Need Help identifying washington stamps

[cherrypicked2012]

Hello, I'm not a stamp collector, but have to begin gaining a basic understanding. Any help at all would be greatly appreciated!

Thanks,

Ivan

[msgtdavid]

Go to the Library, and check out if possible, or at least read the front part of the Scott Specialized Catalogue of United States Stamps.  Read all the way to what it says Identifier of Definitive issues.  That will give you a start.  

While the Scott Catalogue is a good source of basic information, there are other publications dealing with Washington Franklin head stamps, forget these for now, get the basics done first.

If your library does not have the Scott catalogue, check and see if they participate in the inner library program.

Washington Franklin head stamps are a lot of fun.  I've heard over my sixty plus years of stamp collecting that the Washington Franklin head stamps are way to hard to figure out.  They are hard if you make the identification hard, just use common sense.

Again, read and reread the first part of the Scott Catalogue, then skim thru the rest of the catalogue, picking up pieces of information here and there, make notes along the way.  I have a note on my desk always in front of me telling which is watermark is single line and double line.

Identification of these Washington Franklin stamps are I think fun and not hard at all if you use just simple common sense.

DAVID THOMPSON

MSGT/USAF/RETIRED 

[annadryl]

These are challenging sometimes, but fun. You'll likely need to remove them from the page to check the watermarks. This chart might help. Good luck~

[msgtdavid]

That's an excellent chart well work keeping, but you will need to make one addition.

Basic watermark information add to your chart someplace so when you are using the Scott Catalog, "Watermark 190 is Single Line, and Watermark 191 is double line", again just the basic watermark numbers.  Often times when you are trying to ID a number, and it says so and so watermarked 191, if its written on your chart, then you will know that 191 stands for double line, saves you time searching the catalog to find out what watermark 191 is.

I'll check out this chart when I get home tonight, but it appears good to me.

DAVID THOMPSON

MSGT/USAF/RETIRED

[annadryl]

Excellent point David, that needs to be added in there as well. I don't recall where this original chart came from but it can certainly be edited...

On the subject, here's a good identifier page on the Washington Franklins> http://stampsmarter.com/1847usa/washfrank/washfrankmain.html

[msgtdavid]

The Stamp Smarter site is good for only basic ID.  

If a collector only want to fill holes in his album then Stamp Smarter is outstanding.

But if a collector wants to dig into different Washington Franklin Stamps then Stamp Smarter site is very lacking.

A personal preference for myself, color images of the different types and varieties is confusing to me, way too much unnecessary detail.  A black and white line drawing is superior in many ways.   But this is just my thinking.

What other Washington Franklin Heads publications do you find useful?

DAVID THOMPSON

MSGT/USAF/RETIRED

[msgtdavid]

These are the reference publications I find most useful for identification of the Washington Franklin W/F head stamps 1908 - 1921.

Scott Catalog = good starting reference, but lacks details.

Washington-Franklins 1908 - 1921 by Martin Armstrong, excellent reference resource, photos are not useful, line drawing would be much better.

Handbook on Bureau and local precancels by Adolf Gunesch, good resource for precancels W/F.

Perforation Measurements of United States Stamps, by the Bureau Issues Association, excellent resource, especially in regards to the Kiusalas gauge, also explains how to determining perforation without a gauge.   Personal note there is a short write up on my discovery of (so far) unique 544 I discovered.

Encyclopedia of Plate Varieties on U. S. Bureau-Printed Postage Stamps by Loran C. French, Bureau Issues Assc., excellent resource on plate varieties including W/F head stamps.  Cloudy often communicated on the W/F head stamps.  By the way, this book is valuable resource for any stamp from any country mostly. 

These are the most important publications I find useful.

Another idea is a reference collection I find very useful.

I exampled the chart tonight, looks really good, lots of information in one handy place.

DAVID THOMPSON

MSGT/USAF/RETIRED   

[billsey]

Just looking at the scans, they all look like they are perforated 11 all around. The top two look like offset printings from the 1918-1920 issue, minimal value. The bottom three seem the be the same stamps, though the 1c might be flat plate instead of offset, also minimum value. Check them with a perforation gauge to verify the are 11, and dig into the references provided to learn how to identify printing types.

[cherrypicked2012]

Thanks so much for the info! I mostly sell comics but have quite a few stamps from my friend that I need to go through. Stamps are certainly much harder to identify and value than comics.

Thanks,

Ivan

[billsey]

Yes, comics usually only have one printing. Stamps sometimes have hundreds of them over the span of decades. In the case of these Washington / Franklin issues they came during a period of big changes in the printing industry. There was a big push toward automation with a drive toward ever decreasing costs. The changes front flat plate to rotary press and offset were all targeted at foster, cheaper. It make for a fascinating study for that first quarter century. We don't even need to get into paper changes and vending machines... 🙂

[msgtdavid]

I'd like to add a little bit more, during the WW1 period caused numerous problems for production of U.S.A. stamps.

Some of the problems were:

Ink supply resulted in the pink backs.

Compound perfs.

Men were in the military and women mostly took over production and printing of stamps.   Quality lacked.

DAVID THOMPSON

MSGT/USAF/RETIRED

[malolo]

There were many women working in the production of stamps prior to WWI, and when men left they took over and you can't make such a comment that quality suffered.

Look at this picture and count how many men  and women are in this picture from 1904. You might say the "printers" are men, but how do you divide the jobs when they are working closely together. Women were involved in stamp production for many years into and including WWI.

I never knew that all the varieties of Washington-Frnakins was due to quality control. Much of it was due to supply lines and technical changes in stamp production and catalogued by collectors. To my knowledge most of the differences were not remarkable to the Bureau

[billsey]

Yeah, I wasn't aware that quality issues were significant. There were paper changes, we see them as different watermarks mostly, that I believe were primarily to increase consistency and to support the change from sheets to rolls. They might have targeted the needs of the vending machines with paper as well, though mostly that was done with perforation gauge changes.