Dear Sir,

I really enjoyed Kevin Lowther’s story in the October issue, “Exploring the Washington-Franklin Routlettes Part 1:  Kansas City’s ‘Inside Job’.”  I look forward to the additional parts.

One matter bothers me, though.  Why state unchallenged “…the uncut sheets of 400 stamps were too large to store properly in the office safe?”  (I assume from the footnote this means this idea came from the February, 1915 issue of The Philatelic Gazette.)

To better explain my complaint, it would be helpful to know for how long the Kansas City, Missouri main post office had been supplying 1¢ and 2¢ imperforate sheets of 400 to the National Bank of Commerce in the same city, but perhaps this is unknown.

Are we simply to understand that a carefully choreographed set of actions occurred on a regular basis between the P.O., the bank, and the transportation system(s) then engaged such that the imperforate sheets arrived from Washington, D.C. and were whisked to the bank, sans need of any proper storage at the PO?  And that this P.O. was the only one in the nation handling imperforate sheets without an adequate vault, or other P.O.s lacking an adequate safe employed the same “instant handoff” to customers?

It seems to me if this were the case, we might be discussing one more thing after the bank’s participation ended.  That would be any evidence along pane edges of the means which the P.O. used to simply “quarter” the sheets into post-office panes of 100 so they could be filed in the safe as simply as other denominations, awaiting demand from counter clerks or customers.  “Rouletting” I thought was a means to aid separating the stamps themselves.  I wonder where the sheets of 400 “sat” after the bank stopped buying them and before the tracing wheels were later employed.

Sincerely,
Ronald Blanks

The Washington-Franklin Committee Replies:

Dear Sir,

Q.:  How do we know that the Kansas City, Missouri, post office had uncut sheets of 400 1¢ and 2¢ stamps?
A.:  As Ronald Blanks assumes, The Philatelic Gazette for February, 1915 states explicitly that this was the case, but without explanation.  It was standard procedure at the Bureau of Engraving and Printing (BEP) not to quarter imperforate sheets, which were used by private companies or the government solely for manufacturing coils.  Quartering them would have made the coiling process—the cutting and pasting-up of strips—more laborious.  Imperforate sheets were simply taken at the BEP, as needed, from the pile that was waiting to be perforated, cut into panes and packaged.  (See Wallace Cleland, “Delayed Perforation of Flat Plate Stamps,” The United States Specialist, January, 2007, pp. 41-3.)

Q.:  How long had the Kansas City post office been providing 400-subject sheets to the National Bank of Commerce?
A.:  The bank could, in theory, have used affixing machines as early as the spring of 1912, when the imperforate stamps in question were issued, and as late as the fall of 1914.  However, only a study of covers mailed by the bank during this period might indicate approximately when it started and stopped using the privately perforated stamps.

Q.:  Did the lack of storage capacity require “choreographed” logistics to deliver 400-subject sheets from the Post Office Department (POD) in Washington directly to the bank, only as needed?
A.:  We can only assume that the imperforate sheets were dispatched from the POD in response to fairly regular requisitions by the Kansas City postmaster; and that these were delivered—uncut—to the bank when they were received, or soon thereafter.  The postmaster presumably tried to ensure that stock was on hand whenever the bank required a fresh supply of stamps.

Q.:  Where were the redundant 400-stamp sheets kept after the bank stopped requiring them and until the postmaster resorted to rouletting?
A.:  If, as Kansas City collector William C. Michaels believed, the bank started using government coils sometime in 1913, the postmaster may have held remaining imperforate sheets for up to a year or more before deciding to roulette them in November, 1914.  As accountable paper, the imperforate sheets almost certainly were stored in the post office vault—just as uncut sheets of Scott #344 were, for some years, in a New York City post office before being sent back to the BEP in 1917 to be perforated (Scott #519, gauge 11) and issued that October in New York.

