Discussion - Member to Member Sales - Research Center
Discussion - Member to Member Sales - Research Center
I found this image of a used single online (my scanned images are much more detailed):
I have now scanned one of the blocks and I’m using it and a cropped and annotated version showing just one stamp to supplement the images that already appear on my web page, The Azure Mining Company posts a letter.
I purchased the Azure Mine cover from eBay, but only after a collector friend, knowing that I grew up in Silver City, alerted me to the offering. Little is known about the Azure Mine, which was just one of hundreds of mines in the immediate Silver City area extracting turquoise, silver, gold, manganese, zinc, iron, and copper from open-pit, drift, and deep-shaft mines. (As you no doubt realize, the Azure Mine extracted turquoise from its mine.)
New Mexico’s history, of course, is deeply tied to that of Mexico. My wife and I were required to take Spanish throughout elementary school and for two years in high school. Almost exactly half of our classmates in high school were Mexican-American, although my friend Reuben Carrillo claimed that he was not any sort of Mexican. He was an Indian! And he no doubt was, despite his Spanish name. He was an excellent clarinetist and saxophone player, and became an aeronautical engineer working for Boeing in Seattle.
Mining was in our lungs — pollution from the copper smelter at nearby Hurley often blanketed hundreds of square miles of Southwestern New Mexico. As a student teacher, my wife taught elementary school, literally on the brink of the huge open-pit copper mine at Santa Rita, at that time the largest such mine in the world.
“The Azure Mining Company posts a letter” explains a lot of Silver City’s history. I hope you will take a look at it. The image of the block of stamps that I received from Mel can be seen about half way through the web page, followed by the annotated single.
Bob
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Bob,
Love learning more about your time in New Mexico. I drove through there once in 2020. NM is a tough, unforgiving part of the world; you gotta be tough to come from New Mexico! This is me at an old Trading Post right on the Continental Divide.
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That is one hot car! Looks like the firemen were able to extinguish the fire, though, after a time. Good thing you're at a trading post! You should've been able to trade that car for, I dunno, half a taco (fried in brake fluid) without cheese but with a slice of rotten tomato and brown, slimy lettuce!
New Mexico is special. Or was. Smallest population of any state, the only state (when I was young, at least) that had two official languages (English and Spanish of course), with a complex, fascinating history. Between the ages of 6 and 13, I was a sort of "free range" kid, enthusiastically pursuing rabbits (with my own .22); camping out with friends; making lethal weapons (spears made from from yucca stalks and flattened, sharpened six-inch spikes); hunting ancient Anasazi sites for potsherds, turquoise beads, and arrowheads; climbing locally prominent mountains; searching for used slugs and cartridge cases at a firing range used by a regiment of Buffalo Soldiers, and getting to know an elderly lawyer who, in the late 1800s, had witnessed a gunfight in the street outside the location of my dad's office-supply store. He told me that he dove into an outhouse for cover, but not before a half-dozen other guys had the same idea!
boB
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Love to learn about the history of other parts of the country! Thanks, Bob. Here in south Florida, The Calusas were the dominant tribe. They mysteriously were all wiped out in the 1300's long before Columbus came. At any rate, turquoise was commonly used in their jewelry. Likely, these people were trading back and forth 1-2,000 years ago. It's fascinating to me.
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Hang on to that stamp. It's a beauty! I wonder if it will be reissued now to reflect the new name of The Gulf of America?
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Yo David,
Regarding:
"Hang on to that stamp. It's a beauty! I wonder if it will be reissued now to reflect the new name of The Gulf of America?"
Maybe take a break from the news. We get it; you don't like what's happening in DC. We're trying to not let the chaos of current events seep into the fun we're having on SoR.
Ernie
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Mel (mbo1142) and I have been discussing an interesting feature of the the block of Mexico #512 stamps that he gave to me as a gift. It has a curious feature: the two stamps on the right side of the block are shifted slightly "north" compared to the two stamps on the left. I've never seen anything like that before, although I haven't actually collected that many blocks.
In the your experience, have you encountered similar shifts? How would such a shift come about? And, of course, the inevitable question: Would such a shift increase the blocks catalogue value? To me, it certainly increases its intrinsic value. So, whatcha think?
The second block that Mel sent also comes from the right side of a pane, the upper right corner to be precise (selvedge to the right and above the stamps), but shows no shift. And that block must have come from another pane entirely, because it centring is more Very Good than Fine, whereas the block displayed above has Fine centring.
Bob
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Interesting, Bob!
My only thoughts are that the paper was of bad quality and was shrunken when pressed and expanded in the dry Mexico Air?
Any thoughts?
-Ari
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Just to add to the intrigue, see following images. Top 2 blocks show the right hand stamps shifted slightly north. The 2 blocks are from different sides of a sheet. The bottom block does not show the shift. Both right and left stamps are aligned.
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And there is more!
