1pL covers in presentation book 1

Here is the basic information on these covers.



Is there a reason why Buenos Aires 38 is the most common postmark? Could the airport have been within the boundaries of this branch? Is there a map showing the branch boundaries?

Plate varieties of the 5p late printings

These printings are from the 1950s, and there are at least three major groups, all easily separated by the changes to BOTH colors. This stamp has several easy-to-spot plate varieties.

Hereis a page

There is a plate variety that is almost impossible to spot

It has a long horizontal scratch to the central design.



Note that the line ends at the denomination box.

This following variety has a long scratch across the palm.



There are other minor scratches to the late issues plate.

Plate varieties of the 2p late printings

There are a good number of plate varieties for the late printings (the 1L's), all easy to spot.

Here I have a page for these

There are two types of long scratches ver the melon, and for each I find many.

The two I find the most of, and I think are found on the plate on more than one position are:

Small diagonal scratch between the two outer lines midway across the bottom:





Large dot on the lower outer edge of the central design, midway





Interestingly, my favorite variety for the this stamp is a printing, and not a plate variety, and it is the doubled center variety, which, to my surprise, is NOT a very rare stamp.

my favorite variety for the this stamp





There is also a remarkable plate variety on the unwatermarked grid stamp, the 2pNGR, which I luckily also have on cover!

Plate varieties of the 50c

The plate used for the unwatermark grid paper (50cNGR) has two plate varieties that I would like someone confirm. Both affect the denomination box.

About the plate varieties

I have studied the plate varieties a little and it would be great if members of
this forum shared the ones they have found. I have so far studied the plate
varieties for the 10c Rivadavia Red, and the late printings from the 1950s for
the 50c/2p/5p. I am most interested these days in the plate varieties of the 25c
and 30c because I know that there are many-I have glanced them as I have looked at these stamps when studying other aspects of this issue.

One of my favorite plate varieties is on the 25c plate:



Apparently the die got squeezed in some fashion. The top edge towards the right is deformed in a very interesting way. At first glance it may look like deformed/bent paper, but it is not. This stamp is on the second watermark, mint, and completely flat. I have another specimen on the first watermark that I have not typed for a specific paper.

group 4 on the 1E1 paper

This group corresponds to those stamps from group 3 that were issued as Ministerial overprints. The 25c was only issued on the 1E2 paper. The ones issued with this paper are the 15cSC-D, 30c, 50c, and 1pL.

group 3 on the 1E1 paper

This is the first batch of National Resources mid and high values: the 15cSC-D, 25c, 30c, 40c, 50c, 1pL, 2p, 5p, 10p, and 20p.

group 2 on the 1E1 paper

This group is for the stamps in group 1 overprinted with Ministerial official overprints. The base stamps are the 1c, 2c, 3c San Martin Green, 5c offset, 10c Rivadavia Red, and the 20cJMG. I am including the 20cMG in this group for now even though it was issued sometime in 1936.



I find that there are four variations of the 10c Rivadavia Red stamps as issued with these overprints: each type (I and II) was printed in dark colors and then in lighter colors from worn plates. The Type I was mostly printed in dark red, and I am guessing that there aren't many type I's in light red (I only have the M.M.). There is the need to look through a bunch of these stamps and sort out the ones that were actually issued.

group 1 on the 1E1 paper

Here begins my first stab at grouping these stamps in a way that can help us identify all of the printings in this complex series.



This group is the first batch of "cents" issues. I am also including the 10c typographed. All of these stamps can be found on philatelic covers from the exhibition that took place in Buenos Aires in late October 1935.

The stamps are:
1/2c, 1c, 2c, 3c San Martin Green, 4c Gray, 5c offset, 6c, the various typographed printings of the 10c Rivadavia Red, the 12c Brown, and the two variations of the 20c Martin Guemes (Juan Martin Guemes-or JMG, and Martin Guemes-or MG). I am also including in this group the 20c Martin Guemes, even though it was issued sometime in 1936. This is a scheme in progress....



Here is a second example:

a reference scan of the 1E1 watermark

Now that I am sorting out all of the issues chronologically, its a good starting point to have a reference scan of this paper.



Notice that the dimensions of all of the features vary slightly, and especially, that there are small, medium, and large RA's.

selvage on regular issue 10c Rivadavia Reds

Here are representative images of the four selvages found on this stamp. Next is to match these conclusively to the plates as described by Tenorio. It seems that the plate 1 early low volume printing he refers to is the first selvage, which has a small red stripe along the edge:

First selvage, with thin red stripe along the edge

This selvage is the same format as found on other "cents" 1E1 stamps issued October 1, 1935.





Because Tenorio mentions that the second plate has a type I and a type II, I am not sure which of these three selvages correspond to the second plate.

The selvage shown below is the same as that of the large block I described previously. It is Type I.

