For 1905-1920 issues with Lozenge watermark, stamps printed before March, 1915 are called peacetime printings and those printed afterwards are called wartime printings. They can be hard to tell apart, but in general, peacetime issues are of better quality than the wartime issues.
There are a number of factors to look at to determine if a particular stamp is a wartime or peacetime printing. Most of these are not foolproof, but taken together, you can confidently identify about half of the stamps you come across:
Peacetime Printings
* Canceled before March 1915 - Definitively peacetime printing
* Finer lines
* Sharper lines
* Colors brighter
* Solid areas are solid
* Alignment of colors more centered
* Paper smoother (check back)
* Watermark easy to see
* Matt gum
* 2pf must be peacetime
* 75pf only after war
Wartime Printings
* Canceled after March 1915 - Possibly wartime printing
* Thicker lines
* Appears blurry
* Colors darker and drab
* Holes in solid areas
* Misaligned
* Paper rough (check back)
* Water mark harder to see (may need fluid)
* High-gloss gum
There are similar characteristics for the wide-format, high value Germania issues from the same series.
Peacetime Printings:
* White paper
* Clear gum
* 26 perf holes wide, may be either, but likely peacetime
Wartime Printings:
* Yellowish paper
* Yellowish gum
* 25 perf holes wide, must be wartime
Shades provide an additional hint. See the excellent site GermanStamps.net for details. Although, different computer screens, cameras, and lighting make positive color identification on-line impossible. Use color guides on-line only for relative comparisons, and even that with caution. Color is best used with known reference stamps in front of you.
Identifying Type I and Type II printing methods on new color issues.
With the old two-color stamps there were two plates--one for each color. These had to be carefully aligned. When the new single color stamps were printed, they were initially printed with the two plates like before. Those type I prints also had to be aligned, and you can tell these when you get an impression like the middle stamp, where the cross is not properly aligned with the white area underneath it.
Later, these were printed with a single plate. These one-plate stamps are Type II, and they always have a clear white space behind the cross and perfect alignment of the H on the bottom right. The H should align with the frame above it and be vertically centered in its frame. Finally, the number shouldn’t touch their frames.
This is a great bit of work Ken! I've been wading through my Germania collection for a few weeks now and having a wonderful time finding War vs Peace prints. I'm sure you know that the Michel catalog notes that if you can't tell which print it is, the default is "War Print." I think this means that the Peace prints are so obvious, if you can't tell which it is, it's a war stamp? Possible?
ReplyDeleteI found it helpful to find two stamps I was confident represented a "War Print" and a "Peace Print." I mounted them together under my wide-field microscope, then simply placed a stamp in question under the microscope and compared it with the knowns. It's still really tricky, but it helped to make the comparison, and gave me a small degree of confidence.
I'm sure it's easier for you pros, but for us amateurs, there are still stamps I have no clue what they are! :)
In any case, thank you for all the hard work Ken! Your post is incredibly helpful!
Best Wishes,
Cliff
PS: Are we going to get a video? :)
This is so funny. I didn't expect anyone to read this before seeing the video I posted less than an hour ago.
ReplyDeleteI was not aware that Michel suggested that default is wartime printing. That's helpful. I think my default is still "unknown."
I'm an amateur at all this too.
No go watch my video.
I'm with you...I'm not comfortable defaulting to the wartime print. I like "unknown" as a category.
ReplyDeleteI'm off to watch the video. Thanks Ken!
Thanks for the great video Ken. It's proved very helpful!
ReplyDeleteI'm so sorry to bother you again, but I was trying to get in contact with PostmasterGS to thank him for the help on your video, and also thank him for his incredible album pages.
Do you know of a publicly available way to communicate with him? I've searched GermanStamps.net to no avail.
Thanks again Ken for your teaching and encouragement! You are truly helping to secure the future of philately.
Oh, no problem at all.
ReplyDeleteAll the way at the bottom of the germanstamps.net page is a button for “Contact Administrator.” Click that and you’ll get a form to contact him.
Thanks for your kind words.
The kind words are deserved, Ken. If I may comment, I especially appreciate the scholastic tone of your videos; they are one adult talking to another. There are so many great philatelic videos that are rightly aimed a younger demographic...and I applaud the great efforts! But for me, this has become a hobby of exploration, introspection, and a means of catharsis. Your videos feed and nurture the whole.
DeleteThanks so much Ken!
You make an excellent point, oh, and thank you. I find that my collection is a way to focus on my mental health--a way to push out everything else for a while and just be.
ReplyDelete