Two GB Machin Oddities That Have Me Puzzled

I hope my pic upload is correct. I'm not too familiar with changing size.

First is a 19 p that the 9 appears to be printed black. I initially assumed, & likely is in some way, impacted by the cancellation ink. But looking at it closely It seems to be just too perfect of a print plus the cancellation ink just don't look like that is the case. Also the numeral 1 has a little ink on it but not like the 9. This picture doesn't do it justice. In hand the numeral 9 is bright black. Anyone ever seen this before.





Secondly I have a 2nd that has a print error on the right side that I have never seen. I'm assuming it is a print issue since the post mark is over it. I'm always curious about these things. Comments.

Hi Butchie,

The first stamp looks like it is just the black ink from the cancel that makes the '9' look black.

The second stamp looks like the person who affixed the stamp to the envelope used tape to secure the right edge that when it was removed took some of the printed ink with it.

- stamporator -

I'm wondering why the ink would not be heavier on the stamp too. The 9 is dark black to the edges to litho quality. I'm fairly sure it is a photo print. I'm not very knowledgeable about print types. Would that area be raised to alow more ink than on the rest of the stamp.

If you look at the arc of cancellation ink running across Elizabeth's head, it matches the cancellation ink of the "9".

There is zero way, for this stamp, that somehow during production the "9" was deliberately or mistakenly printed in black. There was no black ink involved in the process and no other stamps with this condition have ever been reported after decades.

The simplest explanation is usually the best. (Occam's Razor)

There was no tape on the 2nd when I soaked it off. Wouldn't the tape have blocked the cancel ink from being on that portion. I've only found one way to remove tape without damaging the stamp.

I agree that it is not a print error. When looking at the stamp physically the black of the 9 is significantly darker than any of the cancel ink but for some reason that doesn't show that way in the picture. Thanks for the comments.

19p, It is just the ink. It is clear there is a difference in the cancelling ink absorbtivity of the blank paper versus the areas of full coverage by orange ink, with decent ink coverage in the various partially-shaded areas of the Queen's head. Some stamps have such a slick ink as to take almost no ink - or to have it smudged-off before it dries.

2nd, it looks like damage from a self-adhesive item to me also, but the cancels do strongly suggest it was not during final use. Moving backward in time, it may well have been caused by the back of an errant piece of selvage accidentally getting stuck on the pane of unused stamps, peeled off by the user creating the damage, then used by the sender knowing it was unused (although damaged).

Neither of these are errors in my opinion. Top one - look at the darkness of the cancellation ink around the edges, including to the left of the '19p'. It's clear the ink adheres much more to the paper than to the surface of the orange ink. The '9' is just a hole in the orange ink and the cancellation stays firm in the empty space, but is not sticking much to the orange surrounding it.

Bottom one - the cancellation is also lighter where the blue is lighter. No doubt something stuck to it at some point and was pulled off, taking a little of the surface with it.

I do not believe for a moment it is the ink from the "stamp" that perfectly fills the "9" of the 19p stamp. It is just too perfect. Since no hue of black ink was used, it must have been fabricated. I also have my doubts about the perforations on the righthand side. The perforations look shady. Also, there are ridges around those perforations visible from the front that would imply it was perforated from the back. It looks like someone has been playing around with a booklet stamp that was imperforate at right.

As for the 2nd-class stamp, I do not understand why it was pen-cancelled when there was a visible cancellation. What catches the eye is that the thickness of the pen strokes changes where the normal and abnormal printing meet. In the bottom right corner, there is a smudge that does not appear to be part of the "stamp." It might be residue from something that stuck to the stamp.

Thanks to all. Good information.I'll be studying it in more detail but I still think that the 9 is too perfect to be canceled ink. I had found stamps before that had the value modified so well that you could hardly tell it wasn't printed.

The point being to look beyond just the 9 and to how the cancel ink interacts/adheres with every aspect of the stamp - printed and unprinted areas, the unprinted border, the solid background, the shaded Queen, etc



Please show us an example.

The 9 acted like a sponge for watery postmark ink?

There is no cancellation with such a huge blob that accidentally covers the whole "9" so it allows for that to be coloured in perfectly.

Postmark Reveal tends to show that the filled in "9" is part of the cancellation (same color, same density).


This last Reveal shows that the cancellation ink is "different" when it occurs over Her Majesty or the numerals "19". Hence, it is being absorbed differently in those areas.