A swedish coil stamp mystery
Like many collectors, I get occasianally very frustated with stamps from Sweden. Or more precisely – the various perforation formats they provide. Since the 1920s, Sweden has been known for issuing most of its stamps in coil, booklet and sheet format. In plain English? Same stamp, but it can exist in 1 to 4 (or even more) different perforation variations.
So why am I writing about this commonly known topic? About 5 or 6 years ago I found the mystery item below from kiloware. The top stamp is your average copy, but take a look of the stamp on the bottom. The perfs on the right side are missing almost completely.
1973 Sweden 40 öre postage stamp - Row of willows in Skåne, a painting by P.A.Person
For a long time I tought it was a random miscut/misperforated stamp that I had been lucky enough to find. But… Some time ago I received a huge lot (thousands of very common swedish stamps) , and found the two items below that changed my thinking.
Sweden 1971 - Windmills on Öländ, 75 öre definitive stamp
The first stamp is normal coil stamp.
The third stamp has miscut perf (like my original finding), but it has some kind of affixed (and perforated) borderpaper on the back.
And on the middle, is a stamp that has complete perf, but it has also had (but soaked) an affixed borderpaper on the back. There’s a clear impression on the stamp showing where the paper has been.
My hunch is that these are from the end of stamp roll; or the borderpaper is some kind of joint piece between two sets of stamps used in a roll. The ones with missing teeth are simply miscut copies when the roll was created. But this is just my guessing…
I have checked the most common Scandinavian catalogs (Michel, Facit, AFA) for these, but found nothing… So once again, I hope that the online collectors community shows me their wisdom and helps me solve the mystery. So what’s the story behind these?
You might also be interested of related posts about Stamps and postal history of Sweden (Sverige).
Coil joins are not unusual in many countries, although I don’t remember seeing any from Sweden before (I’m probably just unlucky). If the 2nd stamp is used, then it is probable that somebody has soaked it, and the joining paper has separated. The collector who re-stuck it didn’t do a very good job.
Mint examples are best, and best collected as pairs – from any country.
Hi Ian,
thanks for the information… Always learning new bits and pieces. Coil joins are something totally new to me…
The second copy doesn’t have the join affixed (only traces of it left on the some teeth). The “yellowish color” is on the stamp. Don’t know if it’s due to coil join glue or just a “bad soak”.
best,
-keijo-
Maybe your 40 öre stamp is the first/last from a coil (not neccesarily a joint). That would explain why you did not find it until now.
Hi Pablo,
that is one possibility…
I have emailed a swedish dealer about this. Hopefully in few days time I’ll be much wiser about these.
Sometimes booklet panes are only one stamp wide. In such examples, the last stamp on the booklet pane may have three sides imperforate and middle stamps may look like coils, once renoved from the booklet.
Blair
I suppose the stamp from Sweden with the so-called diamond perforation was created bij the teeth of the container of the roll at the postoffice desk. When the stamp is separated, the teeth can make an extra perforation on the bridges between the perforationholes of the stamp. In the Netherlands, it happened frequently.
Hi there Keijo,
I agree with Pablo on the junctions. I have seen many of those examples from the Netherlands and Germany.
I also agree with Cees. I also saw a lot of examples were clerks didn’t remoce the stamp properly. There are ven examples were the stamps are cut in half.
Best regard,
Paul
@Paul… Thanks for the info.
I just recently got another large batch of Swedish stamps – and there were few more stamps with varying coil joins. I’ll try to showcase those some day
A bit bizarrely I haven’t found any similar from other countries; maybe it’s just bad luck (or then the Swedish one are extremely common).
Yes they are…I have a few of those mainly with the Nobel Prize series, but now you mentioned, I’ll check my swedish lot thoroughly…