Double perforation

A chapter of its own are copies where the perforating tool passed through one and the same gap twice. Depending on how far apart the two strikes fell, the result looks entirely different: with a small offset the holes overlap and the teeth are left ragged, with a larger one two clearly separated rows appear with a band of paper between them. Both forms are recorded in the collection.

Specimen 1 — two closely offset strikes

On this copy the second strike caught both vertical sides, and only a fraction of the gauge separates it from the first. The rows are therefore out of register by a little: the holes partly overlap and the teeth left between them are narrow and ragged. Along the side, teeth of normal width alternate with conspicuously thin ones and the depth of the cuts varies; in the enlarged detail one can see pairs of closely adjacent holes separated by nothing but a thin strip of paper.

Specimen 2 — two separate rows along the bottom

The copy is identified as field 100 of the third printing plate — the bottom right corner of the sheet, that is, the last row. Here the bottom side was punched by two separate rows of holes one above the other, offset by less than one hole spacing, so that they did not interleave but lie side by side as two parallels. The stamp was separated along the lower of them — that one has the ordinary toothed profile — while the upper row stayed whole: it lies untouched in the margin as a continuous line of round holes, because nothing was torn along it. That is what makes the copy valuable. An unbroken row of holes inside the margin can arise from nothing but a second pass of the tool, so the flaw evidences itself — unlike ragged teeth, which can be mistaken for careless separation.

Specimen 3 — the second row cuts into the design

The third copy, identified as field 38 of the second plate, combines the two earlier forms. Only the right vertical side is doubled: the outer row is the one along which the stamp was separated and has the usual perforated profile; the inner row lies just under a millimetre closer to the centre and stayed intact — an unbroken run of round holes that bites into the right frame of the design. The offset of the two strikes is therefore larger than on specimen 1 (the holes do not overlap) and smaller than on specimen 2 (no strip of clean paper was left between the rows). That the second row reached into the print is connected with the overall leftward shift of the design on this copy: the right margin is unusually wide, and a row meant to fall in the middle of the gutter landed in the picture. The gauge of both rows is the line gauge 11½, i.e. perforation D — and since the doubled side is vertical, this is once more a double application of the line perforator, as on specimen 1.

How the flaw arose

The essence is the same on both specimens: one and the same gutter received two strikes. This can happen with either of the tools used on the issue, but each gets there by a different route — and the two specimens on this page show precisely those two routes.

• A line perforator punches one straight row of holes across the whole sheet; the sheet is then advanced by the size of one stamp and the tool strikes again. A whole sheet is thus built from dozens of separate strikes and the accuracy rests on the operator. If the sheet slipped, was laid in a second time, or the operator lost track of which gutter had already been punched, that gutter receives an extra strike — and since the vertical and horizontal rows were done in separate passes, it can be any of them. This fits specimen 1: both vertical sides are doubled and the offset is so small that the holes overlap. Specimen 3 arose the same way — there the extra strike caught only the right vertical side, a little closer to the design.
• A comb perforator punches three sides of a whole row of stamps in one stroke, after which the sheet advances by one row. If that advance fails — the sheet moves too little, or slips — the horizontal part of the comb lands in a gutter the previous stroke has already punched. A doubled horizontal row results, while the vertical sides stay sound, because those are made by the vertical prongs of the comb. That is exactly what specimen 2 shows: two rows one above the other along the bottom, and the vertical sides untouched. Its place in the sheet fits as well. The specimen comes from the last row, and the bottom edge of the last row is closed by a separate final stroke of the comb — the one gutter a stroke merely closes instead of opening the next row at the same time. A repeat of that particular stroke therefore shows exactly where it is seen.

The direction of the doubling therefore hints in itself at which tool was at work. A doubled vertical side points to line perforation; a doubled horizontal row with the vertical sides untouched matches a failure of the advance under a comb. On specimen 2 the gauge confirms it: it is coarser than on specimen 1 and matches comb perforation B. Identifying the copy as field 100 of plate III settles it — the comb struck twice there, with a very small offset.

