Dramatic tagging shift produces tagging-omitted errors on U.S. 1994 World War II pane

By Charles Snee

A full pane of United States 1994 29¢ stamps commemorating significant events in 1944 during World War II has been discovered with a substantial shift of the block tagging that resulted in all 20 stamps (two blocks of 10 with wide central selvage, Scott 2838) being tagging-omitted errors.

Shown here is the pane as seen under shortwave ultraviolet light, which reveals two blocks of yellow green tagging that are shifted into the selvage between the two blocks of 10. Tagging is also visible in the selvage at left and right.

Dealer Henry Gitner of Middletown, N.Y., alerted Linn’s Stamp News to the new tagging-omitted error in an email sent Sept. 20, the day he discovered it while going through his massive inventory of U.S. 1991-95 World War II 50th Anniversary panes.

Gitner operates Henry Gitner Philatelists, Inc., in Middletown and co-authors the weekly Stamp Market Tips column for Linn’s.

To photograph the misregistered tagging on the pane, Gitner used three people: two holding UV lamps and one to take the picture.

“We went through a few thousand [World War II] sheets,” Gitner said. “We go through $150,000+ per month of postage and check all [issues] now. I’d guess we find one true error out of every 10,000 strips or sheets.”

Based on his examination, Gitner is confident all 20 stamps on the pane show no traces of tagging. Nonetheless, he plans to have the pane expertized.

If the resulting certificate determines the stamps to be tagging-omitted errors, they likely will be listed in Vol. 1A of the 2025 Scott Standard Postage Stamp Catalogue, which is scheduled to be published in April 2024.

During the past year or so, Linn’s has reported tagging-omitted errors of the 1991 29¢ Comedians booklet stamp picturing Laurel and Hardy (Scott 2562), 2017 nondenominated (47¢) Love stamp (5155), 2022 nondenominated (58¢) Flags coil stamp printed by Banknote Corporation of America (5656), 2019 nondenominated (55¢) Flag coil stamp printed by Banknote Corporation of America (5343), 2022 nondenominated (58¢) pink Love stamp (5661), and two of the four 2022 Mountain Flora stamps (5676 and 5677).

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