The Drucker Collection continued...

EXTREMELY FINE. AN INCREDIBLY RARE MINT NEVER-HINGED PLATE BLOCK OF THE 2-CENT 1923 ISSUE WITH SIX-POINT STAR.

In an attempt to improve centering, the Bureau began using plates with wider spacing between the stamps. However, to take advantage of this, they had to modify some of the perforating machines. Stars were added to some of the wider-spaced plates for rapid identification of those sheets bound for the modified perforating machines. At first, a small five-point star was used, then a large six-point star and, finally, a large five-point star. The latter is common, but the other two are very scarce. To date, we know of only two other plate blocks with a six-pointed star. Undercatalogued in Scott (Image)

VERY FINE AND CHOICE EXAMPLE OF THE ONE-CENT ROTARY PERF 11, SCOTT 594. ONE OF THE RAREST 20TH CENTURY ISSUES IN THIS SOUND CONDITION AND HIGH GRADE.

The 1c Green, Scott 594, is waste from a horizontal rotary coil printing. At the beginning or end of a coil-stamp print run from the 170-subject rotary plates, some leading or trailing paper was produced that was too short for rolling into 500-stamp rolls. In 1919, the Bureau devised a plan to utilize this waste by perforating and cutting the sheets into panes. They were put through the 11-gauge flat-plate perforator in use at the time, giving the sheets full perforations on all sides. In 1923, coil waste from the new 1c and 2c rotary production was turned into stamps later classified as Scott 578-579 and 594-595. These were the last of the coil-waste issues. The existence of Scott 594 was not reported until four months after the final sheets were delivered, and the 1c Rotary Perf 11 was soon recognized as one of the rarest United States stamps.

There are today fewer than 100 confirmed examples of Scott 594. The first major find of this stamp was made in 1934 by Ernest E. Fairbanks, who retrieved nine pairs (18 stamps, one or two damaged) on nine separate covers that were returned by the post office years earlier from a bulk mailing. All were postmarked at New York City on October 4, 1924. The nine Fairbanks covers were cut down into pieces, and today there are perhaps five or six of these pieces intact.

With 1934 A.P.S. certificate (stamp and certificate signed by George B. Sloane) (Image)