Sincerely,
Kevin Lowther

Dear Sir,

The postcard pictured as Figure 1 on page 460 of The United States Specialist, October, 2010 [Kansas City Roulettes] brought back memories of a hot and dry afternoon in Placerville, California, in the mid-1980s.  My wife Jan & I operated a stamp store in Citrus Heights, California at the time and were visiting an elderly couple in Placerville who had a variety of stamp “stuff” to offer.  Our conversation soon centered around an antique shop the couple had operated in the Santa Cruz, California area in the 1950s and 1960s.  The husband had an interest in United States postal history and his wife explained that he always selected one item to keep from any purchase if it interested him, selling the remaining duplicates in the shop.  She offered a small accumulation of late 19th and early 20th century material.  In that group was a single 1¢ Kansas City Roulette tied on a postcard addressed to the senders wife in Illinois!  We recall the card, who would not (!), and it, or one from the same correspondence, is the card pictured.  We purchased the collection and first offered the Kansas City Roulette at WESTPEX, San Francisco that Spring.

The “rest of the story” occurred at that show when Ralph Steinkellner, a San Francisco postal history dealer (now deceased), saw our card on display on Friday afternoon and commented “see you tomorrow.”  On Saturday, Ralph showed up with three other Kansas City Roulette cards, from the same correspondence, with messages which we recall led to the conclusion that the sender was a traveling salesman, writing home!  When we asked Ralph where his cards came from, he commented that he had purchased a collection from a couple from Chicago who had retired in the San Francisco Bay area, and they had found the cards in an antique shop in the Santa Cruz area!

We sold our card to another Bay Area dealer at the show.  We moved from California several years later and Ralph passed away after we left.  Somewhere, out there in “Philatelyland,” are three more examples!  We are not aware of the disposition of Ralph’s inventory.  Happy hunting!

In closing, it’s stories like this that confirm a short bit of advice from Kellogg Stryker, with whom I worked at Gimbles’ in 1961, “There will always be items to find as there are always items being lost!”

Sincerely,
Chuck McFarlane

Dear Sir,

I would like to make a correction concerning my article in the August, 2010 issue of The Specialist titled “Scribed Lines on Huck-Cottrell Press 432-Subject Coil Plates.”

Due to an oversight on my part in cross-referencing known plate numbers, I made an incorrect assumption.  The tagged coils of the 3¢ Statue of Liberty issue, Scott #1057d “Look” variety and Scott #1057b  “Philatelic Reprint” variety, were printed with plate numbers 27236 and 27237.  These plates were produced in July/August, 1962 and were used to print the 3¢ Statue of Liberty issue until 1969, so accordingly these plates were made with scribed lines.  Therefore it would be possible to find these varieties with scribe lines.  Many thanks to member Steve Unkrich for pointing out to me the existence of these two varieties.

Sincerely,
Brian Baba

Dear Sir,

I just wanted to write to say how impressed I am by the ongoing run of U.S. Specialist journal issues and especially by the “Scribed Lines on Huck-Cottrell Press 432-Subject Coil Plates” by Brian Baba, which I read today.  This is the most interesting, extraordinarily well researched, well written, and beautifully presented article that I’ve seen in philately in a long time.  I hope that Brian Baba (a new name to me) is recognized with philatelic literature awards when the opportunity comes.

Sincerely,
Douglas Quine

Dear Sir,

Plates 1 and 2 of the 35¢ Drew (Scott #1865) were sent to press on May 14, 1981 for a total of 472,379 impressions.

Plates 3 and 4 were sent to press on May 22, 1981 for 12,098 impressions each, the lowest number of any of the Great Americans series.

Mint stamps from plates 1 and 2 will, if permitted, curl toward the print side along the vertical axis.  Stamps from plates 3 and 4 do not curl.  In printing the first two plates, the web was moistened prior to the Cottrell press intaglio station.  The web was not moistened when plates 3 and 4 were on press, a watershed of sorts.
Plates 3 and 4 were available briefly from the Philatelic Agency in vertical strips of 20, where I obtained all but the lower right position.  On my upper right strips, only the left half of the left column of stamps is tagged.  That is, the entire sheet was tagged EXCEPT for the right hand selvage, the far right column of stamps and the right half of the adjacent column of stamps.

Members who have UR and LR examples of plates 3 and 4 should check them for the untagged error.  Scott prices the error at $85.00.

