Watermark 191 as illustrated in Scott catalogs.

USPS Watermarks

Dear Sir,

I thoroughly enjoyed and appreciated the fine article by Larry Weiss on the Catalog Implications of the Existence of Two Patterns of “USPS” Double Line Watermarks in the October United States Specialist.  Larry invites comments, so here is my minor comment regarding the current illustration of the watermark in Scott catalogs.

The illustration on page 438 [October Specialist] of Watermark 191 does have a slight drawback in that the illustration does not correctly represent exactly what an entire sheet will always look like relative to the stamps on that sheet.  But, the illustration is a BIG help in showing what would normally appear on a single stamp, namely portions of a letter.  This was very helpful to me in identifying what I was looking at.  In specific, looking at the 7th column, 9th row, the SINGLE line appearing there is really a double line watermark!

Sincerely,
Robert W. Martin

The Author Responds

Dear Sir,

Thanks, Robert, for the kind words on the article.  The illustration of how the double line watermark falls on a 100-subject sheet deserves more explanation than it is given in the catalog section, and so the suggestion in the article is not to remove it, but to relocate it to the Introduction section and provide that additional explanation.  So, its usefulness in helping to identify stamps with double line watermarks would not be lost.

Stamp position 87 (9th row, 7th column)

Robert notes the strange case of the stamp subject shown in Position 87 (9th row, 7th column) where at first glance it appears the “U” resembles the same letter in a single line watermark pattern.  See the accompanying figure for an enlarged view of that subject.

Indeed it is possible to mistake the double line letter for the single line “U” but the careful observer will note the evidence it really is a double line watermark letter.  The double line “U” will be too narrow, have too much vertical height, have an attached extra line at its bottom, and perhaps show the presence of the serif at the top of the right leg.  But granted – at first glance it can be confusing.  It is an odd case and the use of the double line watermark illustration will be helpful in avoiding such a misidentification.

Sincerely,
Larry Weiss

Philatelic Covers

Dear Sir,

In his article “Philatelists Eschew Philatelic Covers,” George Edman worries that “cover collecting is solely dependent on mail exchanged between people who have no interest in stamps.”  This is certainly not true for all types of cover collecting.  For example, collectors of first day, first flight and commemorative covers, by definition, do not reject philatelic covers.  However, when it comes to postal history collecting, contrived philatelic covers are rightly rejected.  As I have argued elsewhere (Hines, 1983), collectors are just too prone to use pretty and unusual combinations of stamps or stamps out of their actual period of use.  One of the goals of a postal history collection is to show what actually happened – what stamps were used for, when and for which rates, on which routes and so forth.  Made up (philatelic) covers (usually) distort the record of what actually happened.  Including them in a postal history collection or exhibit would be like including a fake Rembrandt in a collection of Rembrandt’s paintings.  Such fake paintings would undoubtedly be pretty and collectable as fakes.  But no one should argue that they are in any way equal in status and value to the real thing.

There are rare exceptions.  For example, the late Henry Beecher pointed out (Hines, 1984) that “some rates, routes and usages are effectively non-existent on non-contrived covers and these must then do.”

Sincerely,
Terence Hines

Hines, T. (1983), “What is a ‘philatelic’ cover?” Modern Postal History Journal, 1 (#4), 39-40.

Hines, T. (1984), “Reactions to ‘What is a “philatelic” cover,’” Modern Postal History Journal, 2 (#1), 10.