1988 25 Cent Carousel Horse (Scott #2391) Error?

Hi khj

Text from APEX "They noted at no color is entirely omitted and what you see is the result of exposure to
the elements, most likely sunlight. This is what we call a color changeling, the yellow
pigment being more susceptible to photochemical alteration than the other inks. Our
reference collection of philatelic forgeries has dozens of examples of similar "bleaching"
of stamps from being in a display case and exposed to direct sunlight or fluorescent lights
over a period of time. In fact, no omitted color error has been authenticated as genuine
for #2393a. That is why Scott still does not list one."

Thanks for posting the correspondence. Unfortunately, that doesn't explain why they ruled out under-inking. It's just a generic statement explaining possible causes of color changelings and that these are known to exist for #2393a (which many of us already knew). It doesn't present any evidence indicating why they concluded it was not under-inking. Again, I am going to give APEX the benefit of any doubt; expertizers tend to be both experts and pretty thorough.

Neat discussion.

Look at the black on the nose of the carosel horse. Does missing yellow or gold enter into why the nose has missing spots, does the, either translacent or transparent, gold ink brighten up the black and other colours or is it an overlay or underlay to adjust colour and hue and brightness or shine on the nose?

If the gold is a part of making up the black colour then OK.


I like the saying assume it is wrong and then prove it is right.
I have been caught out too many times to assume it is right.

The black is engraved and printed separately by a single plate.

There is indeed supposed to be gold (or yellow, as I normally call it) in the horse nose. The tongue (and inside of the horse mouth) consist of red, orange, and yellow. The pole of the carousel horse (but not necessarily for the other poles) consists of red, orange, and yellow vertical bands and 2 columns of blue dots.

If you have access to a filtered dual-wavelength UV lamp, that's the way I would check to see if it is a color changeling. Separately compare the short and long-wavelength to a normal block. Since it is a mint stamp, the short-wavelength may reliably reveal any tagging degradation, and the long-wavelength may reveal any trace yellow (the yellow is supposed to glow similarly although with less intensity if under-inked, glow differently if color changeling) and may also reveal any surface paper damage linked to color changelings. That's in theory. I've never actually tested this specifically on this block other than a normal block.

I looked at bshmdot61's link to his higher resolution picture. I can still see a little yellow in the horse's mouth. There is also still some color in the black nose, but I can't tell if that's caused by contributions from the orange and blue. But the yellow is definitely still evident in the "scales" above the horse's bridle.

They never explain on their certs why they make any conclusion.

I was referring to the attached correspondence, not the certificate. The text of the certificate is available online. The correspondence is not.

khj isn't the color loss too even to be consistent with under-inking?

Good question. Since it lacks large blocks of under-inked color, that's exactly why some of us are even considering the possibility of under-inking. I knew a postal clerk who showed me some panes of printing freaks he kept in inventory to show customers, which included under-inking examples. The under-inking was typically fairly uniform over large blocks of stamps, although you could notice non-uniformity if comparing one end of the pane to the opposite side.


There are plenty of color changelings that are NOT consistently faded; in fact, the majority of color changelings I've seen are non-uniformly faded -- but that will depend also on what caused the color changeling.

I don't see how we can rule out either color changeling or under-inking from the picture. Bottom line: examining the actual stamp trumps examining a picture -- hence, I defer to the APEX certificate.

Since the block in question is mint, if it is a natural color changeling it could have only been caused by a good dose of sunlight. The fluorescent lights in a post office are too far away to have such a significant impact on this particular block. My study room has the fluorescent lights on 24/7, and there is also a 30W fluorescent desk lamp. I know for a fact that I've had some carousel stamps to be used for scrap postage sitting under the desk lamp for roughly 1 year (I kept putting off putting them into my postage binder) and there was no noticeable selective fading of the yellow. I don't see extensive sunlight exposure as too realistic of a possibility, but I imagine there might be some post office that had display cases exposed to sunlight through windows with no tint/UVcoating. The odds of just happening to purchase that display block of sunlight-faded stamps... But I'm surprised that the yellow would be faded so significantly and yet the orange and red appear to be so completely unscathed -- that to me, usually only happens with chemically altered stamps. I think all the sun-faded stamps I've examined, the reds and greens and blues were also affected to a lesser extent.

I'm not an expert, and I'm open to correction. That has simply been my experience.

