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Errors in Production of Postage Stamps
Errors in production are legion, scarcely any issue escaping without its quota of missing colours or partial imperforation. The earliest examples of the wrong colour arose when a cliché of one value was inadvertently inserted in a forme of another letterpress printing. Examples include the unique Swedish three skilling-banco yellow (instead of green), 1855 and the Cape of Good Hope one penny and four penny ‘Woodblocks’ in blue and vermilion instead of vice versa. Even worse than the above was the case of the Cape Verde forty reis stamps of 1877 which contained a forty reis stamp of Mozambique by mistake.
Inversion of part of the design usually occurs when two or more colours are used, requiring the paper to pass through the presses at more than one operation. The Western Australian four penny of 1854, however, has the frame inverted – all the more remarkable since the stamp was printed in one colour at a single operation. This error arose during the composition of the transfers used in the lithographic process. The first examples of stamps with inverted centres were the four annas indigo and red of India (1854) and the two coloured stamps of the US series of 1869. The one dinero stamp of Peru (1861) is seen with the centre sideways. Corner figures and inscriptions doubly impressed, one inverted, occur on several values of the Helvetia series of Switzerland, 1862 – 1881.
The wrong vignette occurred on six-penny stamps of the Falkland Islands battle jubilee series of 1964. A sheet which first received the black printing, showing HMS Glasgow was inadvertently included with a batch showing HMS Kent and subsequently received the framework of the six-penny instead of the two and a half penny value.
The wrong value has occurred in cases where the denomination was inserted into the plate by means of a movable slug. This happened in 1922 when the twelve cent stamp of Indo-China was discovered with the value of eleven cents. This was corrected by running the sheet through the press with the value amended, the result producing stamps with two values – one right and one wrong.
The wrong frame also occurred in 1922, when sheets of 6a stamps of Lithuania were found to contain eight examples of the frame of the 8a denomination. This produced pairs of 6a and 8a stamps side by side, the 8a stamps being in the wrong colour with the wrong portrait in the centre. Value omitted, like the wrong value, occurs in cases where keyplates were used with movable value slugs. The 50r Don Carlos stamp of Portugal, 1895, and the Indo-China postage due four cent of 1922 are examples.
The earliest and most spectacular example of the vignette being omitted occurred in 1867 when one shilling stamps of the Virgin Islands appeared without St Ursula in the middle – the famous ‘Missing Virgin’ error. British multi-coloured stamps provide some examples , the best known being the Red Cross 3d (1962) – with the Queen’s portrait missing, and the Post Office Tower 3d (1965) – with the tower omitted.
Philatelists who specialize in this field have a wide range from which to choose.
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