Collecting Waterfowl Stamps
Freaks and Errors
Legitimate freaks and errors are always popular with collectors. Unfortunately, a lot of what are represented as such are, in fact, printers waste or items that have left the printers premises “out the back door”. In other words, they were not printed and sold “in error” and one must be careful when acquiring such items. It is recommended that a certificate of “genuineness” is obtained from a professional philatelic expertization service. There is a wide variety of items that fall into this classification and examples can be seen in Figures 27 through 32).
Figure 27. Error on 1944-45 federal waterfowl stamp. This stamp came from a sheet that was fed through the gumming process twice – once on the reverse and once on the obverse.
Figure 28. Error on 1959-60 federal waterfowl stamp. The inscription on the reverse is invertred.
Figure 29. Error on 1967-68 federal waterfowl stamp. This was caused by the paper in the lower left corner of the sheet being “folded over”. Arguably the most dramatic error in the hobby.
Figure 30. Error on 1985-86 federal waterfowl stamp. Caused by misalignment of the black ink run. Philatelists refer to this as a color “shift”.
Figure 31. Pair with normal (left) and error (right) on 1969 Marion County duck stamp. Stamps in position eight on the ten stamp panes were typeset “Dusk”. The most famous and sought after of all waterfowl stamp errors.
Figure 32. Error on 1990 Crow Creek non resident waterfowl stamp. One pane of five was printed with the serial numbers missing.