Description
Major stamp vending machine coil stamp discovery: undocumented variant of a 20 mils coil stamp strip as part of 95 mils postage on 20 Feb 1945 postmarked registered air mail cover sent from TEL AVIV to GLASGOW, composed of 4x 20m + 5m single + 10m single stamps serving as double rate postage on BOAC Airways (2x 40m letter weight + 15m registry fee); tied by multiple strikes of REGISTERED TEL AVIV oval postmark on front & back with undocumented dateline error of "20 45 FE".
The existence of a 20m coil stamp was completely unknown until this cataloguer discovered a "coil leader" vertical pair in 2021. This 4-piece coil strip, while also on period woven paper, differs from the original discovery and is of a type with a special perforation hole on the outer right side of each horizontal axis, characterized by having a thin perforation tooth on the top and a thicker, wider tooth below it. Their purpose was to enable better advancement and dispensation of stamps through a vending machine, to minimize damage caused by the forwarding pins and detatchment.
These hallmarks are observed as separately occuring tooth types on the continuous roll 14-hole horizontally perforated 5m and 10m coil stamps presently known in the literature as "regular coils"; as a feature occuring together these have only been observed by this cataloguer on an undocumented 1936 used 3m coil strip. As such the 20m strip here was produced as a continuous roll and not through the paste-up process (of assembling guillotined strips of stamps from standard stamp sheets, and forming these into a roll), although both production methods existed in Britain simultanously into the 1950s. The perimeter damage to the strip, observed on the top margin of the top stamp and on the left and right edges of the top stamp and the one below may nevertheless be side-effects of the strip's dispensation from the stamp vending machine.
Additional discoveries of note: the watermark of the coil strip is of the Multiple Crown & Script CA (Crown Agents) type - but the letters "CA" below the crown seen on the left side (when viewed from the back) are irregular and non-constant; on the top two stamps the letters don't match the style of the watermark. Likewise on the 10m stamp the letter "C" of the "CA" script looks clearly like an "S". In both instances these may be undocumented cases of the letters on the mesh of steel wire which creates the watermarks (the "dandy roll") falling off or being damaged, and being incorrecly replaced back on the dandy roll.
An extraordinary cover bearing multiple philatelic discoveries. Ben-Arieh certification enclosed.