First, a mea culpa. I misidentified the stamps that I posted at the beginning of this discussion. I identified them as Scott #512, issued in 1915. That was incorrect. They are the same design and have the same perforations as #512, but they represent Scott #647, issued in 1923. One difference between the two stamps is in the watermark (no watermark for #512, watermark #156 for # 647)
Here’s an image the watermark on #647:
A second difference is in the colour (slate for #512, violet for #647). I had wondered about the colour. I thought the stamps in my block might be slate, but I was so convinced that I had identified the stamps correctly that I didn't question my identification. I should have!
@PhilatelistMag20, who wrote, “My only thoughts are that the paper was of bad quality and was shrunken when pressed and expanded in the dry Mexico air?”
I don’t know much about stamp printing, but it it’s hard to image that a sheet of paper would shrink or expand in ways that would affect only the edges of the sheet, and both right and left edges were affected, which seems to be the case as indicated by Mel’s recent post. I suspect that the northward migration of the stamps has to do with the incorrect positioning the die as the image was pressed into the printing plate. Or something like that!
There is another face-identical Mexican stamp, #626, issued in 1917. According to Scott, it was issued for “Postal Union and ‘specimen’ purposes. It’s possible that the stamps that Mel sent are that issue, but I have no idea how one would tell them apart. It does have a value of U.S. $65 mint in my 2014 Scott catalogue, opposed to only $1.25 for #647. That alone argues that it’s not the same stamp that Mel sent and still has copies of.
Bob
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Mexico 626 differs from 512 in color (violet vs slate). It is not one of the values in the set that were also printed on thin paper for Postal Union and specimen purposes. Both are unwatermarked.
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You know what!
I am starting to think this is a die error!
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Apologies if my line about the Gulf triggered anyone. It was meant to add to our fun here by referencing a STAMP and making a GEOGRAPHY joke. Not sure how it got translated to something political or to assume (incorrectly) my views. Lesson learned.
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02:34:33pm
"Not sure how it got translated to something political"
If there is a way someone will find it! I am not saying this as a complaint but I try to re-read every thing I post looking for any possible political interpretation. Politics is a very sensitive issue here!! I am not a religious person either and have to make sure this stays out of my posts as well since religion is also a very sensitive issue with some people here.
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Take a couple ibuprofen; you'll be ok.
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A note of thanks to Mel Bohannon (mbo1142), who recently offered free mint blocks of Mexico Scott #512, a 40-centavo stamp issued in 1915 which features a map of Mexico showing the country’s rail lines. Mel sent me two of the blocks, which were much delayed by the mail strike in Canada but finally arrived on Friday (Jan. 17).
I found this image of a used single online (my scanned images are much more detailed):
I have now scanned one of the blocks and I’m using it and a cropped and annotated version showing just one stamp to supplement the images that already appear on my web page, The Azure Mining Company posts a letter.
I purchased the Azure Mine cover from eBay, but only after a collector friend, knowing that I grew up in Silver City, alerted me to the offering. Little is known about the Azure Mine, which was just one of hundreds of mines in the immediate Silver City area extracting turquoise, silver, gold, manganese, zinc, iron, and copper from open-pit, drift, and deep-shaft mines. (As you no doubt realize, the Azure Mine extracted turquoise from its mine.)
New Mexico’s history, of course, is deeply tied to that of Mexico. My wife and I were required to take Spanish throughout elementary school and for two years in high school. Almost exactly half of our classmates in high school were Mexican-American, although my friend Reuben Carrillo claimed that he was not any sort of Mexican. He was an Indian! And he no doubt was, despite his Spanish name. He was an excellent clarinetist and saxophone player, and became an aeronautical engineer working for Boeing in Seattle.
Mining was in our lungs — pollution from the copper smelter at nearby Hurley often blanketed hundreds of square miles of Southwestern New Mexico. As a student teacher, my wife taught elementary school, literally on the brink of the huge open-pit copper mine at Santa Rita, at that time the largest such mine in the world.
“The Azure Mining Company posts a letter” explains a lot of Silver City’s history. I hope you will take a look at it. The image of the block of stamps that I received from Mel can be seen about half way through the web page, followed by the annotated single.
Bob
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re: Mexico #512 — a gift from mbo1142
Bob,
Love learning more about your time in New Mexico. I drove through there once in 2020. NM is a tough, unforgiving part of the world; you gotta be tough to come from New Mexico! This is me at an old Trading Post right on the Continental Divide.
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re: Mexico #512 — a gift from mbo1142
That is one hot car! Looks like the firemen were able to extinguish the fire, though, after a time. Good thing you're at a trading post! You should've been able to trade that car for, I dunno, half a taco (fried in brake fluid) without cheese but with a slice of rotten tomato and brown, slimy lettuce!
New Mexico is special. Or was. Smallest population of any state, the only state (when I was young, at least) that had two official languages (English and Spanish of course), with a complex, fascinating history. Between the ages of 6 and 13, I was a sort of "free range" kid, enthusiastically pursuing rabbits (with my own .22); camping out with friends; making lethal weapons (spears made from from yucca stalks and flattened, sharpened six-inch spikes); hunting ancient Anasazi sites for potsherds, turquoise beads, and arrowheads; climbing locally prominent mountains; searching for used slugs and cartridge cases at a firing range used by a regiment of Buffalo Soldiers, and getting to know an elderly lawyer who, in the late 1800s, had witnessed a gunfight in the street outside the location of my dad's office-supply store. He told me that he dove into an outhouse for cover, but not before a half-dozen other guys had the same idea!
boB
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08:25:16am
re: Mexico #512 — a gift from mbo1142
Love to learn about the history of other parts of the country! Thanks, Bob. Here in south Florida, The Calusas were the dominant tribe. They mysteriously were all wiped out in the 1300's long before Columbus came. At any rate, turquoise was commonly used in their jewelry. Likely, these people were trading back and forth 1-2,000 years ago. It's fascinating to me.
