The Unhardened Plates

[PB under pressure. Die becoming shallow. Plate life becoming shorter. Re-entry as an answer. 144, 150, 164 etc. Check dates of repair. A possible solution was using unhardened plates.]

Mr Granzow describes in his recent book finding within the Perkins, Bacon archive (Stamp Printing and Gumming Postage Stamp Books), notations indicating that plates 173, 174, 175, 176 and 177 were “soft plates” as follows. All dates following refer to 1853 unless otherwise stated.

“Soft plate. Smith took up plate 173 August 19^th, left off do. September 7^th + Bren took up 173 on the 1^st October”

“Soft plate. Rivett took up plate 174 + left off sept 19^th + Kingsmill took 174 Dec 14^th.

“Soft plate. Bren took up 173 soft plate from Smith Aug 19^th.”

“Soft plate. Kingsmill took plate 174 Dec 14^th. [on ?] Rivett August 27^th 53.”

“Soft plate. 175 Cliff new soft plate Dec 15^th.”

“Soft plate 177. Taken by Rivett Jan 12^th 1854.”

"Soft plate 176. Taken by Willis Jan 12^th 1854."

It has been generally accepted that, as indicated in the Stanley Gibbons Specialised catalogue, Vol 1, “plates 155 to 176 include the unhardened plates”. To date there has been general agreement about the inclusion of Plates 155, 173 and 176, all of which were completely re-entered. Others plates may have also been thought to have been part of the experiment. Granzow now adds Plate 177 to the list, but on the basis of the Perkins, Bacon records, excludes others, perhaps most contentiously plate 155.

Whilst the silence of the records about the other plates may not be conclusive, there is some corroborative evidence to support Mr Granzow. Statham (Vol 9, p1794-5) describes three main types of re-entry found in this group of plates, which I have paraphrased below:

1. Plates 157, 160-5 and 170-172 show what he describes as normal results of repair by re-entry “i.e. strengthened frame lines, weakened check letters and the presence of TRLs (Transfer Roller Lines) in one of the margins.
2. The second group is plate 155 which shows the above mentioned signs apart from the lack of TRLs (in the majority of cases). He comments: “This is probably a reflection of the ease of repair on an unhardened plate.”
3. This group include 173 and 176. Generally there are signs of strengthening of the side frames and compression of the side networks as well as the words “POSTAGE” and “ONE PENNY”. There are few signs of weakened check letters or TRLs. In my experience [mine, not Statham!], the signs of re-entry on plate 176 tend to be more subtle than those shown on 173.

The significant point appears to be the appearance or lack of a TRL. It is worth keeping in mind that the plates from Statham's first group were only partially repaired with 162, 163 and 164 having the most with two or three dozen repairs each, the other plates having fewer re-entries. Of the other two groups, Plate 155 had all 240 impression repaired at least twice and both 173 and 176 had all 240 impression repaired at least once sometimes twice. I have seen copies of 176 with a very fine TRL in one margin.

Turning to plate 155, it has been pointed out that the total re-entry of this plate would have been impossible to perform on a hardened plate, so the plate was likely to have been soft. I agree with them. Granzow states that this plate produced 43,000 sheets up to the 23/3/53 (p132) which he says would indicate that the plate had been hardened in the normal way. On this point I also agree with him, as this would be a high production figure for an unhardened plate. Please note that Granzow's print figures for these plates do not resemble the reality of the print records themselves. I don't know how he came to some of the figures at all. But the principal that 155 printed enough to have been hardened still holds. There is no evidence that 155 was any different from the plates laid down around the same time and the number of sheets produced (which agrees with Statham's estimate of 45,000) would indicate that some degree of case-hardening would have been evident. This being so, it may be deduced that the whole plate was softened by heat treatment before the first complete repair and that it remained unhardened thereafter.

