My Scott catalog has a note for Germany Scott #s 634 - 661 (watermark 286), saying that Specialists collect these #s with the watermark in four positions: upright D's facing left, upright D's facing left, sideways D's facing up, and sideways D's facing down.
At the beginning of the Germany section where it shows examples of the different watermarks the watermark 286 example shows D's both facing Left and Right. I can figure out the upright versus sideways part, but if the stamp with upright watermark has the D's facing both Left and Right, then what?
Any help in understanding this will be appreciated. I'm currently sorting/cataloging a few of these and what to know the correct way to ID them.
Thanks for the info Michael, and those diagrams look good.
I have a stamp that has a D facing left, and another D facing right on the same stamp.
Perhaps it is a misalignment of the watermark and there should only be D's facing one way on a particular stamp. I wonder if I could capture a scan of it. Maybe I'll give a try scanning it.
Here's a couple scans. I think I have one stamp that shows the upright D facing left and right better than the one in these scans, but the scan of that one didn't turn out very good. I hope from these scans you can see what I'm talking about. Do you have any of these stamps yourself so you could take a look?
Dave, I have been breaking down a dealer's stock book of older Germany. I just so happen to be at that set. While I haven't bothered to look at the watermarks in the past, I will do so as I work on them. I'll let you know what I find.
Regarding the watermarks as you have pictured, that goes against the basic information in Scott and Michel. Michel has quite a few notes about this issue, including the watermarks. Unfortunately, my German isn't what it used to be. I don't want to say what I think Michel might be saying, because there's a good chance I could be translating it wrong. I'm sure some of our friends who know German better than me may offer to help.
This is an easily misunderstood watermark, which makes the description really tricky.
If you examine the watermark closely, you will see that the basic watermark has DP upright and upside-down. It alternates for each row. In other words, if you ONLY look at the D, you will always have D's facing opposite directions in the watermark. That's because some of the D's are upside-down in relation to the other D's. So Scott's choice of using "D" is unnecessarily confusing. The only way to determine the correct orientation of the D is by looking at the P. Scott should have chosen P instead of D. Then you have the problem that different catalogs may use different conventions defining "normal" as being viewed from front or back of stamp!
Remember, Scott convention is to show watermark as it appears from back of stamp. Beyond that, I would ignore Scott's attempt to describe the 4 orientations of the watermark.
The easiest way is to look at the DP to determine if watermark is upright or sideways (ignore if DP is facing left or right, up or down). Then look at the "/" or "\" dividers.
Sorry, I haven't learned how to insert pictures in this forum. I've listed these in order of the Michel pictures shown by Michael#####. The format is
#. Scott convention = {appearance} = 'silly Scott description'
W. normal watermark = {upright DP, with "\"} = 'upright, D facing left'
X. reversed (i.e., mirror image) = {upright DP, with "/"} = 'upright, D facing right'
Y. sideways (i.e., rotated 90°) = {sideways DP, with "/"} = 'sideways, D facing up'
Z. sideways reversed (i.e., rotated 90°, mirror image) = {sideways DP, with "\"} = 'sideways, D facing down'
In other words, don't waste your time checking the D. Check the DP and then check the \.
Hope that makes sense.
So Dave, your stamps would be:
top: W (upright, D facing left)
bottom: Y (sideways, D facing up)
Michael#####, when you buy Scott, please please please change the footnote.
Kim, I'll get those changes in when I get my hands on Scott.
Now in the meantime...let me try to understand this too...I'll pose it in simplest terms (I think)...
The watermark has a line of "D" that are upright. Underneath that is a line of "P" that is upright. Underneath that is a line of inverted "P", followed by a line of inverted "D". Then the sequence repeats itself. Am I correct?
So, then the only real consistency in the watermark is the dashes and boxes, and these are either "\" or "/" oriented. The watermarks come either upright or sideways as relates to the letters. Then the upright and sideways watermarks come in two types each with either "\" or "/" dashed lines.
