The San Francisco call. [volume] (San Francisco [Calif.]) 1895-1913, 1896-03-01
ISSUED FAULTY STAMPS.
A Defective Plate Has Caused
the Government Much
Trouble.
How a Postoffice Clerk Outwitted
Philatetist Who Wished to
Purchase.

Through the blunder of Government
engraver the United States has been
flooded with hundreds of thousands of
defective postage stamps of the new 2-cent
issue, the Postoffice Department has been
compelled to destroy plate that cost it
$4,000, and stamp collectors and dealers
who were fortunate enough TO learn of the
matter before it came TO the eyes and ear
of the authorities have reaped rich har-
vest. Stamps that were worth 2 cents as
their face value before the mistake was
discovered are now held at ten tim es that
am ount, and The price will enhance as they
crow older and are scattered thr ough the
thousands of collections in the country,
thus becoming one of the rarites i'll which
the philatelic enthusiast delights.
For many years the Government let out
the contract for printing stamps to the
American Bank Note Company, and this
corpora ton was responsible for the abso-
lutte accuracy of the precious bits of paper
that pay the way of the correspondence of
the country. Recently. however, the Fed
eral authorities decided to do the work,
and vast engraving and printing plant,
with an army of employees, was estab-
lished at Washington. One of the men in
tire engravers' department is responsible
for all the trouble, which involves the call
ing in of hundreds of thOusands..of stamps.
A few months ago it became known to
the Stamp Bureau that the cent stamps
then being issued were being counterfeited
to a large extent and 1t was decided to
| make lew issue containing secret marks
that would render identification of the
spurious stamps easy. Orders were given
for new plates that would remedy the mat
ter and the most expert engravers in the
department were put at work on them. In
addition to the water mark the stamps
show faint line of perforations on the
gummed side that is not apparent to the
layman, but to the philatelist is very
plain.
Each plate is intended to print 400 per-
feet stamps and each plate is numbered,
the number showing on the margin of the
printed sheet, so that in case of a mistake,
such as the one in question, the depart
ment can tell just which stamps to recall.
The new issue had hardly MADE its ap-
pearance and had not yet reached this
coast when philatelists discovered that two
rows of stamps on the lefthand side of
plate 10 were defective. The first row was
entirely correct, but rows two and three,
extending from the top of the sheet to the
bottom and containing an aggregate of
forty stamps, were family.
In each of the upper corners of the cor
rectly executed stamps appears a double
triangle one within the other. The space
within the inside triangle is closely filled
with fine horizontal lines, as Is the body of
the stamp, while the narrow space between
the heavy lines of the triangles shows
clearly white.
In the first defective row the inside tri-
angle is missing and the fine red lines are
unbroken, while in the second imperfect
row the two triangles are present, but the
white space that should be between does
not appear, the fine red lines running en-
tirely across. These i'm PROJECTIONS would
not be apparent to an inexperienced eye,
but to the expert are glaring defects, and
to the Government they are practically
objectionable, and the engraver who made
the plumbers will probably soon be looking
for another position, if he is not already
doing so.
Stamp-dealers obtained possession of
thousands of specimens before the defects
were made known to the Government, and
the collectors of this City made q desper-
ate effort to do so, but the information of
the imperfections reached here ahead of
the stamps, and very few went into circu-
lation.
One collector struck the trail of a guam
tlty that had reached a sub-office in the
southern part of the City, and attempted
to buy them, but the clerk was posted, and
quietly informed the philatelist that he
could have them if he was willing to pay
handsome premium. As such transac-
tions are clearly prohibited by the regula-
tons of the Postoffice Department, the
young man was running considerable risk
OF losing his position, but there is honor
sometimes, even among philatelists, and
ne was not reported, the collector taking
the matter as rather good joke that he
should have been outwitted.
The stamps that have not already passed
into the possession of collectors and deal
ers have already been recalled by the de-
partment.