Site News ~ Most Recent First

It has been quite a while since a new, constant plate flaw has been reported on the 5¢ Blue. Much of the line is quite faint, but the portion in the ‘T’ of Postage should be quite visible.

As a result of some very helpful encouragement, I have been attempting to improve the home page of the site to be more helpful, especially to new visitors. I suspect that regular site users will head directly to the search page, but hopefully the landing page modifications will help foster interest in Admiral CPVs.

There is a new page where some of the finer details of steel engraving are discussed.

The Report Errors to WGB feature is back and available on each stamp page. This is likely the easiest way to discuss a specific stamp with me.

Finally, after some experimenting with “Twig” (a PHP template engine), there is a new Zone Statistics page. If you have ever wondered how many plate flaws are listed in Zone 16 of the 2¢ Carmine or how many retouches have been reported in Zone 4 of the 5¢ Blue, this page is for you. If nothing else, it will provide quick, current access to site data…possibly for research purposes?

To quote Hannibal Smith, "I love it when a plan comes together.”

I spend quite a bit of time pulling ‘possible’ plate flaws out of bulk lots of Admirals. The plan is that if I look at enough stamps, I should start seeing duplicates; IF the possible flaw is constant.

Recently, this item came across my desk and I determined that it matched a stamp I had set aside a few years ago. As a result, we now have another constant plate variety, which shows as a mark in the upper right of the 1¢ Green.

People who do not know me well, might assume that I purchased this item because it features a 1¢ stamp cancelled on the front of a postcard mailed from Victoria, BC, to Buenos Aires, Argentina, on 5 May 1913, with a 2¢ Carmine Admiral franking on the reverse. They would be mistaken.

The real reason I acquired this piece is that the 1¢ stamp looked unusual. At the time, I did not appreciate just how unusual it was. The pitted markings in “ONE CENT,” in both numeral boxes, and in several other areas of the design seemed familiar, yet no matching 1¢ coil example could be found. A search on this site for any 1¢ Green bearing the “Pitted” tag finally produced a match—on a sheet stamp.

This stamp is now understood to be the coil component of a pair produced from a printing plate used for both sheet and coil stamps. The other half of the pair can be viewed here.

This is the fifth such sheet–coil pair recorded in the Admiral issue. All known examples can be located using the MF (Multiple Format) tag in the site’s search field.

By their very nature, a single example of a re-entry or a retouch is sufficient to establish that it is a constant variety. Plate faults, however, are an entirely different matter. Unlike deliberate attempts to improve the printed product, plate faults result from accidental damage — something the printer would have preferred to avoid. To make their study even more intriguing, such flaws may not appear until late in the plate’s working life.

I find it especially rewarding to prove that an unusual marking on a stamp is constant. Finding two identical examples is the essential first step. Several stamps show markings similar to the one illustrated here, but this is the first time I’ve found a true match. With luck, more examples will surface in time.

To see the details, click here.

The “String of Dashes” (also known as the “Row of Ants”) appears on the 3¢ Brown sheet stamps. Several dozen different positions show similar varieties, most commonly found on Marler Type 12 stamps.

These constant plate varieties have been well known and documented for many years by students of the 3¢ Brown issue. Marler owned multiple examples, and Reiche reported this variety on several occasions.

One new observation for me is the set of marks in the top margin above the left crown. On closer review, Reiche seems to have indicated these same marks in his 1987 study Canada The Admiral Flaws.

To view all examples of this variety on the site, select the “SOD” tag. For more specific results, add a dash-count search such as “# Dashes” (for example, “13 Dashes”) in quotes to the lower search field.

I believe each listing within a specific dash count represents a distinct position, though the dash counts may not always be accurate. Postmarks and plate wear often make an exact tally of the dashes difficult.

This is a small study within itself which would seem to have great potential for further research.