1935 Irish 2d coil stamp
The Rare 2d Coil was an experimental vertical coil stamp, denominated 2d, issued by the Irish Post Office in 1935 and is one of the scarcest, and most valuable, Irish stamps. It is often referred to by stamp collectors simply as "Scott 68b" or "SG 74b", being the Scott and Stanley Gibbons stamp catalogue numbers respectively.
Design
Philatelists refer to the configuration as '"perf 15 x imperf", or in the US as "perf 15 horizontal", because the stamp is perforated 15 gauge on the horizontal and imperforate on the vertical edges. Because of the shared design it appears identical to the first 2d value definitive stamp issued on 6 December 1922 with the Map of Ireland except for the imperforate vertical edges. It uses the first Irish watermark that was a stylised design of the two overlapping letters 's' and 'e' making an 'se' watermark representing the name of the country Saorstát Éireann.History
It was first recognised in 1937 but not acknowledged by the philatelic catalogues until the Scott stamp catalogue listed it in 1952. Over the years 20 copies have been identified in mint condition, but the quantity of used stamps is not known. Even though several have been recorded, they are nevertheless scarce. A few copies of the stamp are known to exist on cover, but Dulin points out that all Irish coil stamps are scarce on cover. Some debate as to the genuineness of this stamp took place in the Irish philatelic literature during the mid-1990s with a suggestion the stamp had been fabricated from a normal fully perforated stamp with a press. This hypothesis was debunked by Foley and Ian Whyte, a Dublin stamp dealer, who both claimed such a process would damage the stamp and be scientifically impossible. Archived documents were also found that confirm the stamp was ordered and issued by the Irish postal administration.A detailed survey of the then twenty known unused examples was carried out by Gerard Brady and published in the Irish Stamp News in 1981.