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09:40:22am
re: Mexico #512 — a gift from mbo1142
Hang on to that stamp. It's a beauty! I wonder if it will be reissued now to reflect the new name of The Gulf of America?
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re: Mexico #512 — a gift from mbo1142
Yo David,
Regarding:
"Hang on to that stamp. It's a beauty! I wonder if it will be reissued now to reflect the new name of The Gulf of America?"
Maybe take a break from the news. We get it; you don't like what's happening in DC. We're trying to not let the chaos of current events seep into the fun we're having on SoR.
Ernie
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re: Mexico #512 — a gift from mbo1142
Mel (mbo1142) and I have been discussing an interesting feature of the the block of Mexico #512 stamps that he gave to me as a gift. It has a curious feature: the two stamps on the right side of the block are shifted slightly "north" compared to the two stamps on the left. I've never seen anything like that before, although I haven't actually collected that many blocks.
In the your experience, have you encountered similar shifts? How would such a shift come about? And, of course, the inevitable question: Would such a shift increase the blocks catalogue value? To me, it certainly increases its intrinsic value. So, whatcha think?
The second block that Mel sent also comes from the right side of a pane, the upper right corner to be precise (selvedge to the right and above the stamps), but shows no shift. And that block must have come from another pane entirely, because it centring is more Very Good than Fine, whereas the block displayed above has Fine centring.
Bob
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re: Mexico #512 — a gift from mbo1142
Interesting, Bob!
My only thoughts are that the paper was of bad quality and was shrunken when pressed and expanded in the dry Mexico Air?
Any thoughts?
-Ari
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re: Mexico #512 — a gift from mbo1142
Just to add to the intrigue, see following images. Top 2 blocks show the right hand stamps shifted slightly north. The 2 blocks are from different sides of a sheet. The bottom block does not show the shift. Both right and left stamps are aligned.
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re: Mexico #512 — a gift from mbo1142
And there is more!
First, a mea culpa. I misidentified the stamps that I posted at the beginning of this discussion. I identified them as Scott #512, issued in 1915. That was incorrect. They are the same design and have the same perforations as #512, but they represent Scott #647, issued in 1923. One difference between the two stamps is in the watermark (no watermark for #512, watermark #156 for # 647)
Here’s an image the watermark on #647:
A second difference is in the colour (slate for #512, violet for #647). I had wondered about the colour. I thought the stamps in my block might be slate, but I was so convinced that I had identified the stamps correctly that I didn't question my identification. I should have!
@PhilatelistMag20, who wrote, “My only thoughts are that the paper was of bad quality and was shrunken when pressed and expanded in the dry Mexico air?”
I don’t know much about stamp printing, but it it’s hard to image that a sheet of paper would shrink or expand in ways that would affect only the edges of the sheet, and both right and left edges were affected, which seems to be the case as indicated by Mel’s recent post. I suspect that the northward migration of the stamps has to do with the incorrect positioning the die as the image was pressed into the printing plate. Or something like that!
There is another face-identical Mexican stamp, #626, issued in 1917. According to Scott, it was issued for “Postal Union and ‘specimen’ purposes. It’s possible that the stamps that Mel sent are that issue, but I have no idea how one would tell them apart. It does have a value of U.S. $65 mint in my 2014 Scott catalogue, opposed to only $1.25 for #647. That alone argues that it’s not the same stamp that Mel sent and still has copies of.
Bob
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re: Mexico #512 — a gift from mbo1142
Mexico 626 differs from 512 in color (violet vs slate). It is not one of the values in the set that were also printed on thin paper for Postal Union and specimen purposes. Both are unwatermarked.
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re: Mexico #512 — a gift from mbo1142
You know what!
I am starting to think this is a die error!
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10:28:07am
re: Mexico #512 — a gift from mbo1142
Apologies if my line about the Gulf triggered anyone. It was meant to add to our fun here by referencing a STAMP and making a GEOGRAPHY joke. Not sure how it got translated to something political or to assume (incorrectly) my views. Lesson learned.
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Back when I had a bunch! I think, therefore I am - I think! Descartes, sort of!
23 Jan 2025
02:34:33pm
re: Mexico #512 — a gift from mbo1142
"Not sure how it got translated to something political"
If there is a way someone will find it! I am not saying this as a complaint but I try to re-read every thing I post looking for any possible political interpretation. Politics is a very sensitive issue here!! I am not a religious person either and have to make sure this stays out of my posts as well since religion is also a very sensitive issue with some people here.
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re: Mexico #512 — a gift from mbo1142
Take a couple ibuprofen; you'll be ok.
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