Why these experts stopped at the gate and did not enter is one of those freaks of the human mind that defies explanation. Certainly the person who made this observation was on the very threshold of discovering a scientific classification of this elusive die. The writer confesses that, after having independently evolved this system of classification, nothing has given him greater satisfaction than to find that the basic idea had been chronicled as far back as 1892. To-day it is well known that a line prolongation along the "U" of "UNITED" establishes five distinct classes. As this system has been fully described in a lecture given by the writer before the Boston Philatelic Society, (April 19, 1904) which lecture has also been published in pamphlet form, and, as this classification has been accepted by the writer of the latest Scott Catalo gue, it seems unnecessary to go into the details, especially as the subjoined diagram is self-explanatory.
It is evident that we now possess various means for the classification of the three cents die varieties, but a system based solely on a line measurement, as has been stated heretofore, would not guard the collector sufficiently from acquiring a number of the same dies, due to unavoidable mistakes of measurement. To prevent duplication of dies it is imperative to know the various heads.
Luckily the distinctive features are quite plain and it is easy to divide the heads into five classes for, as in the first issue, the die cutters have adorned the head of Washington with a variety of coiffures.
In Heads 1 and 2 there is a triangular open space between the middle bunch of hair and the lowest strand which meets the queue.
HEAD 1.—The queue consists of three vertical strands extending from the top of the head to the neck. Next to the queue are 3 rear locks, of which the middle one is a large, pear-shaped bunch, consisting of five fine strands, while the second highest is by far the longest, and cuts into the queue, resembling the stem of a pear.
HEAD 2.—Same as Head 1, but the second lowest strand of hair in the pear-shaped bunch is the longest and does not extend into the queue. The triangular space below is slightly larger than in Head 1.