Discussion - Member to Member Sales - Research Center
Discussion - Member to Member Sales - Research Center
Single Stamp - One stamp by itself.
Plate Block - Group of 4 stamps still attached to plate edge.
Q: Can a group of 4 stamps, not connected to said edging, still be considered a plate block?
Q: In the case of Scott # 1629-31 "1976 13c Spirit Of '76", if you have all three stamps in the series, still connected, does that constitute a plate block?
Souvenir Sheet – (Per Wikipedia) souvenir sheets or miniature sheets containing one or a small number of stamps. Souvenir sheets typically include additional artwork or information printed on the selvage.
Plate Sheet??? – The full sheet of stamps from the presses?
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I am not completely "up" on all of these terms, but "old knowledge" will help with some questions.
Yes, a single stamp is, well, a single stamp! :-)
A plate block can be any group of stamps (not just four) still attached to the selvedge ("plate edge" in your words) and having the number of the printing plate printed on the selvedge. Variations on this are "inscription blocks" in which the inscription describes the reason the stamp was issued. There are other descriptors of modern blocks that I'm not familiar with.
Spirit of '76. Hmmm. I'd say it's a strip of three stamps.
Souvenir Sheet. You've got it, I'd say.
Plate sheet? I guess. Any full sheet will have printing information, inscriptions, etc. in the selvedge. The term "plate sheet" is not included in the Ask Phil glossary, which is the most complete such glossary around. Which leads me to a question for Tim, our Master Webmaster:
I have never found such an exhaustive philatelic glossary as Ask Phil. It would be a shame if "Phil" were to disappear, as web sites often do. Is there any way to "mirror" Ask Phil on Stamporama? I'm not thinking of just a link, but a way to preserve it in case the original goes belly up.
(We once tried to develop a glossary of philatelic terms for Stamporama, but political infighting got in the way and we [I at least] came to believe that we were reinventing the wheel, considering that Ask Phil was already in place.)
Bob
(Message edited by Bobstamp on October 06, 2010)
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Plate blocks may be 4 or more stamps together however they must have a "plate number" attached. Most plate blocks also contain shelvage on two sides of the stamps BUT in the early years many of the plate blocks of 6/8 did not have this extra shelvage. There can not be any tears in the perforations to maintain the itegrity of the plate block. So your answer to Plate Block is NO. It would be just a block of 4. The "Spirit of 76" although only three stamps still must have a plate number ...
normal plate block
plate block with number only
Spirit of 76 Plate Block
Block of 4 ONLY
Souvenir Sheet
(Message edited by sponthetrona2 on October 06, 2010)
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OK, the pictures were very helpful. Thanks.
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Pat, I'll highlight a few of the things already said. Plate blocks must be at least 4 stamps with selvege. Recent PBs are corner blocks, but earlier PBs were in the center of the pane. Perry did a nice job with this.
He also did well to show the bicentennial fife and drum PB, because it adds 2 other dimensions to the discussion.
1. A plate block must always have all the unique plate numbers; so, the West Point stamp had one unique number, it needed only the block of 4; but the fife has 5 numbers, so all five must be included.
2. A plate block must include the entire design and/or all face-different stamps. So, if the fife and drum were (it's not) a single number, it would still need to be a block of 6 to accommodate the design 3 across (and always 2 rows deep). Some stamps, like Wildlife (Scott 2002) have 50 se-tenant stamps, so the plate block IS the pane.
When you have all the stamps of a desing, like the fife and drum, that's called se-tenant (French for "attached to each other" or that's the gist).
USPS is issuing lots of souvenir sheets these days; plus they're following the lead of Deutsche Post by issuing mini-sheets (really panes) designed to be collected as such. I guess there's a blurring of definitions when we look at the movie star panes. Are Marilyn and Audrey issued as panes with selvege, mini sheets, or souvenir sheets?
you're asking good questions.
and i'll offer one unsolicited comment, and that is that collecting plate blocks appears to be in free-fall decline, brought about by several developments: self-adhesive stamps and the meaninglessness of the plate numbers themselves. When you look at the Fife and Drum, each number refers to a specific plate; that unique number was used on that stamp and on no other stamp...ever. Today, they use "1" or "111111" (the former for single color; the latter for multi-color plates). Worse, even when they change the plate due to wear, there's no guarantee that they change the plate number to "2". Of course, the Fife and Drum example also almost killed PB collecting, because it required collectors to buy PBs of 20, often, mutliplying the cost by a factor of 5. The PO came to its senses and returned to single numbers; but lately there's no indication that they have any interest in even trying to retain PB collectors.
