Plate Layouts for U.S. Postage Stamps Please note: we will be adding plate layout diagrams for over 30 of the more important layouts over the next few months, including diagrams for the booklet stamps and the various 400 sheet layouts.  One of the things that separates the casual stamp collector from the philatelist is an understanding of plate layouts. This is somewhat unfortunate because the plate position can be of vast importance to even a beginning collector. For the one and three cent stamps of the 1851 design, plate position is often the over-riding factor in the desirability of the stamp. Knowledge of plate position can also help identify a stamp as genuine or altered. It can determine whether a stamp is a candidate for such tomfoolery as adding perfs to a straight-edge or booklet stamp. An understanding of the plate layouts of the early coil stamp sheets is essential in understanding the mysteries of the great 20th century rarities, the coil- and sheet-waste stamps.

The Typical Plate Layout for the Classic U.S. Stamps - 1847 to 1889

1L 2L 3L 4L 5L 6L 7L 8L 9L 10L 11L 12L 13L 14L 15L 16L 17L 18L 19L 20L 21L 22L 23L 24L 25L 26L 27L 28L 29L 30L 31L 32L 33L 34L 35L 36L 37L 38L 39L 40L 41L 42L 43L 44L 45L 46L 47L 48L 49L 50L 51L 52L 53L 54L 55L 56L 57L 58L 59L 60L 61L 62L 63L 64L 65L 66L 67L 68L 69L 70L 71L 72L 73L 74L 75L 76L 77L 78L 79L 80L 81L 82L 83L 84L 85L 86L 87L 88L 89L 90L 91L 92L 93L 94L 95L 96L 97L 98L 99L 100 L 1R 2R 3R 4R 5R 6R 7R 8R 9R 10R 11R 12R 13R 14R 15R 16R 17R 18R 19R 20R 21R 22R 23R 24R 25R 26R 27R 28R 29R 30R 31R 32R 33R 34R 35R 36R 37R 38R 39R 40R 41R 42R 43R 44R 45R 46R 47R 48R 49R 50R 51R 52R 53R 54R 55R 56R 57R 58R 59R 60R 61R 62R 63R 64R 65R 66R 67R 68R 69R 70R 71R 72R 73R 74R 75R 76R 77R 78R 79R 10R 81R 82R 83R 84R 85R 86R 87R 88R 89R 90R 91R 92R 93R 94R 95R 96R 97R 98R 99R 100 R

At right and left are marginal imprints which include the plate number and the name of the company which printed the stamps. In the middle is a guideline which enabled the printer to cut the sheet into two panes before distributing them to post offices. This guideline was placed on most, but not all, of the sheets of 19th Century U.S. stamps.

The nomenclature of plate position · Plate Layout or Sheet Layout? · Sheet or Pane?  Plating Early U.S. Stamps · References  Position Nomenclature - Often a position will be stated with the plate number as well as the plate position. For example, Scott 5 is also known as position 7R1E. "7R" refers to the stamp in the "7R" position above, which is the seventeenth stamp from the left, while the "1E" stands for "Plate One Early" (note that there were an "early" and a "late" version of Plate 1 of the 1851-1857 one cent stamp). Another famous position, 99R2, refers to the stamp in the 99R position on Plate 2, and is the most desirable position for a Type III one cent stamp. Note that the position of the stamp on the sheet is given first, followed by the plate number. "Plate Layout" or "Sheet Layout" ? - The layout in the diagram above does not correspond to the layout on the original plate, but rather to the layout of the sheet of stamps produced, which is in fact the mirror image of the plate itself. Thus stamp 1L, the top left stamp on the sheet of stamps is actually the top right stamp on the plate. This is the convention; the plate layout numbering system above refers to the layout of the stamps as they would have appeared on the original sheet of printed stamps and not on the plate itself.  "Sheet" or "Pane" ? - The sheet above contains 200 stamps in two panes of 100 arranged in a 10x10 array. Although a block of 100 stamps is sometimes called a "sheet", it is more appropriately referred to as a "pane".  This layout of 200 stamps was used for nearly all of the "classic" U.S. stamps through 1890 with the exception of the 1869s. In 1890, sheets of 400 stamps were produced in four panes of 100 (see the 1902 400-subject plate layout for an example of this), and this remained the predominant layout for printing the regular issues for many decades. "Sheets" of any of these stamps are unknown, since they were cut into panes before being sent to the post offices. Note that no two stamps on any of these early sheets were entirely identical, since entering the stamp design onto the plate was more of an art than a science. The fact that no two stamps on any given sheet of stamps were identical would prove of great importance to platers of early U.S. stamps, since full panes of many of these stamps simply did not exist.  "Plating" Early U.S. Stamps - Determining the characteristics of each stamp for each plate position is known as "plating". This would be a difficult task even if full left and right panes of all stamps were known, and for the early U.S. stamps this was, and still is, far from the case. The main tool of the plating detective was the study of multiples of the stamp, particularly multiples with a large margin at one side. From the diagram above it can clearly be seen that a wide margin narrowed the possible positions considerably. For example, a large margin at the right with no guideline meant the stamps must be from positions 10R, 20R, 30R ...100R. The location of a marginal imprint, if present, gave the position immediately. Similarly, the presence of a guideline at right meant the stamps must be from positions 10L, 20L, 30L ... 100L, and so on. By comparing multiples of these position pieces, the identifying characteristics of individual positions were determined. Once identified, a position piece needed to be studied in great detail to determine any unique identifying characteristics. The identifying marks needed to be compared with other copies of the stamp from the same position, if the unique marks were consistent for that position, any stamp with similar identifying characteristic could be plated.  This sounds fairly straightforward, but complicating things was the fact that for many of these stamps more than one plate was used. For example, the one cent stamp of 1851-1861 was printed using a total of 12 plates, thirteen if you include the plate one early and plate one late. Determining which stamp went where was like trying to put together 13 jigsaw puzzles from thousands of puzzle pieces. Although a few panes of the one cent stamp were known and the men who did most of the difficult detective work eventually had access to large multiples or high-resolution photographs of most of the pieces needed to put the puzzles together, the work took many years to complete. Today Stanley Ashbrook and Mortimer Neinken, along with Dr. Carroll Chase who did similar work on the three cent stamp, are regarded as three of the greatest American philatelists. We will be going into greater detail on the plating work of these men and their stamps in the next few months. There are two excellent web sites that discuss the identifying characteristics for many of the plate positions. For the one cent stamp of 1851, there is Richard Doporto's - The 1¢ Franklin Plating Archive and for the three cent stamp of 1851, there is Steven Ruecker's - A Plating of the 3¢ Stamp of 1851-56 . If you are interested in a fairly complete plating of the one or three cent stamps you might want to consider buying the book. Each contains literally hundreds of diagrams and illustrations enabling identification for each plate position. The Neinken book contains most of the plating diagrams and illustrations of the Ashbrook books and, in addition, has been revised and updated to add Neinken's work. The United States One Cent Stamp of 1851-1857  by Stanley B. Ashbrook 2 Vol. U.S. One Cent Stamp of 1851-61  by Mortimer L. Neinken  The 3¢ Stamp of the United States, 1851-1857 by Dr. Carroll L. Chase

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