A double perforation is not a catalogue perforation of its own. Groups A–H describe the kind of tool and the gauge, that is, what the sheet was punched with — a repeated pass of the same tool does not change the gauge, and the stamp is identified from the row that corresponds to the proper pass. It is recorded as a perforation deviation: sought after by collectors, but outside the catalogue arrangement. It is easy to tell apart from the exceptional perforations I and L — there each side carries a single row of holes, merely at a different gauge from the opposite side, whereas in a double perforation one and the same side carries two rows.

Missing perforation

The opposite of a double strike is a pass that never happened at all. An unbroken band of paper is then left between two rows of stamps and the sheet cannot be torn there. The stamps had to be separated with scissors or by tearing, so the finished copy has one or more sides that are smooth, without teeth — and the remaining sides perforated as usual.

Specimen 1 — horizontal perforation missing

Both horizontal perforations are missing: the top and the bottom side were separated with scissors, while the vertical sides are perforated normally. That the cut ran between two stamps is betrayed by the bottom edge — a piece of the neighbouring stamp's frame is still visible on it. Two consecutive horizontal rows were therefore skipped, which with a line perforator means the sheet passed through without a strike twice in a row.

Specimen 2 — vertical perforation missing

Here a single vertical row is missing — the left side. The top, bottom and right sides are perforated. The wide smooth margin on the left carries faint traces of red ink from the neighbouring stamp, so here too the cut ran through the open gutter between two stamps. That makes the copy self-evidencing: had the margin merely been trimmed, paper would be missing from it, not left over.

Specimen 3 — top perforation missing

The third copy is the most telling of the three. The top horizontal row is missing; the left, right and bottom sides are perforated. The wide top margin retains the frame and part of the lettering of the neighbouring stamp — the cut therefore did not run down the middle of the gutter but reached into the design of the stamp above. Such a margin is at the same time the best proof of genuineness: extra paper carrying someone else's print cannot be obtained by trimming teeth away, only by the perforation genuinely having been absent there.

Beware of confusion. The issue also appeared imperforate, and there all four sides are smooth — with a missing perforation at least one side must remain perforated. The flaw can also be faked by trimming the teeth away, so the width of the margin is judged on every copy: a trimmed edge is narrower than normal and traces of the holes tend to remain. For the more valuable combinations (perforation missing on several sides) a certificate is in order.

Partly doubled print

On these stamps the design is divided into two parts by a straight horizontal boundary. Above it the impression is clean and sharp, below it heavier, smeared and in places doubled — the outlines repeat, displaced by a fraction of a millimetre. The boundary is ruler-straight, has nothing to do with the design and continues into the side margins of the stamp. On all five recorded copies it lies at roughly the same height.

How the flaw arose

The cause lies under the sheet, not in the printing plate. During printing a foreign object found its way beneath the sheet — most likely another piece of paper: an underlay, a spoiled sheet, or a folded corner of the sheet itself. Its straight edge lifted part of the printing surface, and from that moment the sheet was printed at two different heights.

• The raised part met the forme sooner and under greater pressure than the press was set for.
• Under that excess pressure the paper shifted slightly on the forme and the impression smeared or doubled — which is why the outlines repeat only a fraction of a millimetre apart.
• The rest of the sheet lay at the normal height and printed cleanly.
• The transition between the two is therefore as straight as the edge of the sheet that caused the lift. It follows the foreign object, not the design — which is exactly why it runs on regardless of what is printed beneath it.
• That this was a one-off situation at the press is supported by the boundary lying at the same height on all four copies: it fits stamps from one row of the sheet, the row the edge of the underlying paper crossed.

Why this is not a cracked plate

Copies of this kind turn up in offers as a “cracked printing plate”. That is a mistake, and the two are easy to tell apart:

• A crack adds ink. Ink collects in the fissure, so it prints as an extra line. Here nothing has been added — the design is the same on both sides of the boundary, only the quality of the impression differs.
• A crack is constant. It belongs to one stamp field, recurs on every further sheet and grows over time, so it can be divided into stages. A smeared area recurs nowhere — it arose in one particular pass of the press.
• A crack belongs to the plate, this boundary to the paper. The division crosses design and margin alike and takes no notice of what lies beneath it; a crack, by contrast, always sits at a particular place in the design.