Why was 155 included in this experiment? The plate was completed on the 4 September 1852 and was registered on 16 September 1852 along with plates 156-160. Ken Statham (p1917) and others have commented on the odd fact that 155 was not put to press until 30 November, that is after plates 156 and 157 (17 September 1852) and 158 (3 November 1852). It seems likely that the plate was below par for a reason we are not privy to. If I were to guess, I would suggest that the plate had suffered a hardening accident of some kind. Either it had warped slightly or else some of the heads had suffered some damage and needed repair by re-entry. Perhaps taking the decision to try to soften the plate was worth the risk in this particular case.

[I have struck through the previous paragraph as I have found that the use of plates out of numerical order was not that unusual. Plate 185 was PTP 18 July 1854, yet 186 and 187 were PTP 13 July 1854. Die 2 plate 4 was used two days before plate 3. In May 1855, plates 16 and 17 were used ona and two weeks before plates 14 and 15. Plate 22 was PTP two and a half months before plates 19, 20 and 21 [steam press??]. There are others. I think that it is just a case of the man from the Revenue or the PB chap, just taking the plate from the top of the pile of completed plates held. So why did they pick 155? I have no idea. It just happened to be the plate that needed attention when someone had the idea. (AP Aug 15.)]

Softening a finished, case-hardenend plate would have been a risky operation. Judgement of temperature at this time was an art rather than a science, and even if the operation was a practiced one, subtle variations could have had dire consequences. As an example, any reader who has a passing interest in steam engines will know of the problems caused by variations in the quality of coal used. It should also be noted that the melting point of steel dropped when the carbon content was high. This would mean that small raised details on the surface of the plate, where there was likely to be the highest concentration of steel with a high carbon content, would have been very vulnerable. This is one of the main reasons I believe that plates were not routinely softened before re-entry. I believe that most re-entries took place on hardened plates, that is they had not been softened. With 155, they got away with it.

Having successfully softened this plate, all 240 impressions on this plate were re-entered. I think that the ease of re-entry on a plate (the surface of which was now mostly ferrite) convinced the chaps at PB that this may well have been an answer to their problem of making the plates last. Rather than plate 155 being included in the experiment, I believe that it was the catalyst for the unhardened experiment.

The timing of the first repair of plate 155 (sometime around May – June 1853) and the completion of plates 173-7 (27 May 1853 – 29 June 1853, i.e. a transfer roller's worth) can not have been a coincidence. A letter from Perkins, Bacon to Ormond Hill dated 6 March 1854 states

“We have had but just enough experience to prove that altho' we gained the latter object [ease of re-entry] the plates do not... last as half as long, and have therefore determined to abandon it, but as considerable time will be saved in re-engraving those plates over what would be required for entirely new ones, we propose to immediately to re-engrave the and then submit them to the usual hardening process and afterwards to prepare new plates but as far as the Government go, these are in themselves the same as new plates.”. (Bacon vol2 p103)

As at the 6 March 1854, only plate 155 had been repaired and none of those in the 173-7 range had yet been repaired.

[More research is required regarding the number of repairs performed on 155, 173 and 176 is needed, and also when these repairs took place. The answer to this may cast a shadow over the above argument.]

There is a point within Bacon's letter worth reiterating: The plates were hardened after repair. Thus repairs to plates 173 and 176 were performed on unhardened plates, which were subsequently hardened. Plate 155 has a more complex history. I believe that the plate was originally hardened (state 1), subsequently softened before repair (state 2) and left unhardened and included in the “unhardened experiment”, repaired a second time on 26 April 1854 according to the Engraving Book (state 3) and subsequently hardened.

After thought:

I think the group was split into two. The first sub group (155, 173 and 176) were extensively repaired to see how far they could go. The second control group (174, 175 and 177) were not (generally) repaired perhaps with a view to see how far they could get away with doing very little. Both approaches were different to what they were doing with hardened plates.

176 was repaired twice and is therefore found in three states. Some, (possibly all?) of 173 can be found in three states from two repairs. If the pattern was carried on, 155 would have been repaired twice after the experiment started, which would have meant that it had been repaired three times. i.e. it would be found in four states.

Possibly there was an additional repair to 155 prior to the letter of 6 march 1854, which triggered that corporate response.

AP

June 2014 - 18