1937 Coronation Colon Flaw Conundrum

[Mike Hooper]

My current dilemma revolves around the 1937 Coronation Colon Flaw on Cyl 7 No dot and the respective 'register' numbers on each sheet, mostly located in the left margin adjacent to stamp 9 &10. This being a conundrum Robin Restall and I would have exchanged several emails regarding in an attempt to square the circle - RIP and greatly missed

Robin identified seven 'states' or Cyl 7 with the Colon Flaw corrected on states VI & VII - www.gbps.org.uk/displays/coronation-193 ... heet13.php . Given the progression of states 1 through to 7 one would expect the register number to be higher on the later states and lower on the earlier states. However, if I look at the material Robin posted on the Colon Flaw in the gbps in 2020 - www.gbps.org.uk/displays/coronation-1937-cylinder-7/ - it shows the Colon Flaw on sheets numbered 364348 and 452297 and a Colon Flaw corrected on sheet number 387057. I had never noticed that the sheet number was less that of the higher number of the Colon Flaw piece.

With regard to my personal material, the lowest register number I have with a Colon Flaw is 259757 and the highest is 495206. However, I recently purchased a complete 7 no dot sheet with Colon Flaw corrected (and other flaws) - its sheet number is 406836, again in-between the sheet numbers of the Colon Flaw!

This might be explained by accepting that the Colon Flaw corrected sheets were printed on a different machine, which had printed fewer sheets and therefore the register showed lower sheet numbering. However, to accept this is to accept that more than one sheet has the same sheet - register number - e.g. say the first printer (printing the cyl 7 before the Colon Flaw corrected) reached a total of 495206, then the cylinder was taken off and retouched to correct the Colon Flaw. The cylinder was then reemployed on a different second printer, say this printer had printed fewer sheets and then started printing from a lower register number. But to my understanding the register sheet numbers are unique with no duplication, if this be so then the fact that the Colon Flaw corrected has a lower sheet number than a Colon Flaw is a conundrum.

the answer could be simple so please square this circle!

[Mike Hooper]

I have been considering this further - S.G Specialized G.B. vol 2 KEvii - KGvi states that the Quantity Sold as 388,731,000. the maximum numerals I have found on a counter sheet register is 6. if one took the maximum number on a counter as 999999, it would mean the maximum number of stamps that could be printed with each having a unique sheet number would be 999999 x 120 (the number of stamps on a sheet) this would equal a maximum of 119,999,880 stamps being printed. thus to print 388,731.000 it would require the minimum of four sheet counters with 6 digit numerals. Within my collection I have not got a sheet with a 6 digit number beyond 490000 ( please let me know your highest sheet number if higher) taking this as the highest sheet number it would take the minimum of 7 counters to produce 3888,731,000. thus sheet numbers cannot be unique and some numbers being used between a minimum of 4 and possibly up to 7 times - probably from 7 different counters (yet to be determined!)

Comment please