What real damage to a plate looks like — a coloured line, tied to a stamp field and staged over time — is shown in the Damage to the printing plate part, which includes the crack at 11/II.

Specimens from the collection

Double and multiple print

On these copies the sheet received more than one impression. The whole design is printed twice — once only slightly displaced, so that every line has its twin, and elsewhere displaced by a long way and rotated, so that parts of several impressions end up inside a single stamp.

How the flaw arose

The sheet went through the press a second time: either it was not taken out after the first stroke, or it was fed back in. Between the two impressions it moved — by a fraction of a millimetre when the register merely slipped, or by a long way when the sheet was laid in quite differently. Because the same forme does the printing, the two images are exactly identical in size and in detail; they differ only in position. That is also why a double print can be recognised reliably: the displacement has the same direction and the same size everywhere.

Degrees

• Double print — a displacement of tenths of a millimetre. At first glance the design merely looks blurred; only close up is it clear that every line, letter and outline of the oval has a fainter twin.
• Multiple print — a displacement of millimetres up to a whole stamp width, often with a rotation. Parts of neighbouring stamps then reach inside one stamp’s frame and the word POŠTA appears twice at different heights.
• On a piece with the sheet margin it shows best of all: the surplus impression lies on paper that should carry no design at all, right beside the control number.

Why this is not a partly doubled print

In a partly doubled print only part of the stamp is doubled and the change to the clean impression is a straight boundary — a foreign body under the sheet lifted that part of it. Here there is no boundary: the whole design is doubled right into the corners of the frame, because the sheet received a complete second impression.

Why this is not a set-off

A set-off is a transfer of fresh ink from another sheet: it lies on the gummed side and is mirrored. Both impressions of a double print are on the face and both read the right way round.

Specimens from the collection

Beware of confusion with a smeared impression. If the sheet moved under pressure the design smears into a streak, but no second outline appears. In a double print the displaced copy is complete — it has sharp lines of its own and the same offset from the first everywhere.

“Wandering rings”

A small, sharply-bounded dark spot or ring appears where the design should stay clean white — in a gap between the towers, inside a letter of the inscription, under an ornamental ring of the frame. Unlike a plate flaw, its position varies from copy to copy: it is not tied to one stamp field.

How the flaw arose

A speck lodges on the inking roller or on the printing forme itself — a bit of dried ink, dirt, or a paper fibre soaked in ink. It prints only at that one spot on one sheet; the rest of the impression is unaffected. Depending on the speck's shape and size the result is either a solid spot, or — when mainly its rim made contact — a small ring.

Why this is not a smear (závoj)

A smear (závoj) comes from a blanket excess of ink on the roller or forme and shows up as ink spreading over a larger area of the design. A wandering ring, by contrast, comes from one isolated speck at one particular spot — which is why it is sharply bounded, small, and its position differs from copy to copy, while a smear stays where the plate's raised design is thickest.

Specimens from the collection

Smears — excess ink

Instead of a sharp edge, the ink here spreads into a soft, blurred stain that runs on from a printed line or spills around a dense, raised element of the design — most often the small heart-shaped ornament in the corner of the frame. The stain has no clear boundary of its own; it fades gradually into the white.

How the flaw arose

The mechanism is the same as for a white spot, just at the opposite end of the scale — see the diagram at the start of this chapter. Excess ink on a raised element of the forme or roller spreads sideways under pressure. The denser and more raised the design is at a given spot, the more ink collects there and the more easily it spreads — which is why a smear turns up almost always at the same kinds of places: corner ornaments, heavy frame lines.

Why this is not a wandering ring

A wandering ring comes from one isolated speck, so it is small, sharply bounded and sits on its own in a white area. A smear, by contrast, comes from a blanket excess of ink on a raised part of the design and always runs on from it or spills out of it — it never sits in isolation and never has a sharp edge.

