Plate Blocks

Malaysia low value definitives issued in 1986 are still being used
until today. The definitives portray agro-products when first issued
in 1986 had block number 1A. The number of the Blok number has since
been increased. Block numbers of 5A (issued in 1991), 6A (issued
1992), 8A (issued in 1994), 9A (issued in 1995) and so on came into
existence. During the long period of production of these long-run
definitives, various of perf., gum types and paper types appear.
Malaysia has 13 states and one Federal Territory, and each of these
states and territory issues these definitives (the different among
them is the state arms on the stamps). Therefore, the collection of
block number for these definitives has become very challenging and
interesting. It keeps me busy all the time looking for them. You may
view some of the block numbers of these stamps in my collection at
following url:

http://www.geocities.com/rocoto98/agro.html

Ian


"Rodney" wrote in message ...
and, if more than one printing, as is often the case with definitives, a
| print run number (i.e., a simple number like "1" or "2" indicating first
| printing, second printing, etc.).

In Oz, interestingly, instead of a number we have an image code.
in the selvedge one will see images of Koala's, the number of which
refers to the print run.

On Sun, 14 Dec 2003 20:59:45 -0500, "Tony Brown"
wrote:

In a similar vein, I have seen "traffic lights" in the form of images that
match the subject matter of the stamp. The Canadian $2 Polar bear issue, for
example, has traffic lights in the form of four little polar bears, each
corresponding to the colours used in the printing of the stamp.

By the way, I consider this sort of thing as part of "selvedge art" and
have published an article on it at
http://www.rpsc.org/Library/selvedge/selvedge.html.


~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ ~~~~

Tony:

In your article you state that :

"In 1968, the Philatelic Service began selling
panes of stamps with inscriptions in each of
the four corners, while panes that go to post
offices, known as field stock, are printed
without inscriptions".

Is this true for all issues?

It was my impression that for field stock,
Canada Post merely guillotined off the
plate block inscriptions, thus giving
a narrower piece of blank selvedge.

In this respect, the 1972 definitives
come particularly to mind.
http://www.rpsc.org/Library/selvedge/images/pb.jpg

Blair



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"In 1968, the Philatelic Service began selling
panes of stamps with inscriptions in each of
the four corners, while panes that go to post
offices, known as field stock, are printed
without inscriptions".

Is this true for all issues?

As far as I know, Blair.

It was my impression that for field stock,
Canada Post merely guillotined off the
plate block inscriptions, thus giving
a narrower piece of blank selvedge.

No, they definitely don't guillotine off the inscriptions. They are two
separate printings, one with inscriptions sold either over the philatelic
counter in post offices or through the National Philatelic Centre in
Antigonish, and one without inscriptions (field stock) sold to people who
actually want to use stamps to pay for postal service, if you can believe
that.

dear Tony,

the idea to have cylinder of plate numbers on the sheet-margins
of Dutch stamps was to be able to identify a particular print run
or print order. It was to benefit the Post Office and the Printing
House in the first place...

When you have separate printings with and withouut them, there is still
no telling of what might have gone wrong, whether or not a new set of
plates or cylinders had to be used, whether or not a new supply of paper, etc.

So Canadian collectors were to be made fools of themselves and they liked it..

groetjes, Rein

On 15 Dec 2003 08:55:09 , "Tony Brown" wrote:
"In 1968, the Philatelic Service began selling
panes of stamps with inscriptions in each of
the four corners, while panes that go to post
offices, known as field stock, are printed
without inscriptions".

Is this true for all issues?

As far as I know, Blair.

It was my impression that for field stock,
Canada Post merely guillotined off the
plate block inscriptions, thus giving
a narrower piece of blank selvedge.

No, they definitely don't guillotine off the inscriptions. They are two
separate printings, one with inscriptions sold either over the philatelic
counter in post offices or through the National Philatelic Centre in
Antigonish, and one without inscriptions (field stock) sold to people who
actually want to use stamps to pay for postal service, if you can believe
that.


.