This is an absolute test then for perforated specimens. Attempts are, however, made to palm off trimmed reprints as imperforate specimens. The originals are on a yellowish paper and with brown gum. The reprints on a very white paper originally but easily manipulated to yellowish. The reprint of the one cent is from a new plate, the stamps have the outside fine labels of the original imperforate series, but are set farther apart on the plate so that even the larger perforation used does not cut into the stamp. The blue is too bright. The reprinted three cents has the outer top and bottom lines of the original imperforate stamp. The stamps do not seem to have been set quite far enough apart on the plate, as most specimens are somewhat marred by the large perforation. The color is however a vermilion and not the brick-red, pink or carmine of the originals. The reprinted five cents is from plate No. 2 without the top and bottom projection, and the stamps being too near together are marred by the large perforation. The color is a decided yellow brown, unlike any of the shades of the original. It would probably be impossible to remove the perforation so as to make this stamp pass for an imperforate specimen and then it would lack the projection of the original.
The ten and twelve cents are harder to distinguish, the green is too green, the black too black. The twenty-four, thirty and ninety cents were not issued imperforate (except the very rare instances of the 24 cents) and are not likely to deceive any one, their colors, however, are the more brilliant new colors and not the old dull colors of the originals.
The reprinted "Eagle" Carrier's stamp was first sent out perforated 12, the original was, of course, imperforate, and the stamps upon the sheet were separated by colored lines. The perforations of the reprints made sad havoc with these. Later the reprints were sent out imperforate. Such originals as the present writer has seen are on a yellowish tinted paper arising probably from the gum or age, the reprints are on a paper blued on the printed side by the ink of the stamp and with a blue cast at the back.
The reprinted "Franklin" Carrier's stamp is on too deep a pink paper and the dark blue ink is not deep and dull enough.
Finally the only safe test of any of these stamps is comparison with undoubted originals, in every case of doubt.
The first or 1847 reprints are not from the original plates nor even from the original dies, but from newly engraved dies, and hence are absolutely worthless as representing the originals. They are not reprints, but official imitations. In speaking of this issue it was stated that the Department had ordered all remainders to be burnt and the plates and dies destroyed. Supposing this to have been done reprinting was impossible. To take the place of the originals, new dies were made.
The imitations are both wider and shorter than the originals. The foliated ornaments are too conspicuous in both. The small letters, R. W. H. and E. in the margins, though clear in the originals are too small, and particularly in the five cents almost illegible, being too light, and apparently the engraver did not know whether to make an R or an H, an M or a W, an H or an N, an E or an F. These are the general and common differences.
The Five Cents. The hair on the right of the head (left of the stamp) is in heavy dark masses in the original, but is too light, open and airy in the imitation. The mouth prolonged in the original beyond the dot on the right, ends with it in the imitation, in which there is a second dot to the right of the first. The eyes are clear and distinct in the original, with perhaps too much white in the right one, they are weak undecided eyes in the imitation. The shirt front in the original is terminated by a diagonal line which reaches the oval above the top of the F of "Five" in the original, but is more nearly horizontal in the imitation, reaching the oval nearly on a line with the top of the 5.
The Ten Cents. In the hair on the right of the stamp there is a small, white circle with a dark center in the imitation which does not appear in the original. The lips are larger and the mouth longer in the original than the imitation, but in the latter the lower lip is indicated throughout by vertical lines, in the original there are three vertical lines, the rest indicated by points. In the original the white cravat is separated from the inner colored line marking the oval by a fine white line with a colored line above it; in the imitation the line of the oval terminates the cravat. The lines of the face are all too stiff and ridged and the execution does not compare in delicacy and boldness of touch with the original.