GB Wilding Phosphors

Some weeks ago I had an email asking about seeing the phosphor bands on the GB Wildings. I just said hold the stamp to the light and you should see it. Easy. Anyway while I have not much else to say on the subject, I do want to tell you I have installed my digital microscope and while it is a fun toy it is not easy to use for stamps I have to say.

Well this one isn't. It is cumbersome to say the least. However, I have patiently looked at a few stamps. You cannot see the whole stamp in one view. You have to move the stamp around to see the area you want to study. Pity really, as a larger viewing area - ie large enough to view the complete stamp - would be much more useful. Anyway, patience is a virtue and time - definately required to study stamps - is something I occassionally have, beening here alone in Seoul.

Back to the phosphors. I looked at a phosphor issue and thought I'd try to show you what I could see from the microscope compared to the naked eye. Hope this reproduces ok.

First an image of the stamp from a regular scan. Yes I know it has short perfs.. it is from a booklet I suspect.

You can just see the phosphor bands. The second enlarged image is from the digital microscope and you can see the colouring of the phosphor band - well I hope you can in the uploaded image, and you can see how much of the scan I can see.

So, conclusion. If you have patience and time and maybe even know the area of the stamp you want to study the digital microscope is very useful.

By the way, I found the use of the digital microscope easy when viewing but to load the image quite confusing, but then I did not read the manual. Well I am in IT afterall!!!!

Maybe do that another day :-)

Enjoy your stamps...Michael