Selvage with six horizontal narrowly aligned stripes





It is interesting that the selvage shown below is for type II stamps, but printed on a dark red that is similar to that used for the type I of 1935. This one may be one of the second plate printings.

Selvage with a single bar





The last selvage found on this stamp correspond to the most common printing. This stamp was printed in a continuous roll press, and the selvage stripes are vertical to avoid ink collecting on the plate selvage. This selvage is for Type II stamps.

Vertical lines

details about the 10c Rivadavia Red

About the 10c Rivadavia Red the article published by Tenorio Casal mentions the following:

During the first printings of this issue in 1935, "photoetched typography was used, which was used with success for the 10 centavos value. T0 meet immediate needs, 1.200.000 stamps were printed, with the unique feature that the the design is more than 0,5 mm larger than the other values of the issue...At the same time there is a printing error, in which the tip of the inner coat as it meets the neck has a gap of missed design. After this quantity was used up, a second printing was placed in circulation December 17, 1935, with the smaller design. There are two types which can be differentiated in that in the first one the leftmost pocket near the name Bernardino is completely drawn in with color, while in the second one it is deffective."

First plate: 27 mm height, 21 mm width
Second Plate: 26.7 mm height, 20.6 mm width

"In september 1938 a third plate was used in two printings, with design dimensions similar to the second plate but with the leftmost pocket drawn in as in the first plate, and which features make differentiation of this stamp difficult."

"First plate: only one printing with all the Ministry Officials.
Second plate: two printings with all the Ministry Officials, except M.R.C.
Third Plate: two printings with all the Ministry Officials, except M.A., M.J.I. and M.R.C. These were also overprinted 'Servicio Oficial'."

Sorting out Argentina 1935-51 Part 1

Now that I have scanned a large number of these stamps with the ondulating rays watermark from 1935 to 1941, I aim to describe all of the early printings-those over the first two papers, 1E1, and 1E2.
Durante my brief foray into the M.A. Departmentals, I noticed that all 25c are from 1937 and 1E2, and all 30c are from 1936, and 1E1.


This is my plan towards an issue chronology during 1935/36/37:

1. The 1E1 "cents" issues from October 1, 1935 (1/2c, 1c, 2c, 3c SM green, 4c gray, 5c offset, 6c, 10c I typographed, 12c brown, 20c JMG)
2. The Departmentals for this group 1, all placed in circulation end of 1935 and beginning 1936.
3. The 1c, 5c, 10c II typographed, and the offset 15c dark blue cattle, 20c MG light blue, and the values between 25c and 20 pesos ( 1 peso only with boundaries) all on the 1E1 paper.
4. The Departmentals for this group 3, all placed in circulation throughout 1936 (5c typographed, 10c II, 15c, 20c MG, 25c, 30c, 50c, 1p without boundaries).
5. The 1 peso without boundaries 1E1 and 1E2, from February 1937 onwards. This stamp may be our best shot to define the issuing boundary between the 1E1 and the 1E2 paper.
6. The Departmentals for this group 5.
7. The 'cents' issues on the 1E2 paper, for which so far I only find the 1/2c?
8. The values from 25c to 20 pesos on the 1E2 paper, for which I do not find only the 2p, 10p, and 20p. It may be that these stamps do exist.
9. The Departmentals for this group 8 (on the 1E2 paper) for the 25c, 30c, 50c, 1p without boundaries.

An for each of these we need to determine which come with the watermark reading horizontally or vertically. Reminder of what the 1E2 looks like:

Horizontally:



Vertically:



A lot went on during the first two and a half years of issue for these stamps!

I hope I get some help with this work. If you use the 25c M.A.'s as guides, they are all 1E2. And if you use the 30c M.A., they are all 1E1.

Officials M.A. 30c with two plate vars

These two pairs have the same two plate varieties side by side, but the overprints are not identical. These plate varieties remind me of the alternating row pair of plate varieties in the type I 10c red plate. It is interesting to note that both pairs were postmarked on the same town and on the same day. They were likely from the same block.

The first pair:



left stamp:





right stamp:





The second pair:


left stamp:





right stamp:









Maybe someone has a large block of this stamp showing these repeating plate varieties?

Agriculture Departmental Officials M.A.

Here I include three small format stamps. I still do not know if these overprint varieties are repeatable.

M nearly doubled.




A deformed.




M deformed.

Agriculture Departmental Officials M.A.

Here I include images of selected values with dated postmarks. After studying all of the issues for this watermark, I find that the 30c is only 1E1, and the 25c is only 1E2. It is interesting that stamps overprinted mostly in 1936, and in a small number of cases in 1937, are found used in 1939/40, when the "servicio oficial" issues were already in use. I postulate that these stamps were infrecuently used by this ministry.

March 1936



March 1938



April 1938



April 1938



May 1938



May 1938



July 1938



November 1938



March 1939



December 1940