THE KANSAS CITY PERF. 11 X 11
Quite a few years back, specifically 1965, Dick Kuisalas
designed and copyrighted the U. S. and Canada Specialist Gauges.
These were the result
of Dick's and his father's study of
perforations.
These gauges were printed on aluminum and are quite accurate. Today the supply has all but dried up and also they are somewhat obsolete because of new perforating techniques. As precancel collectors our primary use is for the issues of 1908-1919 and the U.S. gauge is the best for perfing this series.
In the past three years, three Kansas City buros PSS 596-43 have come to auction realizing $15,500, $2,250 and $12,500. The $2,500 copy was rather a "dog" but if you needed it you took it and wait for a better copy to show. Dick devised a way to identify this and other 20th century rarities Good hunting for these GEMS.
#596 is a tall rotary press stamp of the 1922 Franklin design, and all copies are precanceled KANSAS CITY. The shade of the stamp is dark green.
A. The height of the stamp design must be measurably more than 7/8" tall.
B. The perforations on top and bottom must measure 11-73 on the U. S. Specialists Gauge. On the sides they must measure 11-72.
C. The stamp must have normal margins. On the opposite sides of the stamp there should be equivalent combined distance of 1 1/2 perf. diameters between the insides of the perf. holes and the design of the stamp.
#544 is a 1c tall rotary press stamp of the 1912 Washington design. (Numerals of denomination, not ONE CENT.)
A, B, C are all the same as the #596.
#613 is a 2c tall rotary of the 1923 Black Harding design.
A, C are the same as #596.
B. The perforations must measure 11-72 on all sides.
#594 is a wide rotary press stamp of the 1922 Franklin design.
A. The width of the stamp design must be measurably more than 3/4" wide.
B. Sameas #613...perf. 11-72 on alls side.
C. Same as #596.
If you follow the above A, B, C instructions, you can not only identify these rarities, but you can make sure that the stamp is a genuine product of the U. S. Bureau of Engraving and Printing.
If the above information seems to vary a bit from catalogue descriptions, this is because we are using the actual standards under which the stamps were produced, to identify them. Catalogue descriptions can become confusing and unhelpful because they are not the production standards and we want to make identification easy.
When we say measurable more, we mean that there should be no doubt it being taller or wider than the given dimension.
This is what Dick wrote and I learned from him that the dimensions for these designs was 3/4 by 7/8 inches for flat plate production and that in rotary press production the plates are curved and thus stretches the design either wider or taller. He advised me to take a known flat plate stamp and cut it up so that I could lay it on the questioned stamp and compare the design.
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