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| | Chapter 15 -- 15c Flag |
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< Fig. 15-1 (select any pic
to enlarge)
high-contrast > |
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< Fig. 15-2 Fig. 15-3 > |
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Fig. 15-4 |
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< Fig. 15-5 Fig. 15-6 > |
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< Fig. 15-7 Fig. 15-8 > |
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< Fig. 15-9 Fig. 15-10 > |
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Bonus 15-11. 15c Flag sheet stamp on domestic picture postcard, Dec. 23, 1980. Convenience 5c overpayment of the 10c postcard rate using the letter-rate definitive, a high-percentage (50%) excess of that period. Oversized postcards do require letter-rate postage, but this was not the case here. Postal patrons often use a letter-rate stamp for a postcard. |
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Bonus 15-12. 15c Flag coil stamp on one-ounce 1st-class letter, May 27, 1980. The small neon-green sticker with a "3" is one of several sorted-bundle code labels used in the 1970's and 1980's. These labels, stuck on the top piece of a mail bundle (usually 50 pieces rubber-banded), identified the level of address sorting for the bundle. "3" denoted all pieces had ZIP codes starting with the same 3 digits (comparable to a city or county).
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Bonus 15-13. Inside look of an intact mint 15c Flag booklet (far left). Partial booklet pane under shortwave ultraviolet light (left), showing typical square-shaped phosphor tagging blocks overprinted. No significant variances to this tagging type are known for 15c booklets. |
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Bonus 15-14. 15c Flag sheet stamp on two-ounce (.1-57 g) surface-rate printed matter, Aug. 23, 1979. Convenience 1c overpayment of 14c printed matter / commercial paper rate not over two ounces.
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Bonus 15-15. 15c Flag sheet stamp with five 13c Flag stamps on six-ounce (142-170 g) 1st-class large envelope, date unreadable. Mailed during the 15c letter-rate era (late May 1978 - March 1981), canceled with a Pitney-Bowes roller cancel, notorious for chronically failing to imprint a readable postmark year (in outer ring, bottom). Here, inside one ring "JAN 23" can be read. Example of a cover for which the hunt is ongoing for a more suitable example. Also suggestive of another kind of collecting challenge: Assembling examples of these typical office mailings documenting the range of weight steps from two ounces through the highest for first-class before Priority Mail rates were required (here, 12 ounces [340 g]). (An extra hurdle would be finding Americana 13c designs as the additional-ounce stamps.) Note that depending on the rate period, the USPS sometimes used 13 ounces for the cutoff to Priority Mail; other times, 12 ounces -- another reason why the rate reference books by Beecher and Wawrukiewicz are indispensible tools. (As this was written, in 2009 it was 13 ounces.)
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| | Bonus 15-16. Two more Feb. 1983 20c letter-rate examples of direct-mail political fund-raising, and an enclosed courtesy-reply envelope pre-stamped for prospective donation responses). |
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Bonus 15-17. At far left, a partial mint pane of 15c Flag sheet stamps showing transition of imperforate area to perforations. It was offered on the auction website eBay in February 2006. At left is a brief Linn's Stamp News item of March 5, 1978 (page 104) reporting similar item but with transition reversed; it was stated as the fourth known such transition pane revealed at the time.
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Bonus 15-18. Mint 15c sheet stamp (lower-left) with images of a mint 15c booklet single aligned at top and at right to demonstate the differences in perforation gauges. This issue is the only Americana one in which a perforation gauge measurement is required to distinguish a sheet stamp from a booklet stamp (recall that sheet stamps can also have a straight edge along one or two sides; see Chapter 15 for details). Interestingly, this would also be the only case in the entire series requiring a perforation measurement, period, if it were not for the two unexpected cases of two 13c Eagle & Shield perforation types, and the two different gauges among 9c+13c booklet panes.
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Bonus 15-19. Most regular-issue workhorse stamps, especially those printed in the largest quantities for the most-used rates, present printing anomalies here and there that occasionally slipped through quality inspection (or were considered nonsubstantial). Known as "freaks" or "oddities" (to distinguish them from 100% "errors" like truly imperforate stamps or truly missing color cases), they are fun to find on-cover, if you can. It seems percentage-wise (due to their scarcity) most (like these) are found among used stamps already separated from covers. At far left is an underinked oddity; at left is a major mis-aligned perforated coil. It is not a coincidence both of these are coils; since they were quickly wrapped into rolls as part of production, they were next seen only by the purchaser.
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Contents (c) 2009,
Ronald Blanks. Contact by e-mail: rblanks_stamps@yahoo.com |
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