Exploring a Previously Undocumented Przedbórz Partial Imperf, by

Exploring a Previously Undocumented Przedbórz Partial Imperf, by Sam Ginsburg
This Fi 8, Type 1 stamp was purchased on Ebay at the end of August,
2014.
It raises several questions, in no special order:
1. Is the basic stamp genuine? (Yes, page 2)
2. Are the imperforated sides genuine, or were they trimmed from
perforated sides? (Probably trimmed, pages 3-4)
3. Are the perforations like the ones on genuine stamps? (Probably,
page 5.)
3. Is the cancellation genuine? (No, it’s as bogus as possible. Pages 6,
8-9.)
4. How come this item exists, anyway? (It’s an enigma, page 7.)
The following pages address these questions in more detail.
Of interest is the dot between the “1” and the “8” in “1918”.
It raises the possibility of plating this stamp.
© 2014, Sam Ginsburg
1
The basic stamp is genuine
It meets all the requirement of a genuine Fi. 8 type 1 stamp:
1. The right inner frame line stops above the tree line the same distance as do other genuine type 1 stamps.
2. The left inner frame line stops just above “Miasta”.
3. There’s a dot below the cross-bar at the right side of the lower left “4”
4. The rays below the S in “Miejska” end in dots similar to other
genuine type 1 stamps.
5. The paper looks generally similar to other Third Issue stamps,
but I’m no expert at paper.
See www.prz.ginsburgs.org for more information.
2
Are the imperforated sides genuine, or were they trimmed from perforated sides?
This is a tricky analysis.
1. The margins on the imperf. sides are roughly as large or larger than the margins on performated sides. (Good!)
2. But Przedbórz stamps are single-line perforated, meaning that one row or column is perforated, then the sheet is moved, and
the next row or column is perforated. That means
margins can vary all over the place, and so checking
the margins is not especially informative. (Bad!)
3. A high-resolution scan shows indentations around
perforations, caused by the perforating pins. These
are not found on the imperforated edges. (Good!)
4. But the degree to which there are indentations or
not depends on how sharp and clean the perforators or separation knives are, and that can vary all
over the place within a few minutes on some days. (Bad!)
5. To further explore this, we looked at the edges with a high-magnification
USB microscope,but the photos weren’t properly saved on the disk.
For this note, we prepared 9600 dpi scans of the imperf edges of this stamp
as well as presumed genuine Fi. 7 and Fi 10 imperfs. (We wanted comparisons with
other imperf stamps of the same third issue, believing that production was likely to be
on the same equipment in similar condition.)
There’s a slightly white
area where the paper
has been compressed
by a perforation pin.
Despite all this, knowledgeable people at ChicagoPex 2014 thought the above is wrong: that the margins are a little narrow, and
that there are traces of perforation indentations along the imperf edges.
3
With a 9600 dpi scan, the Fi. 8 edges (lowest
on the page) look no more ragged than the
supposedly genuine Fi 7 and Fi 10 imperfs.
So there’s no reason to believe the Fi. 8 was
trimmed from a perforated stamp.
Fi. 7 full imperf, lower right corner
Fi. 10 full imperf, lower right corner
Fi. 8 half imperf, lower right corner
4
Perforations
The outer perforations are from
the Fi 8 Type 1 half-imperf stamp
shown on page 1.
The inner perforations are from a presumed genuine Fi 8 Type 1 full imperf
stamp from my collection.
Because the two images may have
been cropped to slightly different sizes,
it’s hard to conclude that there are any
significant differences between the perforations.
5
Is the cancellation genuine?
Absolutely not.
1. It appears to have the letters “PODIS”, a sequence that doesn’t not appear on any Przedbórz cancel.
Genuine cancels are either
K.u.K. ETAPPENPOSTAMT PRZEDBÓRZ, KREIS KOŃSK, 28 mm diameter (early cancels)
or RADA MIEJSKA MIASTA PRZEDBORZA , 31½ mm diameter (later cancels)
Neither of these contain the “PODIS” string.
2. The cancel is approx. 27.3 mm diameter, as shown in the Appendix (last two pages of this document).
So it’s smaller than genuine cancels.
See the Appendix for two ways to estimate the diameter of the cancellation.
6
How can this stamp exist, anyway?
This stamp is enigmatic for several reasons involving its position on a genuine 6X8 pane
(that is, six columns and eight rows.)
1. Genuine stamps are printed in six columns of eight rows each.
Each row is has types 1 2 3 1 2 3. I have found no mention of
exceptions to that rule for this particular stamp. (As noted in the
www.prz.ginsburgs.org page on 3rd issue varieties, there are exceptions noted
for Fi. 7 and Fi. 10, but I don’t know of any for Fi. 8.)
Suppose there are some undocumented panes which have type 1 in the
lower right corner. Then it would be easy to imagine someone forgetting
to perforate the right and bottom margins. But none have been reported thus far.
2. If this stamp is from the first or fourth columns, that would mean there should be some
type 2 stamps which are imperf on the left side instead of the right side.
If the present stamp is not from the bottom row, then there should be
some other stamps which are imperf on top.
Conclusion (Overall assessment):
If there are reported Fi. 7 and Fi. 10 panes with type 1 stamps in the lower right corner,
why shouldn’t there be unreported (or reported, but not to me) similar panes of Fi. 8 and Fi. 9 stamps?
But Zbigniew Korzeń, the Polish expertizer, believes that such panes would have surfaced, or that matching partially imperf
stamps would have surfaced or been reported, so I guess the imperf edges are trimmed. That’s why imperfs are collected in
pairs or larger multiples.
7
Appendix—Estimating the diameter of the forged cancel.
(This page and the next)
D = diameter of cancel
R = D/2 = radius of cancel
R2 = W2 + X2
= (R-Y)2 + X2
= (R2-2RY+Y2) + X2
2RY = DY = Y2 + X2 = Z2
D = 2R = Z2/Y
——Z ≈ 1100 px
Y ≈ 468 px
D ≈ 2585 px = 27.4 mm
at 2400 dpi
(2400 dpi ≈ 94.49 dots per mm)
8
The blue circle, about 27.2 mm diameter, is a pretty good fit for the outer arc of the cancel.
Here’s how to draw the circle and paste it onto the picture, with thank to Unca’ Joetoshop:
1. Open a new transparent Photoshop™ “document” that’s about twice the size of the circle you want to draw.
Draw a circular marquee by selecting the elliptical marquee (right-click on the rectangular marquee that you usually use for cropping), and
holding the shift key down while you’re expanding the marquee. The shift key tells Photoshop™ to make a circle.
2. Under “edit”, select “stroke” which will allow you to select the color and thickness of the line around the circle.
3. Then you can copy the circle and paste it into the jpg that holds the cancel (or whatever you’re pasting the circle into.)
4. Before the copy and paste operation (step 4), you have to make the canvas large enough to hold as much of the circle as you want to show.
(In my case, the entire circle.) After you paste the circle into the target jpg, you use the move tool to move it wherever you want.
5. The above is a trial and error operation. I couldn’t figure out how to get an “exact-size” circle. So I was pasting, moving, deleting, drawing
smaller or larger circles until I got close enough.
9