ND Home > ND Libraries > Spec. Coll. > Collections > Wolf Irish Stamps > Part II > Set 5T
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ND Home > ND Libraries > Spec. Coll. > Collections > Wolf Irish Stamps > Part II > Set 5T |
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Design: Great Britain issue of 1912-13, Scott 159 (T20), 160 (T21), 161 (T22), 162 (T23): King George V, designed by Sir Bertram Mackennal.
Printing (Base Stamps): Typography; Harrison & Sons, London and High Wycombe, printed in sheets of two panes of 120 subjects (12 x 10). The panes are aligned vertically, so a full sheet contains twenty horizontal rows of twelve stamps, with a horizontal gutter separating the panes.
Overprint: "Rialtas Sealadac na héireann 1922" (Provisional Government of Ireland 1922), in five lines, by Harrison & Sons, Ltd., London and High Wycombe. Overprints are shiny black, and most commonly measure 15.25 x 17 mm. Standard widths of individual lines are as follows: "Rialtas" - 12 mm; "Sealadac" - 15 mm; "na" - 3.5 mm; "héireann" - 14 mm; "1922" - 6.75 mm. The Irish postal authorities contracted with Harrison because of the latter's experience in producing coil stamps for Great Britain. Harrison did not, however, create its own overprint plates, but rather copied (by electrotype) those previously prepared by Alexander Thom & Co. The results were not identical, however, because of a "filling up or blobbing of the electrolytical deposits", as Harrison stated in 1923.
Separation: Perf. 15 x 14.
Watermark: Monogram Royal Cypher (Scott wmk. 33; Crown and GvR).
Date of Issue: 19 June 1922 (1/2d, 1d, 2d Die I); 21 June 1922 (1 1/2d). The 2d Die II (not included here) was not noted until August.
Numbers issued: 1/2d - 236,000+; 1d - 690,000+; 1 1/2d - 56,000+; 2d Die I - 322,000+.
Notes: The term "coil" refers to stamps specially prepared for use in vending or dispensing machines. Coils typically derive from strips of stamps hundreds of subjects long and one subject wide, joined horizontally or vertically; the strips are wound on a roll for ease of dispensing. There were no stamp vending machines in Ireland in 1922, but coils were needed for the dispensing machines used in businesses (and, perhaps, in some larger Post Offices). The work was contracted to Harrison and Sons, manufacturer of coils for the British Post Office. It proved not technically feasible to apply overprints to the made-up rolls, printed from a continuous strip of paper, that resulted from Harrison's usual procedure in making coils. Instead, whole sheets (for horizontal coils) or half sheets (for vertical coils) were pasted together after overprinting to form large rolls, which were then guillotined to make long, rolled strips of 480 (horizontally joined) or 500 (vertically joined) stamps. (Some dispensing machines required horizontal coils, others vertical). Only the four lowest values of the issue of 17 February were manufactured in coil form. The stamps were subsequently shipped to Ireland, where they first appeared on 19 June.
Unlike many coil issues, the Harrisons were made from perforate sheets; very straight and sharp perforation edges (where the individual strips were cut apart after the sheets were joined) are evident on most examples. Coils are commonly collected in pairs - especially joined or "paste-up" pairs from different sheets, which demonstrate how the trimmed margin of one sheet was employed to attach it to the next (see above). Horizontally reeled Harrison coils have such joins every twelfth stamp; vertical coils are joined every tenth stamp.
The overprint on the Harrison coils is most easily distinguised by the long tail of the "i" in "Rialtas", which consistently descends below the "R". This was caused by imperfections in the electrotype process used to copy the Thom plates. In addition, the "R" of "Rialtas" is always over the "Se" of "Sealadac".
Provenance: Dr. Charles Wolf (all)
Bibliography: Meredith 1927, 10, 32; EPA 1964, "Harrison Coil Stamp Issues," 73-75; Feldman 1968, 33-34; Mackay 1968, 72-73; 14; Priestly 1988, "Harrison 5 Line Coils", 15; Dulin 1989, 32-33; Fletcher 1995, 46-52; Bugg 1996, 1-6.
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