US Cat number
HI, I am not a US collector, but just want to now if I got the cat numbers correct.all are perf 12 no grill. top left to right. Cat # 63, 73, 76, 68, bottom left to right Cat # 69, 77, 71, 78b. Thanks in advance
Comments
Good job on the ID, I only have a small concern about your ID of 78b. I think this is actually a 78. The shade is notorious for color changeling, leaving it a gray color. Look at high magnification around the 24 in the top left and right and see if you can see any hint of color (lilac).
Also ,how did you check for grill on these? Some light grills are very hard to see.
So, this is not a great way to find the existence of grills. Some are very faint, but the stamp is still classified as it's grilled identify, if it can be determined. Some grills are incomplete, and show only a few rows. In this case, unless there is a variation of up or down points, they are all classified as "F" grill, as they are the lowest value of the grilled stamps.
The way to determine if a stamp is grilled or not, is to take a bright light (usually a flashlight or a mobile phone light), and shine it about 160 degrees across the surface of the stamp, You will see a shadow appear across the stamp and in that cross light, the grill can be made out.
Then take a photo of that and blow it up in some photo viewer, and you can easily count the visible points.
But yes, I agree of the ones you have here, they are E grill. But many grills are not visible from a scan or from looking at them head on without a cross-light reference.