Quote:
Originally Posted by cfc1909
I think you have two brains stuffed in you head Patrick. 
That is some of the best T206 research I have seen. Right up there with Cathey figuring out the Print Groups.
JR |
I've said it before, but it bears repeating.
What Pat has accomplished with the scratches is probably not just one of the best bits of research on T206s, but possibly the best in almost any hobby.
In stamps, it's called plating. Figuring out the minute differences that let you know for sure not only what plate a stamp is from, but exactly where on the sheet it was. The guys who are famous for it worked mostly in the 1930s-50's
When the ones it was most possible or interesting for were readily available in large quantities for not much money. Like boxes of thousands.....
It took them
decades to mostly plate a few stamps from the 1850's One has a known plate that still isn't totally plated.
And that's with a known sheet size, and plenty of blocks of multiple stamps available to study, some with the plate number on them.
Pat has mostly assembled two different sheets without blocks, without a known sheet size, and with minimal collaboration*. The vertical scratches on the other sheet have gone a long way towards knowing how many cards tall the sheets were.
There are still things to be figured out, but this much advancement in such a short time is amazing.
*I was saving scans and when we first compared notes I had only about half of what Pat had found. I stopped saving scans after that unless something was unusual.