3d Pictorial - TAS w/m - thin paper or reverse impression?

[wilbaer]

Morning all,

I found this slightly strange 3d pictorial amongst a pile of the TAS watermark perf 14 London printings and would be interested to hear anyone's views on it. The scan shows what seems to be the norm amongst these issues from the values I have seen, namely no real trace of the printing on the reverse and a relatively strong watermark that is clearly visible to the naked eye when put on some dark paper. However, next to it is a scan of another 3d which has the impression clearly visible on the reverse and the watermark is very faint indeed (barely visible) when put on dark paper. Is this a normal feature of these printings or is this some sort of oddity? It has been mentioned to me that all the London printings of this stamp were printed on one type of paper only, so a different type of paper seems unlikely. I do not have the equipment to measure the thickness accurately, I'm afraid, so cannot really tell. Any ideas?

Impression on rear of 3d Brown W/M TAS

differing 3D P14 TAS wm backs.jpg (112.69 KiB) Viewed 4235 times

[Ross Ewington]

It does look like an offset from another stamp - does the backprint line up perfectly with the impression of the stamp on the front?

[Jeffharris]

On page 13 of Keith Lancasters book, he states that he had found two used examples of the Twopence Halfpenny value printed on 'extremely thin paper'. When I was in Adelaide last year, I was shown a used Fivepence stamp with very thin paper. I recall that only the frame of the design of the stamp could be seen from the reverse side.

[wilbaer]

Hi Ross and Jeff,

Just got back - have made another 600dpi scan of this stamp - the impressions do not line up, as the impression on the rear is circa 2.5-3mm higher up than the impression on the front. Hopefully this might be visible in these 2 scans...

3d offset back closer.jpg (194.54 KiB) Viewed 4216 times

3d offset back.jpg (302.49 KiB) Viewed 4216 times

does this help us - has such an occurrence been sighted previously?

[Ross Ewington]

many thanks for the larger images

queries/observations

· I can't see the TAS watermark but if the perforation is 14 then it must have it

· I would say that the offset from another stamp occurred much later than the printing date - probably as a result of soaking too long with another stamp, poor storage in a damp climate, etc.

· unrelated but the OS perfin looks like a forgery to me from this distance ..... did you buy it from "George" from Sydney of eBay fame?

[wilbaer]

Thanks for the info and the chat just now Ross - it is a TAS watermark P14. The offset is intriguing, but could well have been from another stamp as you say. However, the impression is very crisp, not patchy as one may possibly expect if another stamp had just stuck to the back of this one and been stored damply or something. I would think that if this were the case, the ink impression would not be as uniform as this one is. Still a bit of an oddity... now onto the harder one, the possible forged nature of the OS. It's probably not form "George", as it came along with thousands of other perfins from all Aussie states which I have waded through and evaluated to the best of my capabilities during the last 6 months, which will be the basis for our research into Offical perfins. I shall try and have a closer look and compare against other pictorial punches of the era, and take on board what you mentioned about the 'ridges' around some of the holes. Will also talk to David Coath about it too, as he has more experience in the actual machines than I ever will, to see if he thinks the actual punching looks suspect. I'll report back later. Nor sure how I can go about measuring the thickness of the paper with no instruments, to try and verify a similar circumstance to what Jeff described in his post. Another job for a later date.... !

Many thanks for your input.

Cheers
Jerry

[Ross Ewington]

Clear offsets from other stamps caused by over-soaking or poor storage can be found without much trouble. I noticed this
WA stamp on eBay last week.

offset.jpg (91.3 KiB) Viewed 4208 times

It's a clearer impression than that on the 3d Pictorial although not all the constituents of the ink were transferred thus the 'wrong colour'

P.S. you don't have to measure the thickness of the paper but the diameter of the holes in the puncture may be worth comparing with a bona fide OS perfin

P.P.S. if a real printing offset were to exist, I doubt if it would show the vertical 'ribbing' quite apparent on your example.

[wilbaer]

many thanks, Ross - that is a striking offset. Certainly does look like the pictorial's back has something very similar to this, so probably case closed from that side. I shall have a look at the puncture at the weekend, since I am gone until then. Thank you for looking into this for me - nice to get a riddle solved.