It’s hard to believe that over thirty years have passed since the first issuance of United States Plate Number Coils (PNC’s). These issues were created by the printing of the plate number on each roll of the plate. Most are very common; some are very scarce. However, they are legitimately made varieties, not issued for philatelists and having a provenance similar to plate number blocks and coil line pairs, both of which specialties have been part of mainstream US collecting for nearly a century. But PNC’s have had the misfortune to be issued too late, after the period that philatelists take hard core specialization seriously, and so have been relegated to second class status when by all the traditional philatelic markers they should enjoy wide popularity.
WWII is more or less the break off on where philatelists do their most detailed specialization. For most countries, the US included, issues before 1940 are subject to far greater specialized scrutiny than issues that come later. This has occurred because earlier collectors had far fewer stamps to collect and so studied their stamps to a far greater degree than stamps are studied and collected today. Perforation varieties, which on earlier US stamps are listed as separate, major catalog numbers, are on more modern issues relegated to minor “a” number status. As such they listed in footnotes, or not even notated at all. Paper varieties such as the Silkcoat of the 2¢ Liberty Jefferson issue are a minor number while the Blue Papers of the Washington-Franklins, a paper variety of similar significance, become major numbers and command rarity prices. For many years there was discussion over whether to give the so-called “China Clay Papers” major catalog listing whereas now the consensus seems to doubt that they are even varieties at all. If a new invention today as significant as the grills were applied today to identical issues of US stamps that had just been issued the previous year, the catalogs would never treat them as major numbers. Nor, today, would subtle differences in grill type create additional major numbers in addition to the most common grill itself.
Hobbies then, like much of life, are not really very fair. If you want to be rare and desired in our hobby you need to very old and very unusual and have printing characteristics that separate you from the norm. These same characteristics, if you are only thirty years old, make you a variety that has interest but not too much collector popularity. Above is pictured the 18 Cent Flag Scott #1891 with plate #6 in a strip of 5. This is the rarest, and one of the first, of the modern plate number coils. No one knew they were going to be issued, and few stamps were produced from this plate. The few that were printed usually got used on mail because no collectors knew to look for them. If you want a very rare stamp for your collection, a US government issue that exists in quantities estimated at only a few hundred, try finding this one. And when you do you’ll be amazed that you can buy it for under a thousand dollars.