A little bit more about grills on stamps.
Types of grills on stamps.
Or to dust the back of the stamp with powdered graghite.
There are ten different grill patterns.
Although the 1 cent z grill is generally cited as the rarest and most valuable of all us postage stamps the 15 cent lincoln z grill is just as rare and the 10 cent washington z grill scarcely less so.
From what i can gather it is the use of the b grill which makes that particular issue of the stamp so desirable.
1 25 the recognition of two major types of the z grill jerome s.
The h grill is sometimes faint showing only a few points.
Looking for an image of a town cancel handstamp.
Getting to know them by peter mosiondz jr.
Looks a lot nicer than a cork cancel.
Stamps of this design are common and usually worth only a few dollars.
This short period of use combined with 11 different types of grilling resulted in making certain grilled stamps extremely rare and valuable.
For example if a stamp has a full grill on it covering the whole stamp it is a grill pattern a.
It has often been told to yours truly that many collectors of united states stamps throw their hands up in despair once they get to the classic era.
Two types of grill h and i.
Getting to know them.
The pyramids point downward into the surface of the stamp.
The city month and day are always present but notice the absence of a year.
United states grills handbook 16 by wm.
Grilled stamps by rolin lewis 2007 the 1 cent z grill mystery by ken lawrence 1995 american philatelic congress book pp.
Easist way to see grills is to look at the back of the stamp sideways with strong light shining across the back of the stamp.
The first three grill types a b c are known as points upbecause the pyramid shaped embossments created by the grilling process point up from the surface of the stamp.
The other two grills measure respectively 11 x 15 mm.
Grills of three different types appear on regular issue stamps of peru produced between 1874 and 1884.
One of these peru grills displays the horizontal ridges that characterize the american z grill but the peruvian version is smaller in size measuring 9 x 14 mm.
This is an early type of datestamp cancel found mostly on 19th century stamps and covers.
The rest of the grill types d z e f g h i are points down i e.
One main area of consternation is that of identifying many of the look alike types of early u s.
And they are identified by letters.
The 1 cent z grill stamp was thought to be one of the rarest usps stamp with only two such stamps in existence until a 15 cent z grill stamp was discovered also with only two known stamps.
But what made this one worth a million dollars is a distinct waffle like grill pressed into the back of the stamp as part of a short lived government experiment to prevent fraudulent re use.
