Great Britain ½d Bantams

The plate numbers appear sideways on the left and right side, adjacent to the edge of the side denomination panels.

Plate numbers 1,3-6,8-15,19-20 exist. I will provide statistics after posting the plate number pics, and explanations regarding the missing plate numbers.

I sliced up scans of some of the more clear plate numbers that I have, and lined them up in the pic below so that you can see the position of the digits on the left and right sides. Unused Bantams are too rich for my blood, and the cancels sometimes obscures one side -- so the pairs you see below are not necessarily from the same stamp.

I have ordered them by decreasing plate numbers from top to bottom, because I'm a non-conformist.

L and R represent the position of the left and right digits of the plate number, respectively.

The left slices are the rotated left side of the stamp, and the right slices are the rotated right side of the stamp.

The middle column is the plate number of the slice. (white space between slices indicates I'm missing a plate number in between)



The plate number is always left-justified in the LR position. Therefore, there is always a digit in the L position. For 2-digit plate numbers only, the ones digit will be in the R position.

Missing in the picture are Plate #1, #4, #6, and #9. Either because I don't have them, or because I don't have a clear example of it, or I can't find it in the mess that I call my "collection".

I find Plate #1 to be the most difficult to find a clear example -- as I often cannot say with certainty that it's not a #10-#19 with the 2nd digit damaged/obscured.

The Bantams are notorious for degrading print quality, so it is not unusual to find the plate number digits unclear, damaged, or not obviously present (even though the opposite side clearly shows the digit!). Because of this, sometimes a poorly printed 8 can look a poorly printed 0,3,6,9 or vice-versa, and 5 can sometimes look like a 6...

Therefore, in my opinion, it is better to first identify the correct locations of the digits, and then try to identify the actual digit. All the while, keeping in mind that the plate number digits are always left-justified (a common cause of misidentifying Plates 1 and 11, Plates 3 and 13...)

There are some useful shortcuts (process of elimination) so that you can be certain of a plate number even if one of the digits cannot be seen/determined:

-- If L=2, the plate must be #20 (there is no plate #2)
-- If there is a digit in position R, it must be plate #10-#20
...

In subsequent posts, I'll show full stamp pics of the plate numbers that I have (in reverse plate number order, of course).

Plate #19
2018 Scott catalog used = $60


Position B-L


Position E-D

Plate #15
2018 Scott catalog used = $40


Position J-L


Position T-U

khj, comparing what little is visible with the stamp above it "E-O" I would say it was an "O" therefore "O-L".

Really nice to see you getting time for your hobby khj,