Perforations and Gums

Perforations are the small dots cut out of stamps to allow them to be easily and accurately torn from sheets to obtain the individual stamps.  But that said, not all perforations are the same.

Inital stamp runs can be identified by the rough, jagged appearance of the perforations that appear to be more similar to nibblings of rodents rather than machine work!  Subsequent perforating runs became much smoother after advice from a vetran postal worker suggested waxing the pins used prior to perforating.  The Bath machine perforates 12 holes/ 2 cm.

The first year 1 Ankh-Morpork common stamps were produced by a comercial company more used to producing stamps for small nations than for imaginary worlds.  Perforations on these stamps are slightly smaller than Bath perforated stamps and have a perforation frequency of 13 dots/ 2 cm, with the exception of the Year 1 1P Patrician which has a frequency of 13.5 holes/ 2 cm.

     Machine perforated     Early Bath perforations     Wincanton perforations

Due to the inconvienience of running down to Bath every time a new batch of stamps needed perforating, a perforating machine was purchased for the shop in Wincanton to use on localy produced stamps.  These stamps can be identified by the larger holes produced, compared to the machine perforated stamps and the perforation frequency of 10 holes/ 2 cm.  All stamps now produced from the shop are now perforated with this machine.

The third type of perforations observed have only been produced for one set of stamps.  The Bad Blintz set of Rat stamps were only 11mm in size and so could not be perforated by a normal machine.   Instead they were perforated by a complicated process involving needles and toothpics and as a result Bernard has been threatened with certain threats if he ever comes up with something similar again!

The gums used have also varied between stamps. The commercially produced Years 1 and 2 AM stamps have an even distribution of gum on the stamp, giving the reverse of the stamp a even shine. Early Wincanton produced stamps used paper in which the gum was spotted onto the back, giving the reverse of these stamps a spotted appearance.

In addition, some stamps were not gummed at all, such as the early test stamp, the uncut Penny patrician, and other stamps had some runs in which the first print run was produced on ungummed paper (identified by the lack of shine or spots from the gum and the tendancy to fall off envelopes). And the Zombie stamp (aka the Thrup'ny Dreadful, Assassain's Post Paid) is the only stamp to have a design on the reverse of the stamp.

In addition, a small batch of Year 3 Ankh-Morpork commons were accidentally printed on the wrong side of the paper resulting in stamps with the gum on the image side of the stamp!

Then there is the infamous cabbage stamp (aka the Skunk Stamp) described here, but with luck and the EPA's help such incidences will not reoccur.