New USA One Cent

“New” Type Ic of U.S. 1851-57 1-Cent Stamps Has Been Recognized by PF for 30 Years

From The Philatelic Foundation’s “Philatelic Focus” of May 1993

Type Ic of the U.S. l-cent stamps of 1851 and 1857, listed by Scott for the first time in its1993 Specialized Catalogue of United States Stamps, has been recognized on Philatelic Foundation certificates since 1950. In addition, the PF’s Expert Committee has been distinguishing between the two sources of Type Ic:

1. Those from the “F’ relief of Plate 4 (positions 91-100 on the left and right sides of the printing plate, a variety of the Scott No. 6 imperforate stamp and the No. 19 perforated stamp).
2. Those from the “E” relief of Plate 4 (positions 41-50 and 81-90 on the left and right sides of the printing plate, a variety of the No. 8A imperforate stamp and the No. 22 perforated stamp).

Scott still lists both the No. 6 and 8A imperforate varieties together as No. 6b, a new listing; and the No. 19 and No. 22 perforated varieties together as No. 19b, another new listing. But in both cases, it does mention both the E and F reliefs, pointing out that the best examples of Type Ic come from the F relief.

A copy submitted to the PF as Scott No. 6 and described on its certificate as Type Ic, with partially missing lower right plume and ball. Only 56 of more than 2,500 off-cover 1851 and 1857 1-cent stamps turned out to be this scarce Type.

The Type Ic was described in detail by Jerome S. Wagshal, a long-time PF consultant, in a December 1987 Philatelic Foundation Analysis Leaflet entitled “The One Cent Stamp of 1851 and 1857” , containing his illustrated discussion of all nine types of the 1-cent blue Franklin design. To announce its new listings of No. 6b and 19b, Scott turned to Mr. Wagshal, who wrote a “special feature” on page 12 of its 1993 specialized catalog. He notes that collectors began to appreciate the “rare” Type Ic as far back as 1938, when Stanley B. Ashbrook defined it in The United States One Cent Stamp of 1851-1857, the two volume work he published that year. By the time Mr. Wagshal wrote “The One Cent Stamp of 1851-57: A Reconsideration of Types I Through IIIa” (1973 American Philatelic Congress Book, pp.l07-108), he says Type Ic was “generally recognized as a separate one cent type.”

Type Ic, to quote further from the Scott special feature, “”is a design variety found on Plate 4, both imperforate and perforated. Type Ic is like type Ia but for a slight design deletion at bottom right: where type Ia has complete bottom ornaments, type Ic has a slightly incomplete lower right plume and ball.”
In studying more than 2,500 copies of the l-cent stamp since 1945, the PF’s Expert Committee has recognized 23 imperforate copies and 33 perforated copies of Type Ic.

Table 1 includes Nos. 6, 8 and 8A, the three imperforate stamps (as identified by submitters) that share other characteristics with Type Ic and are most likely to turn out to be Type Ic. Table 2 includes Nos. 19, 21 and 22, the three perforated stamps that, for the same reason, are most likely to be Type Ic. (The fact that the Expert Committee discovered that these stamps were really many other types as well is another story about lack of collector experience, wishful thinking and stamp manipulation.)

The Type Ic stamps noted in Tables 1 and 2 are combined and split into their four sources in Table 3, as recorded in the PF records. The earliest recorded certificate for a Type Ic is numbered 2329 and dated March 6, 1950. It describes the Type Ic as a variety of No.6.