The existence of this stamp is something of a
fluke. According to Johl,
it started in 1910 when the St. Louis postmaster transferred a large
quantity of imperforate sheets of the imperforate 1908 two cent
stamp, Scott 344,
to the United
States Automatic Vending Company of New York. Somehow the
sheets came into the possession of the postmaster of New York City
and in 1917 he asked the Bureau if he could return them for credit,
to which the Bureau agreed. As a cost saving measure, the Bureau
decided to add perforations to the sheets rather than simply destroy
them. In 1917 the perforation had been changed to 11, the 12 gauge
perforation had not been used since 1914, and a new variety was inadvertently
created. It is interesting to note that if the stamps had been
returned in 1916 and reperforated then, this variety would be perf
10 and not 11.
Although more than half a million of these stamps were issued, most
were used for postage. The two cent stamp was the common stamp of
the era and the perf 11 and 12 stamps were hard to distinguish
without close inspection. Most of these stamps are lost forever,
since collectors were unaware of their existence at the time, and
most of them were simply discarded as common. Ironically, had the
stamps been perforated in 1916 with perf 10 perforations, the
difference would have been more noticeable, and many more would most
likely have been saved.
Caution! This stamp can be faked by perforating the
imperforate Scott 344 on all four sides. In fact, as mentioned above, the stamp was actually
perforated by the USPS using left over stock from the imperforate sheets of
Scott 344, as an economy
measure during World War I. It would be advisable to have the perforations
looked at very closely before assuming this stamp is the scarce 519. Fakes
made from the single-line watermarked imperforate, Scott 384 are
much easier to weed out, since the real 519 must be double-line
watermarked. Additionally, the color is usually a dull carmine, not
a bright or rosy red. A Scott 519 should obviously not be purchased without certification or an offer thereof.