David
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A full sheet is as it says: A full sheet of the same stamp as printed by the USPS. Multiple images can be printed on the sheets which may have from 20 to 150 stamps per sheet ( pane, as corrected ).
A souvenir sheet is not the same as a pane of stamps ... the souvenir sheet is "normally" printed with imperforate stamps, but not always.
Perry
(Message edited by sponthetrona2 on October 07, 2010)
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Just so I am 100% sure for my classifcations, a Souvinir Sheet can also be in the lines of the "Nature Of America" or the "Legends Of Hollywood" sheets that you can buy down at the Post Office?
Also, for the sake of putting a value on my collection, when I'm looking up these "souvinir sheets", how should I be classifying them when looking them up in the catalogs? Right now I just have them listed as "Sheet" in my Excel catalog.
And thank you again for answering all of my questions in the various threads. It has been very informative.
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08:33:00am
Perry,
Actually your image is considered a pane. Here is a definition of a sheet from askphil.org:
One full impression of stamps taken from a printing plate; a typical sheet of U.S. commemorative stamps is four panes each of 50 stamps, the sheet is then cut into four panes of stamps for eventual sale. the typical post office pane now appars to be 20 stamps.
Here is an image of a sheet with 6 panes of 20 stamps: 
(Message edited by parkinlot on October 07, 2010)
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I guess I'm "old" school .... Good correction and great information.
Perry
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Three points:
• In my experience, souvenir sheets typically include only one or two stamps, sometimes more, and usually have textual information and graphic designs, pertinent to the stamp(s), printed in the wide margins.
• Souvenir sheets are nearly always issued at the same time as panes or sheets of stamps of identical design and denomination, and thus complement each other. (Offhand, I can't think of any souvenir sheets that aren't complemented by panes and/or sheets, and perhaps coil stamps, except for the U.S. 1947 Centenary Interntional Philatelic Exhibition Issue, reproducing U.S. #1 & #2, albeit in different colours. No doubt there are hundreds of other from different nations.)
• Older souvenir sheets were usually imperforate, probably because the technology didn't exist to easily and inexpensively perforate them. I don't recall seeing any Canadian souvenir sheets over the last 20 years, at least, that were imperforate. I also don't think there have been any die-cut, self-adhesive souvenir sheets, though I could be wrong about that.
Bob
(Message edited by Bobstamp on October 07, 2010)
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OK, as I'm going through and reorganizing this stuff for my "FAQ" book, I've come up with another question.
It was said that earlier Plate Blocks could come from the center of the Pane. Is there a year or Scott Number where this practice is no longer acceptable?
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I believe what is meant refers to the numbers may be in the center as the illustration above, or on the side, but not in the middle of the pane. As a side note the 1943-44 Issues of Overrun Countries did not have numbers but the name of the country imprinted where the plate number would be ... I've illustrated Korea because there was a printing error on some of these panes whereas Korea was spelled "Korpa" ...
Korea Plate Block
Korpa Error ... Middle stamp along the edge
Perry
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Three points:
• In my experience, souvenir sheets typically include only one or two stamps, sometimes more, and usually have textual information and graphic designs, pertinent to the stamp(s), printed in the wide margins.
• Souvenir sheets are nearly always issued at the same time as panes or sheets of stamps of identical design and denomination, and thus complement each other.
• Older souvenir sheets were usually imperforate, probably because the technology didn't exist to easily and inexpensively perforate them. I don't recall seeing any Canadian souvenir sheets over the last 20 years, at least, that were imperforate. I also don't think there have been any die-cut, self-adhesive souvenir sheets, though I could be wrong about that.
Bob
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Pat, I probably should restate the PB comment, which I realize could be miscontrued. Early PBs did not come from the corner margins of panes; they came from the center MARGINS of panes. That is, the plate numbers were found in the selvege, along the edge, outside the stamps themselves, but along one of the horizontal strips of selvege and not in the corners. That's probably overkill, and not my most eloquent prose, but less likely to lead to misunderstanding.
I should add that these early PBs, unlike more recent PBs, are NEVER offered at face and are, in fact, quite expensive.
So I'll ask a question, brought on by bob's comments on SSs. What do we call the panes that focus on various aspects of America's natural settings (I'm sure there is a name for the series, too)? Are they SS or something else?
David
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David,
Thanks for the clarification. Disapointing, but clarifying.
The "trashbag" collection has several items from 1958 on in blocks of 4 but without the shelvage, which lowers thier value a bit.
