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| Iceland 1930 Parliament Issue 5 Aur Plate Varieties |
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by Nancy J. Butkovich
[This article was originally published in the Scandinavian Collectors Club journal The Posthorn (November 2002, Vol. 59, No. 4). Information about the SCC and the journal can be found at: https://www.scc-online.org/]
The 5 aurar value of Iceland's 1930 Parliamentary Millenary issue (regular issue Scott 153 / Facit 174 / AFA 126 and official overprint Scott O54 Facit Tj60 / AFA Tj45) has two reported varieties. One is a line plate flaw (position 45), and the other is due to the omission of a tone plate.1,2 I believe that I have identified two additional varieties, based on an examination of one sheet each of Facit 174 and Facit Tj60. Subsequent examination of another Tj60 sheet by Jay Smith confirmed the presence of both varieties on that sheet as well.3 I have not seen these mentioned in the literature, so I am providing descriptions below.
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Position 9: Broken 9 in 1930. Instead of having a closed oval in the upper half of the 9, the loop is broken at the connection with the number's tail. I suspect that the damage occurred during plate production rather than during the printing process, since the shape of the damaged area does not appear to change. |
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| Position 21: Unaccented Í in Ísland. This variety is caused by a flaw in the tone plate. As a result, the accent mark over the Í in Ísland is solid green instead of having wavy lines running through it. This seems to be a similar flaw to the white-dot variety of the 25 aurar value, although the result has the opposite effect. |
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References:
1 AFA Iceland Specialized Catalog 1997, Scandinavian Philatelic Foundation: Thousand Oaks, CA, 1997.
2 Facit 2001 Special, Facit Förlags AB, Västerås, Sweden, 2000.
3 Jay Smith. Personal communication.
Acknowledgments:
I thank Mercer Bristow at the American Philatelic Society for his suggestions and for taking the illustrations (for the printed version of this article) using the APS's Crimescope camera. I also thank Jay Smith of Jay Smith & Associates for his comments, suggestions, and assistance. |
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| If you would like to comment on this article, email: js@JaySmith.com |
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