Interrupted Phosphor Bars

Ian has also referred to the interrupted phosphor bands which we mentioned briefly in the last post. He has wrote in the comments dept to visit his blog for more information. Click here to visit

Several sheets of the De La Rue stamps have been examined by him and his findings from each of the values he has seen are reported. Ian also shows some scans of the actual stamps, these do not show the phosphor layout.

Interrupted bands are not new, back in the early 90s we had several trial window booklets with contents that were described as inset bands and short bars. The panes from these bar-code booklets produced stamps that were short top & bottom on 2nd class values and inset left and right on the 1st class. If I remember correctly this was an attempt by the printers to stop wear and tear on the perforators.

That's all for today i'm afraid, I have house guests and they are keeping me rather busy, what with showing them around the area, visiting the local bars and restaurants I am a little short of free time. I will attempt to add to this post (next week) when I can find a little more space in my schedule.