Why So Blue?

Had the stamp on the right for a very long time and always figured it got turned blue by the envelope it may have been on. But while in the middle of trying to reidentify all my bank notes, I noticed the back is normal.

Any ideas why this is so blue but still has a white back?

The one on the right looks normal to me, but the left one looks under inked. I checked the ones I have in my collection and they are all like the right one.

The spread of the blue outside the borders of the design is usually attributed to the way the plate was inked and wiped prior to making the impression. "Why so much variation?," you ask (pardon me if I pretend to be you for a moment)? Oh, oh, I feel a story coming on.

Prior to the consolidation of the three major stamp production companies in 1879, the Continental BNCo had already begun to experiment with stamp production on steam powered presses. Steam presses included a provision for automatic wiping of the plates, but it was imperfect at first. Fearful of job loss, the North American union of people who did the physical labor for these companies, such as wiping the plates for hand operated presses, blocked the advancement to steam powered presses (and vilified Charles Steel who was the prime mover in all that) for nearly 10 years until finally it was mandated to use steamer presses in 1885. But for that decade, first Continental BNCo and then American BNCo experimented with these presses which were more highly automated and efficient than their hand operated counterparts. Because of that experimentation there is considerable variation throughout this period in the amount of ink one will find outside the borders of the stamps on denominations used for the testing. Once this was perfected however, as it was in the five plank Hoe press for example, the contracts with the government used very stern language in specifying the need for "uniformity" in the finished products.

@essayk - your name fits you! XD Fabulous piece of history, thanks for sharing!

Yes, thanks very much for the info

Aw, shucks guys. You're welcome.