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In 1873, the contract for the printing of the U.S. postage stamps was awarded to the Continental
Bank Note Company. At that time, Continental took over some
of the dies and plates used by the National Bank Note Company who had held the
previous contract. In order to establish whether certain stamps had been
printed by National or Continental, "secret" marks were added
to many, if not all of the plates used to produce the Continental banknotes.
It must be noted that a "secret" mark has never been found on either
the 24¢ or 90¢ stamp, and only on the American Bank Note 30¢ stamp. In fact, the 24¢ Continental is impossible to
distinguish from the 24¢ National, other than a possible few copies printed on ribbed paper,
presumed to have been used only by Continental. Only one stamp has ever been
certified as the Continental Scott 164, and it is of course clearly on ribbed
paper. On many of the higher denominations the quality of the printing plate
is evident; often the National stamps show a finer detail, especially on the
earlier printings while the plates were still new. Many of the stamps are distinguishable by the color of ink
used, and in fact, the only way the thirty and ninety cent stamps can be
distinguished is by color.
The best way to
recognize the "secret" marks is to actually see them. Click on a
link above to see the "secret" mark for that issue.
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