Now I can be of assistance. The series is called "Nature Of America". There were 12 of them released over the years, the last one of the series was just released on September 1, 2010. According to the stickers on the Post Office Packaging, they are considered Souvenir Sheets.
Pat
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thanks Pat. that's what I thought. I suspect then that the BiCentennial sheets with scenses of the Colonial Army qualify too as SS. Seems then that there's at least two very different types of SSs, one that matches Bob's description and another that is more like a pictorial snapshot or scenematic, if i might coin a word, although it seems to do that i wander into numismatic nomenclature.
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Here is how the Bicentennial issues were submitted to the public: The four issues came inside the envelope (see attachment). The were also offered in first day cover envelopes ...
Individual SS
Postal Package
Partial image of 9x12 envelope
Perry
(Message edited by sponthetrona2 on October 08, 2010)
(Message edited by sponthetrona2 on October 09, 2010)
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Here is an example of a plate block that does not have two sides of shelvage. The number is in the center on the top in the shelvage. There are others where the number is on the side in the center also ...
Perry
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Many GB stamps have 2 panes within the sheet(which are seperated for insertion in the counter books at post offices, and these are identified as "dot" and "no dot" for obvious reasons. For some reasons blocks of the appropriate portions of the sheet are considered collectable by some ( I have never understood it myself ).
I am suspicious of the collection of such things- plate blocks included - it smacks of dealer ( and even post office) manipulation. I am not a conspiracy-theory person, but.........
Malcolm
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I was paging through the FAQ’s and the "Descriptive Terms" article was very helpful in that I now am going to have to go back through and reclassify the stuff I have already cataloged. However, I'm a little confused on another part of the classification part. Please forgive me and please correct anything I have wrong here...
Single Stamp - One stamp by itself.
Plate Block - Group of 4 stamps still attached to plate edge.
Q: Can a group of 4 stamps, not connected to said edging, still be considered a plate block?
Q: In the case of Scott # 1629-31 "1976 13c Spirit Of '76", if you have all three stamps in the series, still connected, does that constitute a plate block?
Souvenir Sheet – (Per Wikipedia) souvenir sheets or miniature sheets containing one or a small number of stamps. Souvenir sheets typically include additional artwork or information printed on the selvage.
Plate Sheet??? – The full sheet of stamps from the presses?
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re: Stamp Classification: PBs, SSs, sheets, se-tenant
I am not completely "up" on all of these terms, but "old knowledge" will help with some questions.
Yes, a single stamp is, well, a single stamp! :-)
A plate block can be any group of stamps (not just four) still attached to the selvedge ("plate edge" in your words) and having the number of the printing plate printed on the selvedge. Variations on this are "inscription blocks" in which the inscription describes the reason the stamp was issued. There are other descriptors of modern blocks that I'm not familiar with.
Spirit of '76. Hmmm. I'd say it's a strip of three stamps.
Souvenir Sheet. You've got it, I'd say.
Plate sheet? I guess. Any full sheet will have printing information, inscriptions, etc. in the selvedge. The term "plate sheet" is not included in the Ask Phil glossary, which is the most complete such glossary around. Which leads me to a question for Tim, our Master Webmaster:
I have never found such an exhaustive philatelic glossary as Ask Phil. It would be a shame if "Phil" were to disappear, as web sites often do. Is there any way to "mirror" Ask Phil on Stamporama? I'm not thinking of just a link, but a way to preserve it in case the original goes belly up.
(We once tried to develop a glossary of philatelic terms for Stamporama, but political infighting got in the way and we [I at least] came to believe that we were reinventing the wheel, considering that Ask Phil was already in place.)
Bob
(Message edited by Bobstamp on October 06, 2010)
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re: Stamp Classification: PBs, SSs, sheets, se-tenant
Plate blocks may be 4 or more stamps together however they must have a "plate number" attached. Most plate blocks also contain shelvage on two sides of the stamps BUT in the early years many of the plate blocks of 6/8 did not have this extra shelvage. There can not be any tears in the perforations to maintain the itegrity of the plate block. So your answer to Plate Block is NO. It would be just a block of 4. The "Spirit of 76" although only three stamps still must have a plate number ...
normal plate block
plate block with number only
Spirit of 76 Plate Block
Block of 4 ONLY
Souvenir Sheet
(Message edited by sponthetrona2 on October 06, 2010)
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re: Stamp Classification: PBs, SSs, sheets, se-tenant
OK, the pictures were very helpful. Thanks.