One of the recorded copies carries a collector's card referencing field 35/V. If the same smear recurs on this field on further sheets, it would no longer be a random production flaw but one tied to a particular plate field — the question is still open.

Specimens from the collection

Filled-in print

Here there is too much ink, not too little. The impression is saturated, but the design drowns in it: the fine radiating hatching of the sky merges into a continuous field, the silhouette of Hradčany is a dark outline with no windows or turrets, the texture of the hillside below the castle turns into a shapeless mass, the garlands and spirals along the sides of the frame run together into blots, and the letters of POSTA and ČESKO-SLOVENSKÁ are thickened, their counters half closed. Nothing is missing but the white between the lines.

How the flaw arose

Letterpress prints from the raised surfaces of the plate; all the detail of the design is carried by what was left recessed between them — narrow unprinted grooves, in the finest engraving only fractions of a millimetre wide. When the forme carries more ink than it can hold, or the impression pressure is too high and the packing too soft, the ink is squeezed sideways off the raised lines and fills part of those grooves. The narrower the groove, the sooner it closes — which is why hatching and hairlines go first, while the frame and the numerals merely thicken. The flaw therefore takes ink away nowhere; it only adds it where it does not belong.

The cause is the setting of the press, not the plate. It affects the whole impression at once and usually a whole run of sheets, until the printer adjusts the ink or the pressure; after that the same plate prints normally again. Filled-in print is therefore neither a catalogue variety nor a property of a stamp field — it is a state of one print run.

Why this is not a smear (závoj)

A smear is local: an excess of ink on one dense, raised element of the design — most often the little heart ornament or a heavy frame line — that spreads into the surrounding white and has a soft, blurred edge. The rest of the stamp looks normal. In filled-in print it is not one place that suffers but the whole impression at once, and the ink does not overflow anywhere — the gaps inside the design simply close.

Why this is not thin print

Thin print is the exact opposite: too little ink, of too thin a consistency, the impression pale to pinkish, and the losses lie where the design calls for colour. Here the ink is fully saturated and in surplus — the losses are in the white areas, where there should have been no ink at all. The two can nevertheless meet on one sheet, since both arise at the same point of the process, merely at opposite ends of the setting.

Why this is not a slipped or doubled impression

A slipped impression has a direction: the lines are smeared to one side, and in a doubled impression every line has a fainter twin at the same distance. Here the thickening is symmetrical — the line grows equally on every side and there is no second outline anywhere.

Specimens from the collection

Filled-in crossbars — a type lost in the ink

On some stamp fields the fifth design carries a so-called long crossbar (type IIp). It is a vertical unprinted stroke immediately to the right of the second spiral from the bottom in the left border ornament: on type Ip it stops a little above the horizontal line over the inscription ČESKO-SLOVENSKÁ, on type IIp it runs all the way down to it. The whole difference between the two types is thus a few tenths of a millimetre of white paper — and it is one of the narrowest white gaps on the entire stamp. That is precisely why filled-in print closes it among the first, and a copy from a long-crossbar field then looks as though it had no crossbar at all. Yet on the spiral, crossbar and frame types this difference changes the value of a stamp fundamentally.

The six copies in the gallery below are exactly such a case. Five of them come from fields 78/II and 5/I — both listed in the catalogue among the long-crossbar fields (see Fifth-design types). The crossbar is engraved in the plate, so it cannot be absent from an impression of that field; what is missing is not the crossbar but the white paper around it. The sixth copy, from field 83/I, is there for comparison: a short-crossbar field (type Ip) in a normally saturated print, where the ornament stayed legible.

A practical rule: never determine the type from a filled-in copy. Filled-in print can only shorten the crossbar or hide it altogether, never lengthen it — so a flooded copy may pass as a short-crossbar type (Ip) or as a copy with no crossbar, but it never fakes a long one. A missing crossbar on a field that carries one according to the plate reconstruction is therefore a printing flaw, not a variety.The same applies one step further: on a heavily filled-in copy even the stamp field itself often cannot be determined with certainty — the constant plate flaws by which fields are reconstructed are filled in along with the rest of the design.

