President: Dwight David Eisenhower  ·  Postmaster General: Arthur E. Summerfield

Rotary Press - Perf 10½ x 11 - 200 Subject Electric Eye Plates

Pennsylvania Academy of the Arts Sesquicentennial Philadelphia, PA - Jan. 15, 1955 "Dry" Method Printing - 116,139,800 issued	Old Man of the Mountain Sesquicentennial Stamp Franconia, NH - June 21, 1955 125,944,400 issued

The Special Handling stamps were printed using the "wet" method through most of 1955, when some were printed using the new "dry" method. It should be noted that all of the Special Handling stamps were printed on flat plate presses and that the 25¢ stamp was never printed using the dry method.. 

The traditional method of sorting the "wet" and "dry" stamps has been to classify as dry-prints those with sharper, crisper printing and a slightly darker green color than the 1928 yellow green. Mr. Bob Rufe, in a series of articles in the 2007 United States Specialist, presents a convincing argument that this is misleading at best, since many of the stamps printed between 1940 and 1955 have just these supposed "dry" printing characteristics. In fact, he clearly illustrates an example of a wet printing from the 1940-1955 period that is indistinguishable from a dry printing in terms of color and sharpness. This "wet" stamp would end up in most dealer's "dry" stock pile. Why does a stamp that looks so much like a dry-printing, turn out to be a wet-print stamp? It turns out these stamps  have over-riding characteristics showing they must be wet-prints. These characteristics are:

1. The wet-print, depending on the direction of the grain of the paper, is narrower or shorter than the dry-print, typically from .4 to .7 mm. This can be seen by overlapping the stamp in question with a known wet-print stamp, for example any 25¢ Special Handling stamp since they were all wet-printings. If the stamp in question measures similar in both the vertical and horizontal directions, it must be a wet-print. If the stamp is noticeably longer or wider, then it might be a dry-print.

2. The dry-prints were printed on thicker, stiffer paper. Although it would require an accurate micrometer to make such measurements, many collectors can tell the difference simply by "flicking" the stamp, testing for stiffness. 

This new research presents some interesting findings. Since many of the stamps that have been traditionally classified as dry-prints are actually wet-prints, the Special Handling dry-prints appear to be substantially rarer than previously thought. The dry-printings, QE1a, QE2a and QE3a are unknown properly used on a contemporary cover. In fact, Mr. Rufe is offering a "bounty" of $300  for the first certified proper usage on cover.