Saturday, January 15, 2011

Hyphen Hole 14 on RB21

Yesterday's post of two examples of the HH14 variety is today complemented by an example on the 1/4c proprietary presently for auction on Ebay.  The item on Ebay is most remarkable in that it appears to be a complete sheet of RB21p, the 1/4c proprietary stamp.  I believe this is the same sheet that has been for auction over the past several months, initially at very high starting bids.  The price has since come down.  You can find the Ebay lot here.  Battleship sheets are rare.  Their size alone made them difficult to preserve, and this is a rare surviving example, even if it is somewhat battered.

RB21p 1/4 cent proprietary full sheet of 200

So while the sheet is remarkable just because it exists, it contains an HH14 example, or the hyphen hole perforation variety in which the perforations appear as 14 perfs per 2 centimeters rather than 7.  The cause of this variety is explained in this post.  Thanks to JW Palmer for his elegant explanation of this anomaly. 

In the Ebay listing is included this closeup scan:


The bottom rows of stamps clearly show the HH14 variety.  Below is an even closer view:




Thanks to Dave T for spotting the HH14s in the sheet!

No comments:

Post a Comment