APEX correspondence:" John Hotchner and Wayne Youngblood examined this block
for you. Both are longtime specialists in philatelic EFOs (errors, freaks and oddities) and
postage stamp printing production. John is our liaison to the US BEP (Bureau of
Engraving and Printing) as well as past president of the APS. Wayne is our instructor on
printing technology for our annual Summer Seminar on Philately. So they are well
qualified to be one the committee."

Thanks, bshmdot61. Bottom line, they aren't going to tell you why, so we'll simply have to accept their decision that it was a color changeling. I'm just going to assume they examined it under a dual wavelength UV lamp. I have no reason to question the correctness of the certificate, nor the qualifications of the expertizing committee. I was just curious how they ruled out under-inking, but they are not obligated to say.

Thanks khj and others. We have waited years just to see if anyone else has any "bleached" stamps. Then I discovered this stampcommunity.org site with this topic this week. All the comments are appreciated. I still don't see how they could be sun bleached as any mint sets in the small Winthrop, Me post office are stored in a safe.
bshmdot61

If the UV in sunlight is what causes such a color changeling, then it stands to reason that one could simulate such a changeling with close and concentrated dosing of UV light?

Has anyone tried this or would know otherwise if that is a possibility? Seems like man has the technology (UV lights) to accelerate Mother Nature (sunlight).

One thing bothers me about diagnosing the block of four... it is possible to mistakenly think the stamp borders are printed in one pure ink color, when in reality the border might have been a combination of two colors, yellow plus a slight tint.

If a person then wrongly assumes that the missing yellow formed the border, and traces of color there suggest that the color is not completely gone, that could be a wrong assumption. Sad to say, but not a lot of time is dedicated to the study of each "patient" submitted for certification, and occasionally mistakes are made.

I wouldn't normally be so critical of an expert committee, but the initial stamp shown in this thread is quite different in appearance when compared to the block, which raises doubt as to whether sunlight/UV turned the block into a changeling.

Personally I'd examine the border area under great magnification to try to establish what color of ink is still there, and whether it matches one of the colors used to print the stamps (one of the plate block number colors). If that block looked like that when it left the Post Office and doesn't match the features of the changeling shown earlier, there is more that needs to be explained.

Nice block!

-Dunc

Dunc, good question. Color mixing does occur in many US stamps. And in some cases, such as the buff missing error of the 1974 Currier & Ives Christmas stamp, the lack of a large solid region of a single color makes identifying color missing errors difficult.

Before I replied, I did make a high resolution scan of one of my carousel animals plate blocks to confirm that the border color matches one of the plate number digit colors. Therefore, it is a single color. If there is a yellow missing error, the border would be completely absent. I didn't post this background info earlier, because I didn't think this discussion was going to go this far. If someone would like to see the scans/overlays, let me know and I'll upload them later on.

Crouse27 -- you read my mind. I was going to take one of carousel animal stamps out of my postage bin and leave it on my windowsill to get a good dose of Texas sun for 1-2 summer months, taking scans every week or so. You are correct about the UV component. However, most consumer-grade UV lamps lack the necessary intensity in the UV range to match the sun's power. The commercial/research grade lamps are higher power, but much more expensive and you still have to have quite a few. Ever seen a tanning bed? Back in my research years, we had a 1000W UV lamp -- that would have done the trick in a few days. Alas, that's ancient history.

Even the fluorescent lamps, you'd have to keep it less than 6" away and would need to have on continuously for several months, if not years, in order to get that significant of a color loss for the yellow. So I think just letting it get a good dose of unfiltered sunlight is easiest. Hopefully I'll have time to do this...

Going into more detail for this SPECIFIC stamp, I would think a simple dual wavelength filtered UV test would quickly rule out one or the other possibilities (color changeling, under-inking). As I stated before, this particular yellow ink glows under filtered long-wavelength UV. Not all yellow inks glow, but the one used to print this stamp does. That makes testing convenient. If it is a color changeling, the ink glow will be gone because the chemistry (energy bands) of the ink will have changed; also, the tagging under short-wavelength UV will also have suffered significantly if it is a color changeling (whether by sunlight or bleaching water). If under-inked, the glow will still be there (although lesser intensity). I'm assuming APEX did this simple test and saw no glow, thereby ruling out underinking.