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re: Stamp Classification: PBs, SSs, sheets, se-tenant
Pat, I'll highlight a few of the things already said. Plate blocks must be at least 4 stamps with selvege. Recent PBs are corner blocks, but earlier PBs were in the center of the pane. Perry did a nice job with this.
He also did well to show the bicentennial fife and drum PB, because it adds 2 other dimensions to the discussion.
1. A plate block must always have all the unique plate numbers; so, the West Point stamp had one unique number, it needed only the block of 4; but the fife has 5 numbers, so all five must be included.
2. A plate block must include the entire design and/or all face-different stamps. So, if the fife and drum were (it's not) a single number, it would still need to be a block of 6 to accommodate the design 3 across (and always 2 rows deep). Some stamps, like Wildlife (Scott 2002) have 50 se-tenant stamps, so the plate block IS the pane.
When you have all the stamps of a desing, like the fife and drum, that's called se-tenant (French for "attached to each other" or that's the gist).
USPS is issuing lots of souvenir sheets these days; plus they're following the lead of Deutsche Post by issuing mini-sheets (really panes) designed to be collected as such. I guess there's a blurring of definitions when we look at the movie star panes. Are Marilyn and Audrey issued as panes with selvege, mini sheets, or souvenir sheets?
you're asking good questions.
and i'll offer one unsolicited comment, and that is that collecting plate blocks appears to be in free-fall decline, brought about by several developments: self-adhesive stamps and the meaninglessness of the plate numbers themselves. When you look at the Fife and Drum, each number refers to a specific plate; that unique number was used on that stamp and on no other stamp...ever. Today, they use "1" or "111111" (the former for single color; the latter for multi-color plates). Worse, even when they change the plate due to wear, there's no guarantee that they change the plate number to "2". Of course, the Fife and Drum example also almost killed PB collecting, because it required collectors to buy PBs of 20, often, mutliplying the cost by a factor of 5. The PO came to its senses and returned to single numbers; but lately there's no indication that they have any interest in even trying to retain PB collectors.
David
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re: Stamp Classification: PBs, SSs, sheets, se-tenant
A full sheet is as it says: A full sheet of the same stamp as printed by the USPS. Multiple images can be printed on the sheets which may have from 20 to 150 stamps per sheet ( pane, as corrected ).
A souvenir sheet is not the same as a pane of stamps ... the souvenir sheet is "normally" printed with imperforate stamps, but not always.
Perry
(Message edited by sponthetrona2 on October 07, 2010)
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re: Stamp Classification: PBs, SSs, sheets, se-tenant
Just so I am 100% sure for my classifcations, a Souvinir Sheet can also be in the lines of the "Nature Of America" or the "Legends Of Hollywood" sheets that you can buy down at the Post Office?
Also, for the sake of putting a value on my collection, when I'm looking up these "souvinir sheets", how should I be classifying them when looking them up in the catalogs? Right now I just have them listed as "Sheet" in my Excel catalog.
And thank you again for answering all of my questions in the various threads. It has been very informative.
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Immediate Past President - West Essex Philatelic Society www.wepsonline.org
07 Oct 2010
08:33:00am
re: Stamp Classification: PBs, SSs, sheets, se-tenant
Perry,
Actually your image is considered a pane. Here is a definition of a sheet from askphil.org:
One full impression of stamps taken from a printing plate; a typical sheet of U.S. commemorative stamps is four panes each of 50 stamps, the sheet is then cut into four panes of stamps for eventual sale. the typical post office pane now appars to be 20 stamps.
Here is an image of a sheet with 6 panes of 20 stamps:
(Message edited by parkinlot on October 07, 2010)
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re: Stamp Classification: PBs, SSs, sheets, se-tenant
I guess I'm "old" school .... Good correction and great information.
Perry
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re: Stamp Classification: PBs, SSs, sheets, se-tenant
Three points:
• In my experience, souvenir sheets typically include only one or two stamps, sometimes more, and usually have textual information and graphic designs, pertinent to the stamp(s), printed in the wide margins.
• Souvenir sheets are nearly always issued at the same time as panes or sheets of stamps of identical design and denomination, and thus complement each other. (Offhand, I can't think of any souvenir sheets that aren't complemented by panes and/or sheets, and perhaps coil stamps, except for the U.S. 1947 Centenary Interntional Philatelic Exhibition Issue, reproducing U.S. #1 & #2, albeit in different colours. No doubt there are hundreds of other from different nations.)