Blank spots

Where the print should be solidly inked, the colour is missing altogether — a blank spot has a sharp boundary and does not run on from any printed line or raised design element, the way a smear (závoj) does. Its position, size and shape differ from copy to copy and are not tied to one stamp field.

How the flaw arose

Between the inking of the forme and the impression of the paper, a foreign object settled on top of the already-applied ink — a speck of dust, a fibre, a small chip, or perhaps a hair. Being non-absorbent, the object sits a fraction of a millimetre above the ink, so at that one point the paper never actually touches it. The rest of the impression is unaffected; once the object shifted or was brushed away before the next impression, the flaw disappears with it — which is why the spot never repeats at the same place and turns up differently, or not at all, on other copies.

Why this is not a white spot (světlina)

A světlina arises from permanent damage or clogging at one specific point of the plate, so it recurs at the same stamp field on every impression — and its edge is soft, because the loss of ink develops gradually. A blank spot, by contrast, is a one-off: it was caused by a loose object that was gone by the next impression, so its edge is sharp and its position changes from copy to copy.

Why this is not creasing

Creasing arises from a fold in the damp paper before printing: ink is missing in the fold, but above all the design is displaced on the two sides of the fold and fails to line up, because the paper "stretched" once it was unfolded. With a blank spot the paper is entirely sound — no crease, no displacement of the design; only the ink is missing at one bounded spot.

Why this is not a splinter or a speck

A splinter or a speck is a foreign object pressed directly into the paper while it was being made, so it shows on both sides of the stamp — on the face it disturbs the print, on the back its outline is visible. The object that caused a blank spot lay only on the printing forme: the back is therefore completely clean, without any trace at all.

Specimens from the collection

Thin print with ink spots

On these stamps the print is unusually weak across the whole design — the fine engraving, the garlands along the sides of the frame, the radiating hatching of the sky and the texture of the hillside below the castle are almost gone, the colour more pale pink than solid red. In the very same places where the design calls for colour — most noticeably in the fine radiating hatching of the sky above the castle — the ink has in places collected into small, solidly red dots and spots instead. The spots do not sit in the plain white areas of the design; they sit exactly where the print should be, only in a different amount.

How the flaw arose

The cause is not the amount of ink on the forme, but its consistency. Ink that is too thin does not spread evenly along fine engraved lines — mostly only a thin film reaches the paper, but wherever the thin ink collects or pools, more of it lands at once and prints as a darker dot or spot. The weak, thin print and the darker spots are therefore two symptoms of the same cause, not two independent flaws — which is why they turn up together on every copy recorded so far.

Why this is not a blank spot

A blank spot arises when a foreign object on the forme keeps ink from reaching the paper within an otherwise normally saturated print — a sharply bounded loss of colour in one isolated area. Here it is the reverse: extra colour appears in the middle of an overall under-inked print, and it appears right on the design's own lines, not away from them.

Why this is not a wandering ring

A wandering ring comes from one isolated speck on the inking roller or the forme, printing as a small spot or ring in an otherwise plain white area of the design, on just one particular sheet. Here the spots turn up across a whole series — on eleven different copies — always together with an overall weak print, and they sit on the design's own fine lines rather than in isolation in a white area.

Why this is not a smear (závoj)

A smear comes from an excess of ink on a dense, raised element of the design (most often the little heart ornament or a heavy frame line) and has a soft, blurred edge that fades gradually into white. The spots seen with thin print are, by contrast, small and fairly sharply bounded, are not tied to any particular raised element, and arise from a shortage of ink on the forme, not an excess.

Why this is not a white spot (světlina)

A světlina is a local, permanent weakening of the print tied to one particular field of the plate — it recurs at the same spot time after time, while the rest of the design stays normally saturated. Here the whole impression is weak, over the entire stamp, and the recorded copies evidently come from different sheets or fields — so this looks more like a property of a printing run or a batch of ink than of one damaged spot on the plate.