Reviewing this with the Michel images I posted, it appears that it isn't even necessary to bother with the letters. It doesn't matter if they point left, right, up or down. All that matters with the letters is to determine if the watermark is upright or sideways.
I'm pretty sure that Michel explains it that way, rather than by looking at the letters, but as I said, I couldn't be sure with my more than rusty German skills.
"The watermark has a line of "D" that are upright. Underneath that is a line of "P" that is upright. Underneath that is a line of inverted "P", followed by a line of inverted "D". Then the sequence repeats itself. Am I correct?"
I have never seen a pic of the entire watermark mat, so I am open to correction. But that is my operating assumption, yes. That is why we are seeing the inverted sets of letters.
"So, then the only real consistency in the watermark is the dashes and boxes, and these are either "\" or "/" oriented. The watermarks come either upright or sideways as relates to the letters. Then the upright and sideways watermarks come in two types each with either "\" or "/" dashed lines."
Yep. However, the dashed lines being reversed ALSO means the letters are also reversed (i.e., mirror image)
"Reviewing this with the Michel images I posted, it appears that it isn't even necessary to bother with the letters. It doesn't matter if they point left, right, up or down. All that matters with the letters is to determine if the watermark is upright or sideways."
Yep. I really don't know why Scott insisted on making things difficult. The hardest part of preparing my previous post was matching Scott's terminology with my descriptors.
"I'm pretty sure that Michel explains it that way, rather than by looking at the letters, but as I said, I couldn't be sure with my more than rusty German skills."
Well my German is far worse than yours. But now using Google translate:
I think that is essentially what I tried to type out, except that I didn't notice Michel's WXYZ notation until now. I have updated my original posts accordingly.
I saw the letter identifiers when I found the images of the watermarks. That's why I included them, along with the German description with the images. Maybe someone with a better control of the German language can interpret them better, but I think your translation is pretty close.
One thing I didn't understand is what appears to be a further breakdown of the four watermark types that shows up on several pages afterwards:
W = Wz 1 W
X = Wz 1 X
Y = Wz 1 Y
Z = Wz 1 Z
Michel has 14 catalog pages dedicated to this set of stamps. I have seen hundreds of these stamps, and they come in all sorts of different shades and colors, just for starters. Michel shows plenty more different printing types than just the differences in the Mark values, and more. I can see where specialists would have fun going through these stamps looking for all the different varieties than can be found.
One of these days, I need to get an English version of their German catalog.
In other words, the "DP and Striche" watermark is numbered Watermark #1 (Wz 1). And since it appears in multiple orientations/variations, then there is the subsequent W, X, Y, or Z notation that follows the Wz 1, corresponding to each picture orientation labeled W, X, Y, or Z.
So... for your posted picture with the abbreviated notation X, the exact identity is Wz 1 X.
Pictures with abbreviated notation X for other watermark designs (for example, #3) would be "Wz 3 X".
"One of these days, I need to get an English version of their German catalog."
That was my plan as well. But then I read a post somewhere that said the English version is not as comprehensive as the German version. I don't recall which year edition, nor have I read any confirmation of this statement.
Maybe someone with English version can confirm or clarify.
Kim, I see that Michel has gone to two volumes for their Germany Specialized. The pricelist I have has the German in two volumes (last issued 2010), and the English in two volumes (volume 1 last issued in 2007, and volume 2 in 2009). The German version costs $240, and the English $200.00. By the way, volume 1 covers up to 1944. Volume 2 covers 1945 to 2000. Not sure where 2001 to date is, though.
I have an English version of one of the Michel catalogs (not Germany), and I don't see any less information contained in it. What I do see is sometimes the translations are not that good. Maybe that's what was meant by what you heard. I have not seen the German catalog in English, but being in two volumes, I can't see where they would have edited it down. I would think it would be in one volume if they did that. However, they have improved the quality of the paper the catalogs are printed on, and the pictures are in color now.