Geno
Both of those samples came from the same barrel so they both have exactly the same pattern. Your observation just goes to show the difficulty of counting the "irons" in the pattern. Each rope or iron produces the left side of one whorl and the right side of another. You can easily see the boundry of a rope on these samples, but you cannot see and identify with certainty the boundry of the riband and count the number of ropes (irons) in the riband which is by definition the number of "irons" in the pattern.
Oscar
