Centenary Birth Of Chairman Mao FDC With Purple Shirt?

Hi to all the members in this forum once again and I need help from the experts and collectors to identify this variety discovered by me.I have a chinese centenary birth of chairman mao FDC with stamp on it and I can notice that the shirt is in difference shade which is purple colour instead of white colour normally printed on this stamp.I have also compared with more than 10 of the similar covers with the same stamps on it but none of them is like this one and their all are in normal shade.Obviously,the purple shirt is clearly can be seen on the stamp of the top cover instead of white shirt normally printed on the stamp of the bottom cover showing on the scans provided below and I believe it is a constant and rare variety.

Unfortunely,I am just a normal collector but not an expert in chinese stamp,that is why I need the experts and collectors to help me to identify if this purple shirt is considered as a variety or not because I still cannot confirm it right now at this moment and I have a few questions over here and hopefully you can answer my questions below here

May I know if this purple shirt is considered as a variety?

If it is a variety,does it also happened on other similar stamps and also on this covers?

What happened to this stamp during the processing?

Is it interesting to you?

A new discovery?

Common or rare thing happened on chinese stamp?

Please answer all of my questions above with your reply to me over here and your answers are very much apprieiciated by me.Beside that,I also need your personal opinion and explaination about it.I will apprieiciate your help very much and hope to hear from you very soon.Please refer to the scans below and see carefully especially the shade on the shirt.See you soon.Thank you.

You do nice scans! You must be used to scanning and posting somewhere or selling. A lot of us do this also.

I grabbed the two smaller scans (file size) and cropped them so just the stamp were showing as shown below.

Lighter and darker.


This makes it easy, when you download them to your desktop, to flick back and forth between the two photos and see the differences.

You can see, even on these poorer quality scans (than the nice large ones scans) that the all of the stamp's colours, not just the shirt, are affected, one having somewhat lighter colours than the other. Look at the patch of bright green grass on the right side.

This seems to me to be a case of fading from the sun or a chemical reaction of some sort as it is not just one colour that is affected. I would love to be proved wrong.

To look at stamps it is best, I think, to start off with thinking , well there is something different about this and then to prove it correct and a valuable stamp rather than starting to think it is a valuable rare stamp to start with and then trying to prove it is not. Unrealistic assumptions.

In the second case you tend to miss (human error) or even at times ignore certain details (you see what you want to see) while in the first case you tend to notice more details that will help or not to prove it's authenticity.

One must consider all the possibilities and rule out those that do not fit, so that what is left over must be the answer. Good old Sherlock Holmes.

Even the quality of the air and chemicals (smog) found in the air could affect inks and colours. Perhaps these FDCs were printed by different printers at different locations.


Your comment about it hopefully being a constant error is not correct. A constant error is one that can be shown by any collector to have happened at a certain position on a certain plate or printing of every sheet and be numbered so. If not then the error or variety is what is sometimes known as an EFO (error, freak, oddity) that happens because of printing mishaps but not all the time on every sheet.

It is nice to have varieties as then you can point to them and say look I have proof from an issue that these things do happen. Thank you for showing.

Puzzler,


The point is why did the right stamp with the purple shade on the shirt but not the white shade on the shirt like the left stamp showing on your comment there.The shirt is still white and more white than the same stamp showing above even in a very dark shade stamp showing on the scans below.Honestly,I have more than 10 similar covers with the same stamps but only one is with the purple shade on the shirt like this showing on the scans above.

Please refer to the scans below and compare it once again.Thank you for your information and reply to me over here.I apprieiciate it very much from you.

The purple shirt is a minor shade variety which usually does not affect the value of the stamp. Shade varieties like that are common on stamps printed with lithography in such large quantities. The intensity of the ink in the cyan and magenta screens would make the shirt appear more purple.

York, the currency of the stamp is 5 yuan.

Also, keep in mind for this nearly 20 year old stamp - air pollution in China was, and generally still is - horrible, and changes to stamps, paintings, posters, and everything else paper is easy to explain in that context. In some cities, you go outdoors, you wear a mask...

More at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pollution_in_China

Hi Beesee,

I would think purple shade variety is really interesting enough because I cannot stop looking at it and it is so obvious for sure.I said something like this because it is only happened on this stamp which I have discovered from more than 10 similar stamps and covers from my personal collection,this is the reason why I would think it is very interesting.Beside that,it is probably a constant variety and also happened on other similar stamp but not as many as possible of what I believe.I apprieiciate your replied with your comment here very much.Thank you.

Doug2222,

Yes,I would agree with you that the air pollution can change the shade of a stamp but this stamp on the first day cover was covered up properly by the plastic cover in very tighted enough before taking out to sell in the public from the chinese national philately department because I was told by someone else.Could the air pollution or weather still change the shade of the stamp even it was packed properly and tight in the plastic sheet inside there?Thank you so much for your reply with your comment over there and I apprieiciate very much.Thank you.

If it really has been kept in a "plastic" sheet for years, then this will degrade colour in stamps.

Hi orchidman,

Are you sure about it?Just to let you know that I saw a mint stamp with the same purple shade on the shirt which did not keep in the plastic sheet for years except for FDC and I bought it from a dealer near me over here.I apprieiciate your comment here very much.Thank you.

Stamps should always be stored in an acid-free environment. Air pollution contains acids. Plastic contains acids. Poor quality Hagner-like sheets contain acids. Low quality paper contains acids.

Given time, the colours of stamps retained in these media may change, initially this is subtle, but eventually becomes gross. Different colours alter at variable rates, just as with sun exposure, so you may not see all colours changed.

I'm not saying this is definitely the cause of the colour changes in your stamp, but suggesting it as a theory for you to consider. It was your comment about storage in "plastic" that made alarm bells ring. True "plastic" is lethal to stamps.

Hi bayern1keuzer,

Yes,I have to fully agree with you that this scans colour have changed or faded due to the low quality ink and printing showing on the scan above.More over this stamps are used and touched by many hands before this for sure,that is why the colour looks so much difference on the same stamps.I really apprieiciate your effort showing me over here on the scan above.Thank you.