The Emperor's Clothes, or lack thereof

[Gordon Lee]

Chers concitoyens SB pensionnaires (Greetings Fellow SB Boarders)
.
Between 1853 and 1871, France issued stamps depicting the bust of Emperor Napoleon III sporting a healthy mustache and a funky-looking beard.  These stamps (according to Scott) were issued in two easily recognized formats: those between 1853 and 1860 are imperforated (Scott 12-21), and those issued in 1862 and after are perforated 14x13-1/2 (Scott 22-28) .
.
For both formats the Scott Catalogue mentions the use of two dies:
.
"Die I.  The curl above the forehead directly below "R" of "EMPIRE" is made up of two lines very close together, often appearing to form a single thick line.  There is no shading across the neck."
.
"Die II.  The curl is made of two distinct, more widely separated lines.  There are lines of shading across the upper neck."
.
I am not exactly possitive which curl (two lines making up the curl) to look at.  Luckily, I have two stamps that distinctly show the difference between shading lines across the upper neck.
.

.
FRANCE -- SCOTT 26 (Die II) [/div]
.
(to be continued)

[Gordon Lee]

(continued)
.

.
FRANCE -- SCOTT 26 (Die I)
.
One can plainly see the difference between the lined upper neck and the non-lined upper neck. But here is the problem and I hope a good natured Stamp Bear with a Yvert & Tellier Timbres des France can help me out.
.
Scott does not list a France 26 Die I. Can anyone shed any light on this?
.
Respectfully,

Gordon Lee

[Gordon Lee]

Greetings Fellow SB Boarders
.
Please, I do not want to put a specification on my inquiry by limiting an explanation from Yvert . . . any explanation from any stamp catalog will do that will help identify my stamp.
.
Respectfully,

Gordon Lee

[Fire]

Gordon Lee When I look at the two images that you posted I notice a distinct two solid lines above the forehead in curls no 4 and five in the first image. In the second image these curls are broken. Hope this helps.

[Butterfly]

Reading Michel I see a statement that Scott #15 (Michel #13) was also privately perforated. So your type I may be a privately perforated #15, in which case I suspect it would have good value.

[Gordon Lee]

Jul 4, 2014 16:35:10 GMT -5 Fire said:

Gordon Lee When I look at the two images that you posted I notice a distinct two solid lines above the forehead in curls no 4 and five in the first image. In the second image these curls are broken. Hope this helps.

Greetings Mr. Fire
.
I suspect you are entirely correct.  Not having a lot of good examples to compare with, I sometimes must make a jump of faith and hope I guess right.  Thank you for vote of confidence that I jumped in the right direction.
.
Respectfully,

Gordon Lee

[Gordon Lee]

Jul 4, 2014 17:07:00 GMT -5 Butterfly said:

Reading Michel I see a statement that Scott #15 (Michel #13) was also privately perforated. So your type I may be a privately perforated #15, in which case I suspect it would have good value.

Greetings Mr. Butterflies
.
Thank you sir.  I noticed that same comment made by Scott concerning the imperforated #15, too.   But I am under the impression that the private perforation was a rather unusual type of perforation.  For comparison sake, I aligned the two stamps that I show here and their perforations match exactly (with as little perforations the die II has remaining).  But, yes, it would be real sweet if this Die I turns out to be a #15.
.
Before I declare it as such, I want to cover all bases and see what the other catalogs say about dies (or lack of dies) for the 1862 issues.  So please, if other Stamp Bears can just check their catalogs, I'd be appreciate.
.
As an aside, I check the illustrations of StampWorld and they show all the 1862 stamps with a clean neck.  That has me confused to no end.
.
Respectfully,

Gordon Lee