• Older souvenir sheets were usually imperforate, probably because the technology didn't exist to easily and inexpensively perforate them. I don't recall seeing any Canadian souvenir sheets over the last 20 years, at least, that were imperforate. I also don't think there have been any die-cut, self-adhesive souvenir sheets, though I could be wrong about that.
Bob
(Message edited by Bobstamp on October 07, 2010)
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re: Stamp Classification: PBs, SSs, sheets, se-tenant
OK, as I'm going through and reorganizing this stuff for my "FAQ" book, I've come up with another question.
It was said that earlier Plate Blocks could come from the center of the Pane. Is there a year or Scott Number where this practice is no longer acceptable?
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re: Stamp Classification: PBs, SSs, sheets, se-tenant
I believe what is meant refers to the numbers may be in the center as the illustration above, or on the side, but not in the middle of the pane. As a side note the 1943-44 Issues of Overrun Countries did not have numbers but the name of the country imprinted where the plate number would be ... I've illustrated Korea because there was a printing error on some of these panes whereas Korea was spelled "Korpa" ...
Korea Plate Block
Korpa Error ... Middle stamp along the edge
Perry
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re: Stamp Classification: PBs, SSs, sheets, se-tenant
Three points:
• In my experience, souvenir sheets typically include only one or two stamps, sometimes more, and usually have textual information and graphic designs, pertinent to the stamp(s), printed in the wide margins.
• Souvenir sheets are nearly always issued at the same time as panes or sheets of stamps of identical design and denomination, and thus complement each other.
• Older souvenir sheets were usually imperforate, probably because the technology didn't exist to easily and inexpensively perforate them. I don't recall seeing any Canadian souvenir sheets over the last 20 years, at least, that were imperforate. I also don't think there have been any die-cut, self-adhesive souvenir sheets, though I could be wrong about that.
Bob
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re: Stamp Classification: PBs, SSs, sheets, se-tenant
Pat, I probably should restate the PB comment, which I realize could be miscontrued. Early PBs did not come from the corner margins of panes; they came from the center MARGINS of panes. That is, the plate numbers were found in the selvege, along the edge, outside the stamps themselves, but along one of the horizontal strips of selvege and not in the corners. That's probably overkill, and not my most eloquent prose, but less likely to lead to misunderstanding.
I should add that these early PBs, unlike more recent PBs, are NEVER offered at face and are, in fact, quite expensive.
So I'll ask a question, brought on by bob's comments on SSs. What do we call the panes that focus on various aspects of America's natural settings (I'm sure there is a name for the series, too)? Are they SS or something else?
David
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re: Stamp Classification: PBs, SSs, sheets, se-tenant
David,
Thanks for the clarification. Disapointing, but clarifying.
The "trashbag" collection has several items from 1958 on in blocks of 4 but without the shelvage, which lowers thier value a bit.
Now I can be of assistance. The series is called "Nature Of America". There were 12 of them released over the years, the last one of the series was just released on September 1, 2010. According to the stickers on the Post Office Packaging, they are considered Souvenir Sheets.
Pat
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re: Stamp Classification: PBs, SSs, sheets, se-tenant
thanks Pat. that's what I thought. I suspect then that the BiCentennial sheets with scenses of the Colonial Army qualify too as SS. Seems then that there's at least two very different types of SSs, one that matches Bob's description and another that is more like a pictorial snapshot or scenematic, if i might coin a word, although it seems to do that i wander into numismatic nomenclature.
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re: Stamp Classification: PBs, SSs, sheets, se-tenant
Here is how the Bicentennial issues were submitted to the public: The four issues came inside the envelope (see attachment). The were also offered in first day cover envelopes ...
Individual SS
Postal Package
Partial image of 9x12 envelope
Perry
(Message edited by sponthetrona2 on October 08, 2010)
(Message edited by sponthetrona2 on October 09, 2010)
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re: Stamp Classification: PBs, SSs, sheets, se-tenant
Here is an example of a plate block that does not have two sides of shelvage. The number is in the center on the top in the shelvage. There are others where the number is on the side in the center also ...
Perry
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12:29:16pm
re: Stamp Classification: PBs, SSs, sheets, se-tenant
Many GB stamps have 2 panes within the sheet(which are seperated for insertion in the counter books at post offices, and these are identified as "dot" and "no dot" for obvious reasons. For some reasons blocks of the appropriate portions of the sheet are considered collectable by some ( I have never understood it myself ).
I am suspicious of the collection of such things- plate blocks included - it smacks of dealer ( and even post office) manipulation. I am not a conspiracy-theory person, but.........
Malcolm
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