For the first seven copies neither the plate field nor the print date is known. The four imperforate copies 8–11, however, could be placed: fields 26, 27, 28 and 97 of plate II. Three of them sit side by side in one row of the plate, the fourth at the opposite end of the same plate — which points to a property of one print run or one batch of ink rather than of a particular spot on the plate. Whether the spots keep to the same place on copies from the same field cannot yet be checked — the question remains open.

Specimens from the collection

Print and set-off on the gum

The back of the stamp, the gummed side, carries the whole design. It looks like a single flaw, but it is two different ones — and a single glance at the inscription tells them apart.

How the flaw arose

A print on the gum means the sheet went into the press the wrong way up and the forme printed straight onto the gum. That this is possible at all is in itself evidence that the paper was gummed before printing. A set-off arises differently: freshly printed sheets were stacked before the ink had dried, and the wet design transferred onto the gum of the sheet lying on top of it.

The mirror test

A print on the gum is a direct impression of the forme, and so it reads the right way round, left to right, just as on the face. A set-off is a transfer from another sheet — an impression of an impression — and is therefore mirrored. Saturation helps too: a direct print has full colour and holds even the finest engraving, whereas a set-off is paler and softer, because only the ink that had not yet dried was transferred.

Why this is not the face print showing through

On thin paper even a proper face print shows through from the back. But a show-through image is pale and diffuse, lies exactly opposite the design on the face, and disappears when the stamp is viewed against the light from the other side. A print or a set-off on the gum lies on the surface, has a sharpness of its own and does not register with the face.

Specimens from the collection

Both flaws survive only on stamps that still have their gum. Soaking a used stamp removes the gum and with it the design on it; a print or a set-off on the gum therefore occurs almost exclusively on unused copies, and a hinge or careless cleaning can damage it beyond repair.

Torn-off ink — sheets stuck together while wet

At first glance the stamp looks like a coarsely grained, "sieved" print: hundreds of small white specks cover the whole design, the continuous lines of the spirals are broken in several places, and even the heaviest elements — the frame and the letters of POSTA — have holes. Where the ink remains, it is fully saturated. So the flaw did not arise while the ink was being applied, but after the impression: part of the fresh ink was pulled off the paper.

How the flaw arose

The Hradčany stamps were printed on paper gummed before printing (the print on the gum proves it). At the delivery end of the press the printed sheets were laid on top of one another, so the wet design of each sheet lay against the gum of the next. It was enough for the ink not to have dried, or for the pressroom to be humid, for the gum to soften and the two sheets to stick together. When they were pulled apart, the ink partly stayed where it had gripped more strongly — on the gum of the upper sheet — and white patches were left behind on the printed sheet. This copy is the lower sheet of that incident; the upper sheet would carry a mirrored set-off on its gum, of the kind shown in the previous chapter. They are the two ends of one and the same event.

Why this is not a weak impression on rough paper

In a weak impression the fine elements of the design go first — thin lines and dots — while the highest relief of the plate, the frame and the heavy letters, always prints, because it touches the paper first and with the greatest pressure. Here even the frame and the letters have holes, regardless of the strength of the element. Nor are the losses a regular fine "sand" following the texture of the paper: they are irregular patches with ragged, fibrous edges that cut across continuous lines. That is exactly what ink torn away together with the surface of the paper looks like.

Why this is neither thin print nor a světlina

In thin print the whole impression is weak and the colour pale; here the ink is normally saturated wherever it remains and the loss is abrupt, not gradual. A světlina is a local, permanent weakening tied to one field of the plate, recurring on that field; here the whole surface of the stamp is affected at once and other copies of the same field are fine — it is the incident of one sheet, not a property of the plate.

Specimens from the collection

The second copy, from field 45 of the same plate, shows the flaw in the same form — irregular patches with fibrous edges across the frame, the letters and the design, fully saturated ink between them.

Three further copies extend the record to both plates. The imperforate copy from field 55/I is the strongest case so far — the loss of ink affects almost the whole design. The perforated copies from fields 92/II and 11/II show the same flaw in a milder form, confined to part of the stamp; the copy from field 92/II also carries a legible Poděbrady cancel of 17 September 1919, so sheets were already sticking together in the first year of printing.

