What The What? This R246 Has Led A Hard Life

Things like this give me a headache... eBay lot 374386327904.

https://www.ebay.com/itm/374386327904



Anyone? A coupla things terribly wrong here....

Hard core rev folks, please let the others take a swing first!

Kids, pick your friends wisely! I read once you are the average of your 5 best friends.

Friends don't let friends do this, or eat kale for that matter...

I wouldn't consider myself hard-core about these, so here's my swing:

Has gum, but is not evenly distributed and is crackly, and has a reddish grid of lines, so may have been sweated off of a document (so not technically unused).

Not knowing what the quantities per "sheet", the serial number ending in 9 may not be an upper left corner position possibility, but regardless would question the straight-edge at left.

Some diagonal creasing at lower right not mentioned.

Some people who should know better have a rather wide interpretation of philatelic terms when selling online.

Sorta in the rhetorical category of some well known people who claim no one knows more about xxx than they do, and no one has ever heard of or conceived of say a category 5 hurricane or the like before now.

No one, in this case, has ever seen such a MNH US revenue.

I admit I never have.

Headache indeed...

I know just enough about revenues to be dangerous. Here are my guesses.
That series comes without gum (NGAI) so any trace of gum almost guarantees the stamp was used (was soaked/steamed off of a document).
There shouldn't be a straight edge on the left, only the right should be a straight edge, and 50% of the time also top or bottom.
So, wow, indeed what the what, is that reperfed on the right?

This series was issued in strips of 4. Did this issue come in booklets of 4 with receipt tabs like later issues? I can't find any pictures of complete booklets of R246 but that's the only explanation I can think of why they were issued in strips of 4 with straight edges on the right and always perfs on the left, like this R685.

Zebra,

Pretty much nailed it!

All of the large format revenues with serial numbers ($30 - $10,000) come in booklet panes of four. This holds true for the reds (documentary), greens (stock transfers) and greys (silver), as well as the Series 1898 (R179 - R181), Series of 1914/5 (R224 - R227), and 1917 (R246 - R250). This also includes the various Future Delivery, Stock Transfer, and Silver Tax overprint issues too.

The top stamp will always be an odd serial # and have an imperf ("straight edge") top. The bottom stamp will always be an even serial # and have an imperf bottom. There will always be one even serial number perf top and bottom, as well as one odd serial number perf top and bottom per booklet pane.

Here is where we see our major issues. These stamps are ALWAYS perf on the left side, and imperf on the right.

Our poor sod of a stamp has had its left side perfs cut off, and for some unexplained reason, had bogus perfs added to the right side. I would argue "reperf" is an incorrect term, as there could never have been any perfs there to begin with. This isn't a $5 Columbian with a straight edge we are trying to improve.

I can't find it now, but at one time I did spot one of these format stamps on eBay perf'd on all 4 sides. Another poor example abused by shady miscreants.

Fascinating. Maybe the left side had some pulled perfs or clipped perfs that were trimmed off with a clean straight edge but then 3 sides imperf didn't look right so they added perfs to the right side to make it look more normal-ish. But still, wow.

The left side perfs might have been trimmed to fit a document. Later someone removed it, and counterfeit perfs were added.

If you use long division and divide the serial number by four and record the remainder:
1 = top position
2 = just below the top position
3 = below #2
0 = bottom position

This example was from the top position because I divided 361189 by 4 and got a remainder of 1!

Long division is so yesterday!

Unlike Ron, I avoid math at almost all costs, so if you use the calculator on your computer/phone and divide the serial number by "4", you will end up with:

.25 = top position
.5 = just below the top position
.75 = below #2
no decimal places = bottom position

Or just look at the last 2 digits.

Looking at the last two digits is what I have long done. Easy and always works.

To StateRevs.

You are most welcome to use your calculator.

Thank goodness I did not use a calculator when I divided the numbers on the early Slaight lock seals (1872-92) by 54. The patterns I saw with the use of those remainders and modular arithmetic was truly remarkable. I seriously doubt that I could have seen the four different schemes that led me in discovering the chronological sequence of the lock seals. See my article in the 2006 American Philatelic Congress Yearbook. I will stick to long division!

Why all the tinkering for a low cv stamp?

Practice if nothing else.