Machin Misperfs

 

I am putting together a display of Machins for a local stamp club, and I wanted to find some items that are visually interesting. I picked up these two misperfs on eBay, and I thought I would share them.

There are many misperfs offered on eBay, so I picked these two for a reason. The 17p above is misperf almost equally in both directions, creating a nice frame on two sides. The stamp is on a phosphor-coated paper (FCP or ACP), so there are no phosphor bands.

The 1p pair has the marginal arrow present, highlighting the misperf. This pair of stamps has the two side phosphor bands in the correct place, since the printing occurs separately from the perforating.

I am not familiar enough with the perforating process to know how these happened. Modern perforators operate while the stamps are still in a continuous roll (the web), so I don't think it would be possible for the stamps to be misplaced. Therefore it must be the perforating pins that get out of alignment. Is that correct?

 

I have to admit the my favorite misperf is not a Machin. It is this 1992 high-value castle. The misperforation has put the castle name neatly at the top and the elliptical perforations just about in the center of the stamp.

--Larry