G'day

I am new to these discussions and have a handful of questions or queries which hopefully someone out there might be able to cast some light on.
My previous post was on the 1940 2 1/2d cylinder 4. This time it is about the 1948 Olympic games 6d showing the HLP in the bottom right corner. The specialised catalogue indicates that there are two states. HLP showing and then the later retouch.
I have quite a few showing the retouch and I have noticed that there seem to be two different retouches.
In the attached pic I have shown the HLP on top followed by 3 blocks showing the retouch the second and fourth show the same retouch however the third is definitely different.
The way the 'P' has been obliterated / retouched is different in the middle block and the 'L' seems to be slightly different also.

Would welcome any thoughts.

regards

Owen

Hi Owen, a very interesting post and is making me look closely at the items I have !! There were in fact 3 retouch states to remove the 'HLP' from the jubilee lines - in the first the 'P' was removed - in the second the 'H' was removed and the third state all the letters were removed. The intermediate states are extremely scarce and rarely come on the market. Looking at the images, the main retouches appear similar. I do note that the first retouched strip & third retouched state have a small white-ish dot present. I wonder if this is answered by information in the guide by WG Stitt Dibden that it has been noted that the shading of the jubilee lines on the retouched panes were distinctly paler. The white dots may be a result of the inking on the jubilee lines? Note the white lines/dots on the middle strip. This value is known for subtle differences in the shade of the issued stamp. Hope this helps ....