The John F. Odeneal Collection of Mint United States Stamps continued...

EXTREMELY FINE GEM. A SUPERB MINT NEVER-HINGED BLOCK OF NINE CONTAINING THE SINGLE 5-CENT IMPERFORATE ERROR.

According to an article written by Charles Lathrop Pack in the June 1917 issue of The Philatelic Gazette, during the course of production of the normal 2c plate No. 7942, three positions were noted to be defective. The plate was returned to the siderographer, who burnished out the three positions and mistakenly re-entered them using a transfer roll for the 5c stamp. The Bureau was struggling to keep up with demand for printing at the time due to wartime pressures and preparations for the Liberty Loan bonds. The error passed unnoticed and the sheets were issued to the public. The first time the post office knew anything about the mistake was when a postmaster from a small town in Virginia sent a note to the Post Office Department asking them not to mix denominations in sheets because it made more work in keeping his accounts. Orders were sent out to all postmasters in early May ordering the return of these errors

The error is known Perf 10, Imperforate and Perf 11 (Scott 467, 485 and 505). The imperforate is by far the rarest of the three, as it was placed on sale in March 1917 (less than two months before the recall) and imperforates were not as widely distributed as the perforated stamps.

With 2000 P.F. certificate. (Image)