Scott #599 is a coil stamp, not a sheet stamp, a distinction that matters to collectors and is easy to miss, since the design is nearly identical to its sheet-stamp counterpart issued the same year.

TECHNICAL SPECIFICATIONS

• Catalog Number: Scott #599

• Denomination: 2 cents (2¢)

• Date of Issue: January 17, 1923

• Printing Method: Rotary Press, Engraved (Intaglio)

• Perforation: 10 Vertically (Coil)

• Color: Carmine

• Subject: Portrait of George Washington, based on the Houdon bust

CONDITION ANALYSIS (Seller-Assessed)

• Status: Used

• Grading: Fine

• Postmark: Minimal, with faint impression. The postmark does not obscure the portrait or any design element.

• Obverse: Clean, well-defined engraved impression throughout. The oval portrait, inscriptions, and denomination numerals are all sharp and fully legible.

• Reverse: No original gum present, as expected for a used stamp. Reverse appears clean and uniform.

• Centering / Margins: The design is centered within the margins with a noticeable leftward shift.

• Perforations: Intact on both left and right sides, as expected for a coil stamp. Perforations cut into the design frame on the left. No signs of trimming, reperforation, or artificial alteration observed.

HISTORY

The Fourth Bureau Issue ran from 1922 to 1938, replacing an earlier generation of flat-plate printed definitives with rotary press production, a shift driven by the need to keep pace with dramatically increasing mail volume in postwar America. The series featured engraved portraits of presidents and statesmen, with George Washington appearing on the 2¢ denomination that served the standard first-class letter rate of the era.

Scott #599 is the coil variant of the 2¢ Washington, issued on January 17, 1923, with vertical perforations only. The distinction between the coil and the sheet stamp of the same design matters in philatelic terms, and collectors who miss it find themselves with a different stamp than they intended. The design itself draws from Jean-Antoine Houdon's famous life mask of Washington, the same sculptural source used for many of the most recognized Washington portraits in American postal history.

Type I refers to the specific characteristics of the design's line work near the toga button (a detail that distinguishes this from later Type II printings issued in 1932). The rotary press gave this series a slightly different physical character than the flat-plate issues it replaced: marginally larger stamps with a rounder, less angular impression.

STEVEN SAYS

The coil versus sheet question trips people up on this one more than almost any other stamp in the Fourth Bureau series. Scott #599 is the coil. Worth knowing before you buy or sell.