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SET X - The Perf 11 - Flat Plate -No Watermark of 1917
If the perforated 12 stamps separated too easily in the vending machines, and the perforated 10 stamps were a little too hard to separate, you guessed it, the
perforated 11 was just right. In 1916, eight years after the first Washington-Franklin heads were issued, the Post Office finally experimented with an approximately 11 gauge perforation on the 2c denomination only. It was printed on the single-line watermarked paper stock of that year, and is listed in Scott as number 461.
The experiment proved successful, so successful in fact that nearly all subsequent U.S. issues have been printed using this perforation, or a slight variation of it, e.g. perf 11 x 10.5. Thus, a year later in 1917, the entire series of Washington Franklin Head stamps were issued using the 11 gauge perforation on the new unwatermarked paper stock. These stamps are listed in Scott as numbers 498 through 524 (and 547), and are often referred to by the nickname "Flat Elevens".
As is the case throughout the Washington Franklin series, a few stamps in this set defy classification. To cut costs, a two cent stamp was issued by perforating some imperforate sheets of the two cent stamp of Set I, Scott 344, with the new 11 gauge perforation. Since this stamp was issued in late 1917, at the height of World War I, and since the perforation is 11, it is included by most experts in this Set, and is most commonly listed as Scott 519. It should be noted that this stamp has more in common with Scott 332 from Set I than the Scott 499 of this set. This is a stamp that certainly defies classification!
Note that the $2 red (carmine and black) Franklin stamp, Scott 547, is thought by many experts to be merely a color variety of the orange red stamp, Scott 523. In fact, when the stamp was designed the intent was for the frame to be red, making the orange red something of an error stamp. The correction was made quite early in the production of the $2 stamp, making the orange red "error" variety quite scarce.
Next: Set XI
The Offset - Perf 11 - Unwatermarked of 1918
A Guide to the Washington Franklins 1908 · 1909 · 1910 · 1910 Perf 8.5 · 1912 · 1914 · 1915 · 1916 · 1916 Coils · 1918 · 1919 · 1919 Shanghai