Sincerely,
David Stiff

Dear Sir,

In his article on the linerless Flag over Porch coil in the April Specialist, Todd Uebele states that “When the slitting wheels that cut the web into individual coil strips are properly set, the correct configuration for all normal Scott #3133s are in fact 12/12 PV/PV or 12/12 VP/VP.”  While it is possible to use the specifications for the stamp height and die cut gauge to calculate the number of serpentine cycles a normal stamp is supposed to have, it is impossible for us to know what die cut feature they intended the stamps to begin and end with or if they even cared.  This is because the serpentine pattern for this issue ran continuously across all the rows in the web without interruption between rows, giving us no clue what feature they intended the stamps to begin and end with.  If the slitting shifts or if the die cutting shifts, the starting and ending features will change even if the stamp is of a normal height.

This continuous die cut pattern is no different than what is found on a conventional perfed coil issue.  We collect them by perf gauge (and on the Liberty series by hole size), but I’ve never heard of anyone collecting them by whether they start or end with a hole or a perf.  On the other hand, in the case of the private vending coils, which do have distinctive patterns, they are collected by the number of holes or slits.

In contrast to the continuous pattern of the #3133, the serpentine pattern for Scott #2915A (BEP coil of 100) is interrupted by straight line separators that are intended to be split between the tops and bottoms of stamps of adjacent rows.  The pattern is named by the first feature under the separator at the top and the last feature above the separator at the bottom and by counting the number of peaks between the separators.  Even if the slitting shifts or if the die cutting shifts, the convention that has been developed allows the die cut pattern to be positively identified by referencing from the separators (not from the top and bottom of the stamp), something that is not possible on a continuous pattern issue like Scott #3133.

Using the terminology that was developed for a distinctive die cut pattern instead for a continuous die cut pattern only confuses things and adds fuel to Scott’s decision not to list legitimate die cut varieties for issues like the #2915A that were a result of different die cut mats and not a result of minor production freaks.

Sincerely,
Doug Iams

Dear Sir,

Readers of The Specialist have recently been treated to an outstanding series of articles on the Postal and Treasury Savings Systems.  A horde of forms from the Stoyestown, Pennsylvania post office was recently acquired by this writer on ebay, which provides an interesting sidebar to Dr. Charles’ comprehensive series.

Purchasers of War Savings Stamps had the option of presenting their stamps, affixed to a War Savings Certificate, to a post office for registration.  Upon so doing, the certificate could only be cashed by the registered owner and only at the post office where registered.  Registration thus protected an owner against loss.  The Stoyestown post office registered 226 United States War Savings Certificates between January 2, 1918 and November 30, 1921.  “Application for registration” forms representing 171 of those registrations are in the recently acquired cache.  The cache consists of 123 applications to register Certificates for the Series of 1918 stamps, two for Series of 1919, 24 for Series of 1920, and 22 for Series of 1921.  It is noteworthy that the form used to apply for the registration of Series of 1918 stamps (W.S. 110, 2-3983) was also used by the Stoyestown post office as applications to register War Savings Stamps of the Series of 1919, 1920, and 1921.  The year “1918” was stricken out with pen on form W.S. 110, and 1919, 1920, or 1921 was handwritten in order to make the form serviceable for the War Savings Stamps issued in those years.  It is unknown to this writer whether or not specific forms were produced by the Post Office Department for intended use during 1919, 1920 or 1921.

Stoystown (as the name is now spelled), located in Somerset County in rural central Pennsylvania, had a population of 342 according to the 1920 U.S. Census.  According to the USPS, the spelling was changed to Stoystown on June 1, 1935, although that spelling is used in 1920 census data.  The Stoyestown postmaster during the period in question, John Custer, registered 11 certificates in is own name, and used the spelling “Stoystown” on his applications, while most of his customers used “Stoyestown,” perhaps suggesting a division of civic opinion on the correct spelling.

One Certificate was registered to a “Post Office Clerk” and one to a “Rural Carrier.”  Of the first nine certificates to be registered at the Stoyestown post office (between January 2 and January 15, 1918) eight were registered to a man who identified his occupation as “bar tender” and one to a “newsboy” with the same surname as the bar tender.

More »

1½¢ Harding plate block with 7 gum-breaker configuration.

Dear Sir,

In the April, 2007 Specialist, member Rodney Juell reported the discovery of a third copy of U.S. Scott #633, the Fourth Bureau 1½¢ Harding rotary compound perf., with a 7 gum-breaker configuration.  I am writing to report the discovery of a fourth single and also a plate block, #18722, which both show the 7-breaker configuration.  Per the Plate Number Checklist, plate #18722 was at press 6 times between November 2, 1927 and May 16, 1928.  The existence of a 7-breaker configuration on this plate would seem to suggest that creation of this variety coincides with the BEP breaker experimentation in early 1928, which resulted in the 8-breaker variety on the 2¢ value, Scott #634.  This writer welcomes further comment and reports of additional discoveries.

