GB cover with 3 x Plate “77’s” discovered?

One of the intellectual challenges of collecting Australian Kangaroos and KGV heads is spotting substituted clichés -- images that were transferred and soldered in from an early plate to a later one - to quickly correct a technical problem or damage to the later plate.

Only this week a constant flaw was shown on stampboards.com of a vertical pair of 2d Grey Roos, one with the substituted cliché, and the stamp above it with the continuation of the plate crack that required the substitution.

Major new finds ARE made every day in the stamp world.  This has never been recorded before.

Could something similar have occurred here?  A small section of the "73" plate, from before the plate numbers were added, or altered by an engraver (an easy task) used to repair plate 77 – or another plate, and the engraved new plate numbers were 77 in error? 

UK dealer Graham Mann who specialises in this stamp issue, made the following suggestion on stampboards.com -

"One possibility could be, that to repair some illegible numbers the wrong "7" was recut.  Bear in mind that the plate is in mirror image - perhaps the engraver mistakenly recut the 3 to a 7 on some impressions on the plate 73 thinking he was actually recutting the 7.

After printing a small number of sheets the error was spotted and corrected. This would give rise to a small quantity of ‘77s’ being in existence."

Most of the 10 previously reported “77” copies are not sourceable, to check if they too have plate 73 corner check letter similarities.  Some very conceivably might also have them.

In which case the venerable expertising bodies have a large potential headache on their hands!

Graham Mann also posted that he found what he felt sure was a "77" on cover in a box lot he bought from Philips in the early 1990s.

"The second 7 had a distinct flat top. I sent it to the RPS for certification and got the reply "not plate 77".  Not convinced, I sent it to the BPA.  I got the reply not 77 but 73!

I assume this was given because the letter positions matched that of plate 73.  I later sold the cover at Stampex for a princely £1.50.  OH, HOW I WISH I HAD NOT!!"

One thing that is clear is that the “77” MINT copies are NOT both from Plate 73, as the corner check letters do not match 73, so more than one plate might be involved with possible re-cutting? 

However seeing only 10 or so examples have surfaced in ~150 years, despite millions of copies being squinted at, it is safe to assume few if any more will turn up even if this cover is eventually declared genuine.

SG cannot list two categories of Plate ‘77’ - -  "those found before 2008, and those found afterwards."

If a stamp shows "77" clearly, and is not a treated "177", and if neither "77s" are altered or tampered with, it clearly is collectible as a "Plate 77".  HOW it came about - we will likely never know.

All we DO know is that stamps were printed and distributed with "77" engraved upon them -- at least 3 of them ..  and maybe many or all of the other known 10 as well.

My theory is simple.  We know 5 mint copies are recorded, and one of those, owned by H.J. Crocker was lost in the San Francisco fire of 1906. 

Another Mint copy was allegedly sold to Ferrary from the Hughes-Hughes collection, and it is strongly doubted this exists (or is genuine), and the corner letters of it are not known.

The 3 mint copies that exist - one in the Royal Collection and one in the “Tapling” collection are quite well centred and are cut apart with scissors.

The corner lettering of the 3 we know to exist are AB, AC and BA.  It seems highly probable to me someone "souvenired" a top left corner block of 6 of a trial perforated sheet, and 3 at least have survived - all with the same curious scissor cut perfs.

I have written in the past detailed research articles on the Sweden 1857 'Tre Skilling Yellow Banco' – one is here – www.chohthu.notlong.com

Again highly controversial, and again no-one has a clue as to EXACTLY how this stamp came to be.  Or if it is genuine – or not.

In 1974 it was exhibited at the stand of Frimarkshuset A.B. the well known Swedish dealers, at 'Stockholmia 74'.

The stamp was then offered to the Swedish Postal Museum for purchase at $US1,000,000.

The curator Gilbert Svensson had always suspected it to be a forgery, and arranged for it to be handed over to a group of nine Swedish stamp “experts” to examine.

These “experts” concluded it was a fake - possibly a fake of the original stamp that some of them also thought was a fake anyway! 

They stated that one third of the stamp was of a different paper type than the rest.  And it differed in exterior appearance from early photographs. 

I have a logical brain I believe, and think to myself that if someone was determined to fake a plate ‘77’ on cover, there are 3 things they would do.

1.      Stick to a SINGLE stamp on cover to alter ... FAR less work, and far less chance of getting caught out, or messing it up.

2.      Select a NICE looking well centred stamp to fake, to maximise the return if accepted as genuine.

3.      Pick a nice clean complete cover to work on, for the same reasons as #2.

These 3 totally obvious features are all missing here.  A tatty looking part cover, with 3 woefully centred stamps, one badly scuffed and damaged, and one badly creased.

And the obvious fact it turned up unheralded in Europe points further to no large profit gain being involved here.

This is EXACTLY why, given the compelling scientific evidence supporting my view, I believe all 3 stamps to be perfectly genuine and unaltered, and all are showing plate number “77”.