Classic Ecuador stamp mystery – a possible wet print specimen?
Going back to the topic of South American stamps, I started this year by giving my collection of a boost by adding nearly 400 new Ecuador stamps. With such large number you are inevitably bound to come up some unusual and interesting items. And here’s one of them:
1916 Ecuador. 1c definitive stamp with portrait of president Vicente Roca. The left side stamp is of normal size, but the one on the right is clearly taller and slightly narrower.
This is a fairly common definitive postage stamp, and all in all none of the basic stamp catalogs I have say nothing special of this or the stamp series it belongs to. However what I have is two clearly different sized specimens:
A side-by-side comparison of stamp sizes.
What comes to my mind first is the possibility of wet printing. The fact that the dimensions of stamp & design are distorted in this way suggests this possibility. The alternative would be a forgery of some sorts, but as the perforation, design etc. seem highly identical I doubt it.
However, as the catalogs say nothing I’m feeling a bit puzzled. It would be highly unlikely that I would be the first to spot such a difference; likely the catalog editors have simply decided to drop out this piece of tidbit in favor of getting some extra space for more popular countries.
As usual, feel free to share your comments, questions and opinions on matter. Especially if anyone has access to specialized literature for the Ecuador stamps, I’d love to hear to what you can dig out.
Till next time, happy collecting!
You might also be interested of related posts about Stamps and postal history of Ecuador.
Keijo, even in the Kohl-Handbuch with its excellent section about Ecuador (published in 1926) i couldn’t find anything about this “mystery”. Same with old Senf- and Michel’s from 1931, 1939 and 1942.
This stamp is so common, maybe different plates were used.
@Holger… Thanks for the checks.
True, different plates is one alternative too. But I would assume that printers as experienced as Waterlow & Sons would have made the new plates of same size as the original ones.
I don’t have any detailed references for Ecuador. However, if I were to guess, I would think it is more likely the difference in design height is caused by a switch from flat plate press to rotary press. That would cause the elongation in one direction. The stamp was issued in the decade for which many stamps originally printed by flat plate press were subsequently printed by rotary press.
Just my guess.
@khj.. So it would be the same characteristic as with US Washington/Franklins. Why did not I think about it…
So theories are (IMO from most likely to least likely):
1) Use of different type of press (flat vs. rotary press)
2) New print plates
3) Use of different print process (wet vs. dry print)
4) Forgery
Interesting article, Keijo.
PS: You mean the one “on the right is both taller and narrower.”
1916 Ecuador. 1c definitive stamp with portrait of president Vicente Roca. The left side stamp is of normal size, but the one on the left is both taller and narrower.
@Rick… Good catch. Now fixed.
Here’s another similar find with the exception that this stamp is from Peru and the printer is American Bank Note Company:
Right side specimen is clearly wider than the one on the left… And still nothing about the difference on general stamp catalogs
Paper expands when dampened, so after it has dried out again a wet print would be smaller than a stamp from the same plate on dry paper. The expansion is greater across the grain so it is possible that the proportions would alter, but I cannot see any way that printing on dampened paper could result in a stamp which is taller one way and narrower the other. I think it must be a different plate.
@Alan… I agree that wet/dry print can be excluded pretty safely from this. So basically it boils down to two options left for this:
1) Use of different type of press (flat vs. rotary press)
A switch of press type from flat to rotary . Any stamps put out using the old but refactored/curved plates, will lead to stamps being either taller/wider than flat press specimens.
2) New print plates
No change in press type, just new plates. What bugs me most with this theory is why make the new plates of different size / stretched? There’s no logical reason to it. Which is why I’m leaning heavily towards the first alternative.
So you are supposing that a plate which was previously printed flat is bent around a cylinder and this produces a stretched image?
In theory this is correct but I have done a bit of maths and reckon that if a plate 2mm thick (a guess) was wrapped round a cylinder of 300mm radius (another guess) the increase in length of a 30mm stamp would be about 0.2mm. What’s the difference between your two stamps?
Only the side of the stamp which runs round the circumference would increase, the side parallel to the axis of the cylinder would be unchanged.
@Alan… And I always wondered if highschool math could be used in real life
Here are the records for the Ecuador stamps (measured with Photoshop on 600dpi image, from frame to frame):
Stamp on the left:
* width:21.1mm
* height: 26.1mm
Stamp on the right:
* width:21.0mm
* height: 26.9mm
So the width of design is more or less the same, but there’s 0.8mm difference in height.
If the stamp in question was issued in 1916, then I would doubt that the difference is due to rotary vs flat plate printing.
Rotary presses were developed in the 19 teens in the US to print coil stamps. They were not widely used to print other issues until the 1920’s.
I find it difficult to believe that Ecuador would have had rotary presses in 1916.
@Ron… According to Michel, this Ecuador stamp was printed by Waterlow & Sons. So likely these stamps were manufactured in UK.
Since these are used stamps, dampen the smaller one and measure it wet. If the size matches with the larger, then there is a fair chance its a simple wet/dry printing (either intentional or the paper just dried out). You can also check the grain direction this way (and make sure both stamps have the grain in the same direction).Do also check they are both engraved.
@Tony… Both have similar grain – did the simple breathing test. And both are engraved – no doubt about it.
A few posts have already touched what will cause stamps that should be the same to SHRINK in one direction and EXPAND in the other direction when the two are compared.
Because of the change in both directions, that pretty much narrows it down to damp printing of engraved stamps on paper which has had the grain direction rotated 90 degrees.
A few collectors of United States stamps – a very few – are aware of a similar circumstance involving US stamps of 1922, some of which were reprinted in 1928 on paper that was rotated 90 degrees, such as the 11c Hayes, Scott #563. These are not mentioned in Scott but are very well described in the Durland Plate Number catalog.
@Carl…
Interesting…
The special paper printings are only mentioned in recent editions of the Durland catalog. They are not mentioned in catalog editions prior to the turn of the century. The special paper was actually just the different paper previously used to print booklet panes.
It’s certainly a possibility that the phenomena may be caused by a rotation in the paper or a different paper. While the paper obviously wasn’t soaking wet during the print process, I wonder if you could test this hypothesis by measuring the design with the 2 dampened stamps as mentioned earlier (I guess you could use a humidity/sweat box to lightly dampen the stamp). I don’t know how reversible this drying/dampening process is, as I’ve never tried to measure this.
On another note, Wallace Cleland, the editor of the Durland Catalog passed away last week (March 6). His contributions to the catalog are well-appreciated and will continue to benefit future collectors.
Regarding the rotary press, it is well-documented that on US stamps, the switch from flat plate to rotary for a typical 19mmx22mm stamp produced a unidirectional elongation of ~0.5-1mm. As noted, it depends on the size of the plate and the radius of the curvature, but at least you have some hard numbers for a reasonable comparison.
@khj
I’ll give it a go and report some measures once completed.