Sincerely,
James Robinson

The Author Responds

Dear Sir,

My thanks to Mr. Robinson for sharing his discovery with the rest of us.  His taking the time to report this discovery and thus expand our collective knowledge is a big part of what our Society and The Specialist are all about!  Mr. Robinson’s discover of this plate block confirms my suspicion that the seven-breaker configuration was used circa early 1928.  I appreciate now knowing for certain.  I challenge our members to continue to watch for unreported breaker configurations.  To the best of my knowledge the table of known ridge and breaker combinations that appears on p. 256 of the June, 2003 issue of The Specialist is still accurate.

Sincerely,
Rodney Juell

Dear Sir,

This letter is to thank Larry Weiss for his contributions to The United States Specialist.  His articles have contributed significantly to the knowledge base of United States philately.

Although I am a relatively old stamp collector, I am a short-term member of the United States Stamp Society.  Having joined the USSS as a trial evaluation, a year ago I was presented with the decision as to whether or not to renew my membership.  That decision was made easier by reading the first installment of his series of articles entitled “Why Collect the U.S. Washington-Franklin Heads?  A 100th Anniversary Tribute.”  My thought at the time was that his articles would certainly be worth the price of membership renewal.  Happily, I can report that my analysis was correct.  With the added bonus of his report, with Gerald Nylander, of the discovery of a forward-stepping watermark pattern, it is my belief that all of our members have been richly rewarded by their membership.

Mr. Weiss has contributed a great deal and no one could fault him for resting on his laurels, but I will look forward to any other articles that he may feel moved to write.

Sincerely,
George W. Edman, IV

Philatelic Covers

Dear Sir,

In response to George Edman’s article “Philatelists Eschew Philatelic Covers” [November Specialist] I want to respond to his perplexity about the use of philatelic covers in exhibits.  First let me say that the general prohibition is a good example of how a guideline becomes a hard and fast rule.  Nowhere is it said that philatelic covers are barred from exhibit; rather it is a fact that philatelic coves are often contrived, generally more available, sometimes did not even go through the mail, and are sometimes not franked with the proper postage.  Thus, commercial covers are preferred as they reflect the intended usage of the stamps on the cover, and the real service(s) they paid for.

This does not mean that philatelic covers can not be used.  Some of the times that they are entirely appropriate include times when they are the only surviving records of events, when they reflect postal operations that were not planned by the cover fabricator, and when they illustrate an authorized postal practice in the face of a temporary problem at the local level.

In the latter class, I have one of the bisected Huguenot-Walloon covers that Edman illustrates in my exhibit on stamp separation.  Since acceptance by the local postmaster is documented, and no other covers are known to illustrate it, it can not be replaced by a commercial cover.  Other covers that would be exhibitable might include first day covers that had been in a plane crash, Roessler and other first flight covers that document flights for which there are few or no commercial covers, pioneer air mail covers created as souvenirs, and a host of other items that might be needed to tell a part of the exhibit’s story.

Because there is no explicit prohibition on philatelic covers in judging, I do not in general deduct for use of the occasional philatelic cover when a commercial cover would be better, only for using a lot of them when commercial covers would be a better representation of the intended use of the stamps.  Remember that putting together a good exhibit is a challenge.  As with all competitions, having more difficult material is rewarded.  Commercial covers are generally more difficult than philatelic covers.  But that does not mean that philatelic covers can never be used.

Sincerely,
John M. Hotchner

The Author Responds

Dear Sir,

I thank Mr. Hotchner for his expert guidance on exhibiting.  However, the article was not intended to be specific to the acceptability, or not, of philatelic covers in exhibits.  The anecdote about the exhibit judge and his comments, while true, was only presented as a means to begin a commentary on a more far-reaching bias against such covers as were illustrated.  I have no knowledge to indicate that the apparent disdain for philatelic covers is rooted in exhibiting.  Even if that is the case, though, it seems to have influenced our hobby well beyond that activity.

Sincerely,
George Edman