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57. Tagging varieties: Tagging should be viewed as just another ink, although a colorless one. Because it is colorless, values of varieties tend to be modest, but a collector can have a lot of fun with an ultraviolet light and a pile of modern U.S. stamps. Examples to be found will include those with partial tagging, light and heavy tagging, blotchy tagging, misplaced tagging, and differing sizes of tagging blocks and bars. One class of tagging flaw is visible. Called a "tagging ghost," it is most often associated with plate numbers. It happens when a sheet of stamps that has not completely dried passes through the offset press that adds the tagging. The tagging roller picks up ink from the sheet and deposits it on the next sheet passing through. Up to three ghost numbers on a single sheet are known. The entire design also can be ghosted, although that is rarely seen. Ghost plate number blocks are relatively common and usually go for two to three times their face value.
Type 57: As can be seen in this photograph, tagging blocks have shifted horizontally (Scott 2219).
Type 57: This block of Scott Scott 1538-41 has a triple plate number.
Type 57: An extreme tagging ghost such as this on a multiple of the 1971 21¢ airmail (Scott C81) only could have happened as a result of a misfed sheet.
Keywords: Huck press, intaglio press, Cottrell press, web nine color intaglio press, Conlon, Bureau of Printing and Engraving, Sanders, BP&P, Stark, phosphorescent, fluorescent, ultraviolet.
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