Two things are worth checking under a glass: whether the paper in the white spots is roughened and "furry" (the ink came away with the surface of the paper — the sheets really did stick together), and whether the gum on the back carries traces of foreign red ink (this sheet itself lay on another wet sheet). Either would confirm the stuck-sheets explanation.

Creased paper

The Hradčany stamps were printed on dampened paper. A damp sheet is soft and ripples easily, and if it did not enter the press perfectly taut it gathered under pressure and a crease was left where it folded. Printing then took place over a wrinkled surface: no ink reached the fold itself, and once the sheet was flattened out the design was pulled apart. The finished stamp therefore shows a light unprinted line whose two sides do not meet — the design is interrupted and displaced there.

Why creasing happens

• The paper was dampened before printing so that it would take the ink better. A damp sheet loses its stiffness, ripples and gathers far more readily than a dry one.
• Sheets were laid into the press by hand. It was enough for one not to lie flat, or for an edge to tuck under, and the crease was there before the forme came down.
• The issue was produced in 1919 in haste and on makeshift equipment — the same reason why the other production flaws are common on the Hradčany stamps too.
• After printing the sheet dried and shrank. The crease was fixed by that and stayed in the paper even after the sheet was divided into single stamps.

Degrees of creasing

• Rippling — the paper is merely undulating, the design stays continuous and only waves slightly. The least conspicuous state.
• Crease — a thin light unprinted line crosses the design; the two sides of the design are displaced only slightly.
• Fold — the paper was laid over on itself. The unprinted band is wide, the design plainly fails to meet and the stamp looks distorted. The most telling degree and the one collectors seek.

Telling a production flaw from later damage. What decides is whether the design continues across the crease. If the crease arose before printing, ink is missing in it and the design does not meet on either side — that is a production flaw. If the paper was crumpled after printing, the design runs smoothly across the fold and only the paper is bent; that is damage, and it lowers the value instead. On multiples the evidence is strongest: a crease that passes from one stamp to the next across the gutter must have been in the sheet at the time of printing.

Specimens from the collection

Twenty-six stamps on twenty-four items — twenty-two singles, one imperforate horizontal pair (item 1) and one vertical pair (item 23). Click a specimen to enlarge it.

Splinters and specks — a foreign object in the paper

A foreign object found its way into the paper while it was being made — a fragment of wood, a piece of bark, or an unpulped fibre that survived the beating. Collectors have two names for it according to its shape: an elongated sliver is a dřívko (splinter), a small compact particle a smítko (speck). The object stayed pressed into the thickness of the sheet, and the stamp carries it to this day.

The mark of identification is that it is visible from both sides. Dirt that settled on the stamp later lies on the surface of one side. A splinter is enclosed within the paper, and so shows on the face and on the back alike — at the same place, merely mirrored.

How the flaw arose

The object entered the paper at the paper mill, long before printing — it has nothing to do with the printing forme and does not recur at the same stamp position. The issue was printed on whatever paper could be had in 1919; quality varied, and checking the raw material was not among the things that mattered most at the time. Objects in the paper are therefore fairly frequent on this issue.

Because the object was already there when the sheet was printed, the printing reacts to it. The surface is not level there and takes ink differently, so the ink does not transfer as it should: a pale halo without print tends to surround the particle, or the design is interrupted. On the back a lightened ring is sometimes visible around it — the fibres parted about the object and the paper is thinner there.

Telling it from later dirt. What decides is whether the object is in the paper or on it. An embedded particle is visible from both sides, cannot be scraped off, and the print around it is disturbed — the ink never reached it. Dirt stuck on afterwards lies on one side only, the design continues unbroken beneath it, and in raking light it stands above the surface. A larger splinter also weakens the paper: the sheet is thinner there and tears more easily, so such a copy deserves careful handling.

Specimens from the collection

For each item the face is on the left and the back of the same stamp on the right. Click a specimen to enlarge it.