed.

This site is attempting that update. Using the Joyce/Chappell lists and the former collection of Henry Tolman (ARA #25) as a base, a gradual effort will be made to post updated lists to the best of my knowledge, making a call for those that can contribute new dates and new images of those cancels.

Following in this column are quick links to excel files of these lists by company. Also are links to the posts that I have made on this blog regarding these companies and their cancels.