Show Your US 1847 Issue Stamps & Covers

This is one of the covers I acquired from the Gross sale.



5c red-brown tied by red grid cancel with a "Providence R.I. Oct 7" circular date stamp and a "5" handstamp. Cover was sent to New Bedford, Mass. and has 1848 handwritten docketing on the back.

Ex Wunderlich, Boker and Gross.

Second cover:



5c dark brown cancelled by blue "2" in circle handstamp with a "Philada Pa 5 Jan 31" circular date stamp. Cover was sent to New York and has 1849 handwritten docketing on the back.

Ex Saadi and Gross with a PF certificate.

Neeskens13 - Those are beautiful covers. Covers of the 1847 issue have a special appeal to me.

Leap year date.

I must be some sort of sick, Guys!!... when I was looking through these pages with these beautiful stamps, I felt so excited, unbelievable, please don't get me wrong when I say "excited" it is some sort of pleasure I cannot describe, Just beautiful, absolutely beautiful.... Thank you All for sharing these precious covers!!...

In regards the Siegel sale of the Gross 1847 collection, I thought Scott Trepel's essay entitled, "5¢ 1847 Shades and Impressions" was excellent. It is on page 58 of the catalog, and page 57 has images of each shade and impression category (shown below).

I acquired a 5¢ red brown from the Morton sale with a bright pinkish tone to it. After reading Scott Trepel's article, I think that it probably comes from the 4th printing on the cleaned plate.

The OCT month precludes it from being 5th delivery - since the 5th delivery was received 12/9/1850, and the 1847s were replaced/demonetized July 1, 1851.

So its definitely 3rd or 4th delivery.
(edit: yes I know there are numerous known demonetized usages )

The horizontal background lines are very hard to see on yours, which may be more indicative of the 3rd delivery, than the 4th where the plate was cleaned, and the lines show up a little better as a result.

That said, I definitely need more practice at telling these apart myself. I appreciate your post, and attempt to start a discussion of this nature.

In general, when a plate has been cleaned, usually using some acid treatment, the resultant impressions can often be a bit 'fuzzy'.

You see this with the 1c stamp of 1851 plate 1-Late in 1854 when they cleaned it.

Some of the examples of cleaned 1847 stamps on the Siegel page seem to show it as well.

I found one within my collection, I have no idea about the details of it...

Your scan is a bit blurry, so I can't be sure from it but it appears very likely that it is a second delivery stamp - Siegel's Intermediate impression.

I am still very much learning how to distinguish these, so don't consider my opinion an expert one at all for this. I welcome any input.

If it is second delivery those stamps were available 4/10/48.

Thanks for your opinion, txstamp. I looked closer at the background lines, and I think you are right that they should be more distinct if this stamp came from the cleaned plate (see detail below).

Scott Trepel describes stamps from the 4th printing (cleaned plate) as having better impressions than from the worn plate, but that the background lines have a "softer appearance".

Scott Trepel's use of "soft" is what I mean by "fuzzy", above.

A few 1847s from my collection of Yale College covers

I like the math problem on the Bridgeport cover. Somehow, that seems fitting.

The sender of the letter is a friend of the addressee Albert Booth who was an 1850 grad of Yale and apparently a frat brother. The sender was inquiring as to how Booth's trig exams went, so I presume it was his little doodle to liven up the correspondence.