Two Cents Carmine Booklet
The booklet form of the two-cents carmine was only of the six-pane type, consisting of two rows of three. A total of 20 plates were laid down, of which two were not used. The earlier plate arrangements were Type X (two groups of 84 subjects), and the later arrangements were Type Y1 (three groups of 84 subjects (see Formats). See Summary for more detailed information about the plates.
Although Plates 1 and 2, with Type X arrangements, were flat, the subjects were aligned vertically when the plates were placed in the press. Since the paper was fed normally, that is with the grain running vertically, the panes were printed with the grain running horizontally instead of vertically. This caused the stamps to shrink and be shorter than their sheet format counterparts.
Plates 3 to 10 were bent in order to be used on a rotary press, and because they were most probably bent along the vertical axis, the subjects would have continued to be aligned vertically, resulting in the grain of the paper running horizontally across the printed panes.
Stamps printed on the flat plates are noticeably larger, by .2mm in both heigth and width, than those printed from the bent plates.
Plates 13 and 14 were bent horizontally, but, for some reason, the paper was fed to the press with the grain running horizontally, instead of in the usual vertical direction, resulting in booklets that still exhibited horizontal grain in the paper.
Plates 15 to 20 were arranged as Type Y1 (three groups of 84) and were bent horizontally. The paper for these printings was fed vertically, however, which caused all of the booklets to be on vertical wove paper.
The two-cents booklet types, therefore, may be categorized in terms of combinations of vertical and horizontal wove paper and whether the original or retouched die was used.
A few retouches associated with the strengthening of the upper right vertical spandrel line, and minor re-entries have been reported.
The shades for the two-cents carmine booklet are much the same as for the sheet formatted stamps.
Updated: 16 Oct 97