Scott 1, Darkest And Lightest Shades

I thought it would be neat to show the contrast of ink variation associated with the printing of the United States 1847 issue, Scott #1. The darkest shade shown in the top two examples are "Blackish Brown" Scott 1a (var), from the first printing used on folded letters in 1847. The bottom two examples are the lightest shade of the 1847 issue, Scott 1c the rare "Red Orange" shade, believed to be from the fifth and finial printing in 1850. They were used on a folded letter dated June 28, 1851. It seems to be the opinion of most experts in the field that the variation in shades associated with USA Scott #1 were due to the crude methods when mixing the ink prior to printing. The intended color for the five cent stamp was Brown. All stamps were certified by the Philatelic Foundation and PSE as genuine confirming the shades and usage.

Nice Examples Andy1847

Wow I love seeing these! Is it just an image anomaly or does the paper on the bottom two look blueish?

Yes the paper is blueish, maybe it's enhanced more in the digital photo. I'm not a paper expert but I know the paper they were printed on varied quite a bit. Later in the week I'll examine some singles from my collection with different paper and post some photos, front and back.

That'd be great Andy! Thanks.

The Chronicle of the US Philatelic Classics Society (www.uspcs.org ) had an article on the colors of the 5c 1847 where they performed Xray Fluorescence analysis of the 15 stamps in this display. I'm not sure whether the article is available to nonmembers (though many of the older ones are).
Here's the "color wheel" for the 1847s that was used.

Nice! thanks for the link! I don't post often but it remainds me of a post I made awhile back from my collection;

https://goscf.com/t/15216&SearchTerms=1847,shades it might interest some of you.

After seeing this thread it reminded me that I wanted to post a few of the #1's I have for the Community. I have been trying to research and study the colors but to little avail as I simply cannot tell where mine fall. Not sure these scans are good enough but I figured I would try...posted 2 of the same sets of pics with different settings on my scanner.